I would like to apologize to those of you who have been waiting, for not being able to share the images from our trip sooner. Thanks for your patience, it’s much appreciated.

In the meantime we’re stuck in the tent, having a quite hard time, since we’re both feeling rather bad about not finishing the expedition. We’re corresponding with the authorities on Greenland, and we’ll hopefully be flown out tomorrow, if the weather allows it.

We chose to take a resting day where Terje took Voltaren and rested in the tent. We’ve been in contact with the Danish authorities and informed them of the situation, and we’re keeping contact with them, discussing how to solve this. More information to come.

Then Christian took over one of Terje’s pulks. He struggled like an animal in difficult conditions and deep snow with the three pulks. Behind him Terje pulled the one pulk he had left. After six stretches it was again flat enough for Terje to pull both his pulks alone, but this only lasted for a little over one stretch before the uphill terrain was back. Again Christian took over one pulk for Terje. This time Terje had to call full stop after 20 minutes, since he was in too much pain to pull even one of the pulks, and we set up camp.

We are now discussing alternatives. The plan is that Terje will take a very high dose of Voltaren as an acute treatment, and we’ll see how it looks tomorrow.

We’ve covered 231 altitude meters and eighth lengths today, and we felt this in our legs tonight. During the day we passed crevasses big enough to swallow a bus, but the snow bridges are thick, and we feel quite safe. We steered towards DYE II today, and broke off 10 km before Dog Camp, a known point on our route. We’re now about 150 km from the abandoned radar station.

Finally we want to say thank you to Clara for the great cake, it really saved us today when we were about to set up camp and felt completely worn out.

Due to the high temperatures, there is a considerable melting of the ice, and often had to walk around small lakes of meltwater. The snow is also quite rotten, and we step through it rather often. In seven lengths we managed about 9 km in direct line. According to the GPS, that is just over 22 km. The average speed has then been 4.2 km/h, a result we’re pleased about.

We chose to set up camp when Terje lost one of his ski poles down a narrow crevasse. It disappeared down in the deep. Fortunately we had brought one extra, and it probably won’t happen again. We are now very tired and will have dinner and then a good nights sleep.

Christian congratulates his brother, Fredrik, on his birthday! Hurray!

This new terrain we’re in has crevasses that it is possible to fall into. Christian experienced this today, when he fell through a narrow crevasse with his lower body. Fortunately it was so narrow that there was no risk of falling any further. But the incident really reminded us that the skis have to be on at all times, and we have to be extra careful when moving through this territory.

Apart from this, the day has been fantastic. It has been sunny today, and we’ve both been in a cheerful mood. In the evening we talked to Christian Eide from Latitude Expeditions and got some hints on which route to choose next. Tomorrow we will cut southeastwards.

P.S.
Remember that all blogpostings are about the day before they are posted here on the blog.

-Clara (Terje’s wife)

Day 1 – Into the icefall:

We drove out to Point 660 today at 13.00. At first we had to carry the pulks over a huge moraine. This took about one and a half hour, and was quite tiring.

We walked for two hours in a challenging icefall. The terrain is like a maze made of ice. The walls of the maze range from 1 to 15 meter in height, and this makes it difficult to get a general view of the landscape, and we had only 100- 150 meters clear sight at any given time. At the bottom of the maze meltwater formed small rivers and streams that we had to wade through.

We find it exciting to finally be at the inland ice of Greenland, and we have great expectations about the experience ahead of us. We’ve decided to take it nice and easy for the next two to three days, to allow both the body and mind to get used to this new routine and environment.

The evening was spent repairing Terje’s gaiters, since they didn’t endure the hardships of the icefall. For a while we had to take off the skis, since it was quite steep. When Terje stepped through some ice and into the slush it was to much for the fastening mechanism, and the gaiters came loose. Christian wears gaiters that are vulcanized onto the shoes, and this appears to be the only good enough solution. Terje fixed his gaiters by using small screws (treskruer) to fasten them, and this will have to do for now.