Greenland Expedition 2010

We started the day heading southeast to get off a hillside abundant with crevasses. It looked safer further south, and we had seven good lengths in splendid sunshine. It was arduous work in the rough terrain. Because of pressure, the ice is forming waves, so it was again like walking on a frozen sea.

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!

Although we haven’t covered much distance, we feel we have achieved a lot today. We walked for only 4 stretches today, since we are taking it slow these first few days. The icefall was at least as challenging today as yesterday. It was like moving uphill through a frozen sea, with waves up to three to five meters in height. When we at last reached the end of this difficult area it flattened out a bit.

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.

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The following updates from Terje and Christian are phoned in via the sattelite phone they’ve brought with them. They leave their messages to me in Norwegian, and I then translate to english before I post here. So if you notice a sudden drop in the language skills, this is the reason for it. Also I’m not certain about all the technical terms, so I might mess that up a bit. Just wanted to let you guys know! Also I’m touched that so many, even people who have never met them, are following their journey and wishing them well!

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.

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We are finally done packing and will head out to the edge of the icefall in about 30 minutes. We are in good spirits and can’t wait to embark on our journey. Fresh reports say that the melting in the icefall is more severe than is common for this time of year, so we might be up for some hardships. But thats part of it all!

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