Greenland Ski Traverse

Dropped off in Greenland

Joy or apprehension? I feel a little of both as Lisa and I get our first taste of the
scale and remoteness of Greenland. I'll never forget the feeling when the plane flew
off and all that surrounded us was snow, rocks, sky and our 260 pounds of gear.

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Map of Route
These photos follow a ski traverse in Eastern Greenland that I completed in June of 2002.

Greenland is about five times the size of Japan but only 55,000 people live
on the island. Out of this tiny population, only 3,000 live on the entire remote
eastern coast. To reach Greenland's Icecap we took a ski plane from
Akureyri, Iceland. From our drop off point we skied 185 miles south in 20 days.
At our last camp we were picked up by helicopter and flew to Ammassalik,
Greenland then by plane back to Iceland.

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Starting Out

The beginning of the traverse was close to the mountains, with lots of crevasses.

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Overwhelmed
The psyche of trips like this is far different from climbing a big peak. In climbing,
you typically have a base camp with extra supplies where you can retreat and rest.
On a traverse, there are no extra supplies and no place to retreat. You must get to
your pick up location at the specified time. In Greenland we traversed unmapped terrain,
adding to the stress and anxiety of completing the trip.

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Protecting the Tent

Each evening we dug our tent in and built an ice wall to protect us from
the constant wind. Temperatures hovered in the single digits and the wind
blew continually at 15 or 20 mph, increasing to 50 or 60 mph during storms.

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Our Daily Work

Each day turns in to a rhythm of tasks. In the morning we would spend 2 ½ hours
cooking breakfast, melting snow for water and packing. We skied 8 to 11 hours each
day and then spent 3 ½ hours building an ice wall, setting up the tent, cooking dinner
and melting snow. This left 7 or 8 hours to sleep before we started over the next day.

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Sundog

One night Lisa left the tent and yelled to me "there's three suns"! I responded in my sleep
that I didn't understand what she was talking about and please let me rest. When she finally
coaxed me out of the tent I was presented a perfect Sundog. This phenomenon is caused by
light refraction and is particularly spectacular in the Polar Regions.

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The Long Traverse

We definitely overestimated the distances that we could travel. Because of the weight
of our sleds and the cold, dry snow we typically traveled only 10 miles a day.
The altitudes in Greenland are modest; our high point was 10,800 feet.

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Endless Space

The scale and size of Greenland constantly grabs you. Most of the mountainous
regions of Eastern Greenland are untouched by humans, having seen
few if any visitors in recent times.

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Camp at Sunset

This picture was taken during the darkest part of the night. Because we were at 68
degrees north, well above the Arctic Circle, the sun never dropped below the horizon.

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Subtle Beauty
Snow, Rock, Ice and Sky. That's all you see in the Mountains of Eastern Greenland.
The entire life that we saw on our trip were two Arctic Terns, some lichen and a fly.

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Moon over Mt. Forel

Mt. Forel is Greenland's second highest mountain at an altitude of 3360 meters.

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Sunset on Mt. Forel

Despite being one of the prominent mountains in Greenland,
Mt. Forel has only seen a handful of ascents.

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The Paris Glacier

As we dropped down from our high point to our pick up location at 3,500 feet, crevasses
started to open up and multiple surface streams riddled the glacier. The final 2 miles of our
trip took a half-day to complete.

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Celebrating the End

With perseverance and a little suffering comes happiness.
Time to gain back the 12 lbs that I lost on the trip.

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Ammassalik, Greenland

Greenland villages are delightful. The Danish influence is apparent in the architecture.
After a brief stay in Ammassalik we returned to Reykjavik and then to Seattle, Washington

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