Storm tactics and navigating the harsh cold of Greenland

Update from the sleeping bag and the storm

Tonight’s update comes from the sleeping bag. It’s 6:30 PM and everyone is already in bed—I hope, because I can’t actually see. Everyone is in their own tent because we’re in the middle of a storm. I’m not sure if you can hear the wind flapping against the tent in the background, but if you can, you might be able to imagine what it looks like outside. It’s snowing, there’s a lot of snowdrift, and we’ve had gusts of up to 80 km/h. So we had to take serious measures to protect the tent. We built a nice wall and dug the tent in a bit. It’s actually been going on since 12 noon today. Everything is holding up well, so we can go to bed with peace of mind. If the wind dies down at 2:00 AM, we’ll secretly stay down for an extra hour to enjoy the calmer conditions and maybe get some good sleep. Then we’ll get up at 3:00 AM and be back on our way by 5:00 AM.

Navigating without a reference point

Just like this morning, visibility will likely be very poor again. You can see in the photo that the moment you head out, you really have no idea. There are no mountains here, no trees, so you have no reference point for your navigation. Nothing else but the wind, really. So what we do all day is recalibrate our course at every shift change. We use a compass to see which way we need to go. I think I explained it before: you point your skis in that direction and then look for landmarks. The only thing we have now are our wind vanes on the poles. After that, your whole world basically becomes that wind vane. With every step, you check if you’re still pointing roughly the right way. It’s never perfect, so you’re always zigzagging a little. But generally, between breaks, we end up at the right spot with one or two degrees of accuracy. It’s really cool to see that it actually works like that.

Disorientation in a white-out

The moment you stop looking at your vane for a second and stand up straight to look around, you immediately head off in the wrong direction. You just don’t realize it. That’s the crazy part. Then someone from the back of the line shouts: “Hey, banana!” And when you look back, you see you’re actually walking 45 degrees in the wrong direction, even though you genuinely feel like you’re going straight. It’s a very, very strange sensation that everyone has to get used to, but that’s also going better and better.

Rain, wet gear, and freezing

When we got up last night, the weather was actually quite bad. The one thing you absolutely don’t want when winter camping happened: it rained. So everything got wet. We had packed our beds in waterproof covers, but your clothes get wet, your gloves get wet, your down jacket gets wet. It’s just very unpleasant. Anything that’s wet will freeze as soon as the temperature drops later in the day. And when things freeze, you get cold. Fortunately, it got colder very slowly and the wind dried us out a bit. At one point, we really got into a good rhythm.

Broken ski and the decision to set up camp

Just as we saw a team walking far on the horizon—and thought we’d pick up their tracks to make some good progress before the storm hit—a connector on a ski broke. We did a quick field repair and set off again. But half an hour later, it broke again. That’s when we decided: we’ll have to set up the tent and prepare for the storm very soon anyway, so let’s just do it now. Then we can figure out how to fix those skis in the tent and get some rest at the same time. It does mean we only covered 13 kilometers today, while we actually wanted to do 20. So we’re a little bit behind schedule. We’ll have to see how and where we can make that up. But I think it was important to make sure those skis are in good order, because without skis, you obviously won’t get anywhere at all.

Planning for the night and tomorrow

We’re heading to bed quickly. The alarm goes off again at 3:00 AM, which is a somewhat normal time in expedition life. Actually a little late, but we decided to treat ourselves to that extra hour. Then it’s full speed ahead again tomorrow.