Expedition Greenland: challenges and solutions along the way

Doubt versus reality in the tent

While yesterday afternoon we weren’t quite sure if we wanted to have a barbecue, a pool party, or try to make a slush puppy, today is a different story. I don’t know if you can hear it, but the tent is flapping quite a bit again. The drifting snow blown up by the wind is tapping against the tent. It’s going to be a restless night, after a very good day.

Distance and conditions during the day

For the first time, and maybe the only time this expedition, we covered more than 30 kilometers. 31 and a bit on my watch and 30 and a half in actual progress. So that’s absolutely great. It actually went much better than expected, because especially in the afternoon the snow got a bit harder due to the wind, just as we had actually expected or hoped. Besides, it makes a world of difference when the wind isn’t coming from the front, like when we walked to dey2, but slightly from behind at an angle. In the middle of the day it turned north and then hit us right on the side. But that’s still a lot less annoying than having to walk against the wind.

Equipment failure and solutions along the way

The only shame is that with the return of the wind, our equipment gremlin seemed to return a bit too. We were somewhere in the second shift when Neil called out again: “Ah, my ski.” I thought: no, not again. But this time it wasn’t the binding coming off, but a part of the binding that broke. Luckily we had two spare skis lying on the pulk. So I unpacked my pulk and gave him another ski. Just swapped the skin, because those other skis still had long skins on them and by now we’re walking on half skins. Then you only have a skin under your foot, so you can glide better on the downhill sections, of which we felt quite a few today. So that was nice. Then we got to the break and it turned out there was a skin that didn’t stick anymore. No worries, because I thought I still had a dry skin in my jacket. Dry and warm, ready to stick on. Only I had taken it out this morning because I thought: why am I still carrying that skin around in my jacket all the time? It’s not necessary at all, is it? So I had to unpack the pulk again, took out a short skin and put it on Neil’s ski. After that, luckily, everything went well. The other ski is now lying next to me in the tent waiting for repair, so I’ll do that in a bit. Then we’ll have two spare skis again. Oh yeah, a clip on a harness was also broken, but we fixed that a bit provisionally with a piece of string. That’s also in my tent now for repair. So I know what I have to do tonight.

Extra shift and day strategy

Because the snow kept getting better and the wind wasn’t too bad while walking, we spontaneously decided at the end of the day to throw in another half shift. This is probably the best weather we’re going to get before we reach the end, so let’s make use of it. And we did. Tomorrow the wind is going to pick up a bit more. Usually the wind dies down a little bit in the afternoon. Because we’re a bit later today, we’re getting up an hour later tomorrow. We’ll have to push through the peak of the wind then, but we’d have to do that anyway, because it blows hard around noon. Usually it gets a bit calmer in the afternoon. So we’re trying to make use of that wind lull before it picks up again after 6 or 7 o’clock. I

Outlook and weather forecast

As it looks now, Wednesday will be a tent day. The forecast is for gusts of up to 81 kilometers per hour. We have a very nice matrix where wind speed and temperature are plotted against each other. If it’s green, you can just walk. If it’s orange, you have to look at other factors, such as headwind or inexperience, but then you can decide for yourself whether to go or not. If it’s red, it simply means staying in your tent. Anything with more than 70 kilometers per hour of wind is bright red on our matrix. But yeah, we’ll see. It’s still two days away, so maybe it won’t be so bad and it’ll still change. Because well, it’s Greenland.