Skiing challenges and team spirit in the Greenland wilderness

I’m taking over from Karin

Today I, Jasmijn, get to write the blog. I’m another team member. I’m doing this not just because it might be nice to hear a perspective from someone else, but also because Karin is currently very busy with a repair again. You can probably guess: it’s now the sixth ski repair since we started. Yesterday Karin fixed Niel’s skis during a heavy storm, but afterwards she decided that Niel shouldn’t ski on those for the time being. It’s possible that because he is heavier, the ski would break on Niel again.

Another broken ski

So they came up with the idea to swap skis. Unfortunately, this ski also broke today, right at the moment when it was minus 10 degrees outside with a lot of wind and snow. Because it was too cold to repair the ski outside, we quickly set up a tent. Karin then repaired that ski with some more wire, but the ski didn’t even last an hour and broke on Niel again.

Continuing on foot in a white void

At that point, there was no other choice but to have Niel continue on foot. Yes, but where to? Because we are now in a completely white world where there is actually nothing at all. But 50 kilometers away lies the abandoned radar station Dye-2. And a few kilometers from there is a base that, if all goes well, is currently manned by one or two people. We might be able to find materials there to ensure the ski holds up until we reach the other side of the ice sheet.

Pace, distance, and fatigue

You’d think it would be enough to make you lose heart. 50 kilometers at a pace Niel can manage in one direction, probably slower than our normal skiing pace, because he was already getting really tired after trying for an hour. But still, the team spirit here is incredibly good. We help each other where necessary. We’ve divided the luggage from Niel’s pulk among ourselves. We laugh off the annoying situations together. We remain very optimistic that we’ll make it the rest of the way, even though we only covered 15 kilometers today.

How we function as a team

It’s really special how things are going with the team spirit, because during the day we hardly speak to each other. We’re basically just focused on ourselves. We’re just out there skiing. Because we always do a check-in in the morning and a check-out in the evening, we know very well how we’re feeling and where we stand, and that helps us enormously.

Thinking about solutions for Niel

We’ve already thought about using the available materials to secure his boots so he has a kind of snowshoes. Maybe there are even better ideas.