Start of a breathtaking expedition on the Greenland Ice Sheet

Departure and ride to Point 660

We’re finally on our way and what a day it’s been, a real treat. The weather was intensely beautiful, with sun and warmth. The ride to Point 660 alone—a drop-off point for this expedition and actually for all expeditions—was super cool. We had views of several glaciers, the Russell Glacier and the Randy Glacier, and finally that first glimpse of that immense ice sheet rising out of the landscape. When you look at that wall of ice, you think: how are we going to get up there, how? During the drive there, we also saw muskoxen, reindeer, and ptarmigan—a kind of snowballs—and mountain hares. So there was a lot of wildlife between Kangerlussuaq and the ice sheet. Here on the ice sheet, of course, that’s no longer the case. Luckily, because if there were wildlife here, it would be polar bears, but we don’t have to worry about that right now.

Unexpectedly fast start on the ice sheet

Actually, we got another treat shortly after the drop-off. We had fully prepared ourselves for at least three hours of dragging gear back and forth in shifts to get over the moraine to the edge of the ice sheet. But to our surprise, we could actually step right onto the ice from the drop-off point, just by going around a small hill. I thought: rocks will probably start behind there. But no, we could just go straight up onto the ice sheet via a kind of ramp from the lake. We chose our own route. One expedition had left before us, so we could have followed their tracks. Then they would have already scouted parts for us and we could have just followed, but there was no fun in that. So we decided we were going to choose our own route.

Route choice and first obstacles

That went great all day. It was much easier than expected and we made really fast progress. Until, after about an hour and 10 minutes, we found a nice spot where we could turn a corner. Then it became a bit bumpier and more rugged, with larger walls. We thought: it’s not smart to try and find our way through that. We ended up in a crevasse field, with super high snow walls on the left and right. It was very difficult to stay on course and even to choose a safe route. It’s going to snow tonight and tomorrow, and there will be less visibility. The moment it starts snowing, you can’t see those crevasses nearly as well and we might have to rope up, which makes walking very difficult and will also slow us down a lot.

Longer day due to detour and heavy work

We therefore decided to walk a bit further to get out of that field and get back on a good course, with ice hills—a kind of ice dunes that look more like Teletubbyland instead of an alpine mountain area. With all the lugging and the ice, and with four people pushing one pulk up and lowering it on the other side, it took another two hours or so before we were out of that field and back in the rolling dunes. So it actually unexpectedly became a bit of a long day. That never happens otherwise. There are people who will understand that.

Meeting another team via coordinates

What’s also nice: when we came around that corner, someone shouted: hey, we can see the other team. That team had sent us a message yesterday because they had forgotten a digital camera, a Canon camera, in the drop-off van and asked if we could bring it along. Of course we did. From the point where we could see them in the distance, we exchanged our location via satellite, so the exact coordinates. After that, they wobbled towards us for forty-five minutes after they had made camp themselves. Two men walked our way for forty-five minutes to pick up those things, and they were thrilled with it. So even in Greenland, you can get visitors. In any case, we’re going to stick to our own plan.