Adventure in Greenland: Expedition Challenges and Surprises

A Treat at Camp Raven

We got really lucky this morning. At Camp Raven, the staff treated us to hot coffee, bananas, and fresh oranges and apples. It was actually quite surreal to be standing in a place so far from everywhere, holding fresh fruit and looking at Dye-2 while snacking on a banana. Yeah, just very strange. Since it hasn’t been sunny for ages and our expedition relies mainly on solar energy—actually, only on solar energy—to charge all the equipment needed for communication and safety, it was great that I could also charge my power banks at Camp Raven for a bit. It almost felt like we were on holiday. We got to sleep in this morning, were treated to delicious fruit and coffee, and got our power banks charged. It really felt like we were leaving our holiday behind when we walked away again.

Heading Out in Bleak Weather and Limited Visibility

The rest of the day’s trek started just like the last few days: bleak, grey, nothing but white, zero visibility, and lots of wind. But we were like, let’s go for it with plenty of courage. We’re walking in shifts now: four twenty-minute blocks, so an hour and twenty minutes of continuous walking followed by a ten-minute break. We do that six times, so we’re on the move for nine hours in total. During the third shift, we found tracks. They were the tracks of the two Nordic ladies who are walking a bit ahead of or behind us, but whom we hadn’t seen for a long time because there’s simply no view and we only see white all around us. Seeing those tracks in the snow was nice because we could follow them, which helps with navigation.

Navigating and Staying on Course

Navigating by your wind vanes isn’t as easy as it looks. Somehow we haven’t quite mastered it yet and we’re drifting left and right quite a bit, covering much more distance than we’re actually moving forward. When we were able to walk in the ladies’ tracks for a while, we noticed how great it is to just make some progress. At the end of the third shift, the weather actually cleared up and it slowly became sunnier. Then we saw those two Nordic ladies walking in the distance. After a while, we caught up with them. They had just had a break and saw us coming. It was lovely to have a quick chat and share what we’d been through over the last few days before we each went our separate ways again. It was also funny to see that we continued following their course, which made it very obvious that we’re covering quite a few extra meters. You can say that, but when the team sees it too, it becomes much more tangible. This afternoon, now that we had better visibility, we really practiced walking in a straighter line again, even when we only have the wind vanes to rely on. I’m hopeful that we can make some good progress again in the coming days.

Distance, Skins, and Conditions

We covered about 21 kilometers today. We had some delays here and there because we had to change skins, and that didn’t go so well because the skins wouldn’t stick. Those skins are actually a kind of hide that you stick under your ski. They have hairs that move with you in one direction and provide friction in the other. That helps you push off. When the snow is very slippery and it’s a steep climb, it’s very hard to push off. Also, when you have very high sastrugi—which are a kind of snow dunes formed by the wind—it’s very difficult to get enough grip to pull your pulka over them. If you use long skins instead of short ones, which only cover a small part of your ski, you get more friction. This makes it harder to move forward, but you do have more grip to pull your pulka over obstacles. Hopefully, that’s all sorted now.

Outlook and a Shifting Frame of Reference

We’ll see what tomorrow brings. If all goes well, the weather will be decent in the morning and in the afternoon—surprise—it’s going to get windy again. We’ll see. We’re used to it by now. When it was blowing quite hard this morning, we told each other it was actually quite a nice day. It’s bizarre how you can shift your frame of reference like that, even regarding the wind. What used to be a day that wasn’t nice at all now feels like: the weather’s pretty decent, we can make some good progress.