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Greenland Expedition: a Stormy Day – but a Short Blog Post!

Due to a broken connection and storm, the audio blog is incomplete. Therefore, a brief summary in the written blog. Fortunately, you can still listen to the incomplete audio blog!

The team got up an hour earlier today to make the most of the day. We set off at 8:00 AM so we could walk on hard snow for longer. A steep slope upwards required perseverance, because the sleds now weigh 80 kilos. Progress is slow on the slope, no more than one and a half kilometers per hour.

The team is not yet moving on skis but simply on their shoes, with light crampons underneath. We walk in a schedule of one hour of movement and then a ten-minute break.

After the slope, a flatter section followed, full of meltwater rivers that were perpendicular to the northern course. We felt like we crossed hundreds of them, occasionally getting a wet shoe.

The predicted storm came a little later. At 11:00 it was still manageable, but at 12:00 it was as if someone turned on a fan and the wind increased to gale force. Plowing against the wind is hard work with a heavy sled behind you.

At 15:30 we set up the tents, which is a delicate job in a storm. With the whole team, we set up one tent at a time by securing the front with ice screws. A team member always lies on the tent to prevent it from blowing away, and we bring the poles to tension one by one. When the tent is lying on the ice like a flat package, we pull it out like a harmonica and quickly secure it.

Despite the storm, the team still covered 11.6 kilometers today!