Greenland (the short version)

By Martin

We got to Greenland OK and did our airdrop onto the glacier, then headed for our landing site just off the glacier ..... that's where the problems started.

The pilot did not feel it was safe to land at the proposed landing site (too many boulders), so he landed about 14km away on a flat strip of tundra/plateau. Crucially, as it turned out, the new landing site placed a river between us and our base camp, it also placed us on the wrong side of our chosen glacier. It took a day to get to the river.The river was over 1km wide, fast flowing and fed entirely by glacial melt, which meant it was freezing cold with chunks of ice. Our first attempted crossing was aborted and we hiked off looking for a better crossing spot. After another two days searching up and down the river we finally got across. The terrain was horrendous for dragging sledges (and big packs) we covered 4 miles in 14 hours. This put us close to the glacier but on the wrong side, after another long day we got close enough to the glacier for a look. The Glacier had two rivers on it that cut very deeply into it, one of which was very close to where the bergschrund would normally form. It looked like these two rivers would require down climbing and some sort of rope hauling system for the gear. As we were getting low on food a vote was taken and, after a sledge burning 'party', we decided to turn back.

Back at the river it became apparent that the flow had increased significantly due to the sunshine of the previous 3 days. I got swept away trying to cross the deepest part, quite scary and unbelievably cold. We then attempted to cross using ropes but didn't get very far. We headed back to the bank with the intention of trying again at 2am the next morning when the flow would be less. We could regularly hear a helicopter doing frequent trips further up the valley, turns out it was dismantling an old mine. To kill time we hiked over and attempted to signal it ... our first bit of luck. The pilot flew over and was more than happy to take us back across the river, he also contacted our base back in Constable pynt (main landing site for east Greenland). Rather than just leave us on the other side of the river, where we would have to sit for several days waiting to be picked up, he offered to take us back to the mining camp at a place called Carlsberg Fiord. The geologists and the team at the camp were very accommodating and glad of some 'new company', they even had a mess tent and a fantastic Malaysian cook. I did a small peak from the camp just to actually stand on the summit of something. After three days a twin otter on a scheduled flight up the coast managed to land on the beach near the camp and took us back to Constable Pynt.

With some time to kill before we could get a plane out of Greenland we took a boat over to an Inuit settlement called Ittoqqortoormiit. The boat ride was almost as scary as the river crossing. Our Inuit driver drove at top speed through the pack ice swerving and dodging the ice but never slowing down. Ittoqqortoormiit is an isolated settlement of about 400 people with no roads in or out, it was a very interesting two days, very friendly people, but a lot of alchaholism and a really strange 'bar'. On the boat ride back our mad driver redeemed himself by spotting 3 polar bears on the ice flow (a mother and two 18 month cubs), he pulled the boat to within 8 metres of them and we both sat and stared at each other, brilliant.

We failed to get any climbing done, but got a two week adventure of a different sort.