Trip Reports

Greenland Explorer 2007

Written by Leader Alun Richardson, April 2007

The flight to Kulusuk Island was awesome as we had our first glimpse of icebergs stuck like sky scrapers in a frozen sea. Kulusuk is a beautiful conglomeration of colourful buildings and is a hunting and fishing base, as well as having the east coast's main airport. It gave wonderful views of the mountains we were to explore as we sorted out gear and loaded the dog sleds, accompanied by the excited yelping of the husky dogs.

The following day we skied across the sea ice - a surreal experience as you pass icebergs and small islands - to our first camp on a nearby island 20 to 25 km from the settlement. A lot of snow had fallen so we decided to base ourselves here for a few days to climb some beautiful looking peaks reminiscent of Torridon in Scotland. We had a shake down day, built walls around our tents and spied out our objectives.

Snowfall was to be an issue over the next few days, but it did not stop us climbing two excellent new peaks. From the top of the second peak we spotted a beautiful looking peak on a nearby island, but we had to explore the sea ice and the approach first. The day after our recce we ascended the best peak of the trip - a beautiful mountain overlooking the sea to Ammassilik Island and the Greenland Ice Cap. From the peak we spotted many more summits for future trips. A Greenland storm put paid to exploring for one day as we experienced the worst side of the Arctic weather. As we shovelled snow the UK basked in glorious weather...thanks for pushing the weather over us!

After the storm we moved camp and towed our sledges over a col onto a new glacier system, where we survived yet another raging storm and lots of snow...a wild experience! Kulusuk was 12km away so we went back for some R&R and from the settlement we used dogs to tow us out across the sea ice and climb two beautiful peaks. It was a fantastic experience to speed across the frozen sea on towed by dogs. We followed this by climbing a new route on the highest peak on Kulusuk Island (Talisker Ridge - Grade Alpine PD) and ascended a smaller peak right on the coast, with wonderful views over the sea ice.

Despite the weather – apparently the worst for a long time, it is usually stable and clear - everyone had a great time achieving some fantastic summits that gave us all some of the most memorable views we have ever had. The views brought gasps and smiles and even the odd tear from one or two people.

This was the perfect trip for those with an exploratory bent, with so many easily accessible peaks to discover and new valleys to explore, all in a wild and remote environment. We even glimpsed the wildlife with everyone spotting Arctic foxes and a seal popping out in the middle of the frozen sea. Although Polar Bears were not sighted we were told on our return that the Inuits had nearly sent a team out to hunt for a mum and two cubs that had been sighted very close to our camp. I had slept with the gun and was glad we had not seen them too close!

Thanks to everyone on this trip for working very hard to make it a truly memorable experience.

Alun Richardson, Expedition Leader« Previous report | Next report »

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