Greenland: A short adventure to point 660
53 km in a day and a half. -23 degrees the first day, best of temperature, not too cold, not to warm, easy to dress, easy to work hard. Biggest surprise, hardly any snow, so too save my priced Åsnes Helgo Ingstad, we just stuck to the road, walking and instead adding damage to the Fjellpulken on patches of gravel on an easily rolling road. We keep a good speed, put camp beyong Russel glacier and when starting the stove, my Soto Mukka, I realize we have been given diesel and not petrol. We get the first dinner togerher, the so easy to cook and so tasty REAL turmat, but this morning after a great sleep wind picks up and takes four hours to cook breakfast and lunch. Diesel is useless. What to do? Always something!
Lots of local wildlife on route. Snowhares, caribou, polarfox and tracks after muskox. Massive snowhares. The lack of snow, permafrost, winds -like the föhn- makes the use of icescews a must. I was given these 4 icescrews by Olle Widell for the Patagonian Expedition 1997, but haven’t used them until now. Diesel instead of petrol -I should have asked if petrol meant diesel in Kangerlussuaq- forces us to return tomorrow. Fantastic scenery, great time together, Pam is a fighter and her love for this part of Greenland is very inspirational.
The Greenland Icecap seen from point 660, I had imagined a snowcovered icecap, but winds had cleared and exposed huge chunks of the bluest and at times almost blackest ice ro be seen. A huely impressive sight. Just the scale of it. The second largest ice sheet on earth after Antarctica. It covers 80% of Greenland and measures a staggering 1,726,400 square kilometres. It contains 2.8 million cubic kilometres of ice. If it were to melt, sea levels would rise 7.2 metres! Extremely impressive sight!
I just met such an inspiring and wonderful fella, Adam Lyberth! After meeting him and having been here for far too fee days, I am beginning to believe my year and a half in Greenland was just a beginning. Adam is what I see as all the great things with Greenland. Deep connection to his environment, great storytelling skills, a close bond with the spirits and the past and present, a huge knowledge about the climate developments and also extremely laidback but always there. He should be the Greenlandic Ambassador for climate change and more, not an office official with absolutely no clue about the bigger picture of things. He would be great as a face of Greenlandic independence too. I also met Flemming such a great pilot from ilulissat. Another Greenlandic personality!
Delayed! Greenland….the charm with Greenland is that you never know what will happen. So after checking in for the 11.40 flight to Copenhagen yesterday, sitting down to write, with some food together with the other travellers, we all got the same beeping text message saying we had been rebooked for the 22.00 flight. Now, I am on my way to pickup my girls in Dalarna, which is about 750 km:s from Malmö, in my car, it wasn´t good news. But due to the infrastructure and hard weather, this happens quite often. I think 50% of all my flights are heavily delayed. So you get use to it. I started out early morning with Adam, who took me to some great view points, but best of all was him and me discussing life. I learned a lot about Greenland I didn´t know. Anyway, I was unseure what to do for 12 hours, but as soon as I came out of the waiting hall I saw my great old friend Malik Dalager from Ilulissat. His son and himself were heading for Asiaat, but had been rerouted to kangerlussuaq due to weather. He just smiled. It was Malik who invited me and my whole family to his home, when we first arrived to this part of the world in the summer of 2017. So, it felt like the circle was ended. Or, actually, that my Greenland experience just have started. I called Adam after lunch and he took me to the harbour and around this spectacularly beautiful area. Ada, is indeed one of the most interesting people I have ever met. He already feels like a brother and I look forward to seeing him again. So a day which started with an issue, ended with joy and lessons learned. Just as my previous time in Greenland. I am on route out now. I think.
I have just returned from Kangerlussuaq, a very remote and isolated Artci station, which also happens to be the biggest airport in Greenland and one of the best places to access the great inland ice. I have been in town a few times now and it is a wonderful place if you like remoteness and very nice people. A place to rest your busy Western and urban mind for awhile. I look forward to returning as soon as possible, but right now I have to go up to Dala-Järna and back, pick up the girls and again set off for another challenging journey which might cause great harm to the liver. Keep yourself updated!
