Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen. What, why, and how.
Spitsbergen. Voyage. Longyear
Day of April 18 started for us at 6 am. We finished packing and got breakfast. The last civilized breakfast was perfect, I never ate such magnificent breakfast in any other hotel, although I met many hotels with very nice breakfasts. Five types of herrings, three types of salmon, cured lamb, well, I better stop name food or I never finish, just let know that I was ready to stay at this hotel forever despite their high price (breakfast is included).
Unfortunately, hedonistic pleasures cannot go on forever, and at 8-30 am we and our luggage waited for the bus to the port near hotel entrance.
+4C, rainy. Such Golfstream’s benefits is very unpleasant for out trip, but what we can do with nature.
Map. Longyear, Barentsburg, and Ymerbukta are underlined. Approximate place of our landing is marked with cross.
Departure
Longyear from the water
Airport
Port
Long and cold sailing to Ymerbukta.
it is time to leave the last mainstay of civilization. The bay is open from ice, just last kilometer near shore is covered. It is 10-15 cm ice, covered with 5 cm of water. Our icebreakers is to lazy to go through the ice, so she decided to land us just on the ice edge.
Here she is, on the place of our landing waiting for signal from us.
Our landing was benefit show for the tourists on the board. They forgot about their lunch and the glacier, and all came to see how the captain land us on ice as some pirates.
We immediately appreciated our waterproof over-boots. We bought them to cross ice blisters, but used at our first steps. Without them our ski boots wold be wet immediately, and it is very unpleasant in our situation.
The captain brought my rifle (on public boats and airplanes a crew keep your firearm during travel), helped to load it (I didn’t have enough arms to hold everything and didn’t have a possibility to put anything on the ground, because were no ground only water). Tourist’s applause were our firewalls.
It was not enjoyable to walk on this ice. it was still thick enough, but air bubbles were clear visible on the places of ice plates connection that means that they can separate any moment. Ice moved up-and-down, it is ocean breath, but it also make me nervous. Ice near the margin was braked and we spend some time looking for the place to cross safely. Finally we were on the ground and sent signal fire to the captain that we are fine and the icebreaker can continue her way.
World around us:
1 pm. Start of skiing.
We should cross a moraine and ascend to the glacier Esmarkbreen. The snow is wet and knee-deep. We are tired after almost three days without sleep.
The view around us is not clear.
For three hours we made about two and half kilometers and gained 200 meters of altitude.
Visibility disappeared completely.
We are at the point of decision – ascent to the glacier right now via huge canyon on the moraine edge or continue to move up on the moraine parallel to the glacier. However, because on low visibility we not only cannot make a decision, but even move safely with all crevasses on our way.
So we decided to set a tent and have some rest.
The tent is set and we tried to get some rest. Well, our arctic tent didn’t made for rain condition. We knew it originally, but now we have unpleasant confirmation. Who can image the rain in the middle of the April at 78 degree?!
Fortunately we had also our Hileberg. We took it because we didn’t have possibility to test out new tent before trip, and now time to use it. Fortunately again, it was first and last time when we used it.
To be continue…..
