Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen. What, why, and how.
Spitsbergen. Voyage. Longyear
Spitsbergen. Ymerbukta
We fell asleep at about 6 pm. I awоke after deep unbroken sleep that for me usually means that it was short, just a few hours dream. I felt that maximum 6 hours passed, that means that now is about midnight. The polar day combined with heavy clouds and rain doesn’t help with time estimation. Check up of GPS shown that now is midday of April 19! How could we lost twelve hours is a mystery. How I managed to sleep without waking up eighteen hours is even more mystery. It is not in my organism habits. I think it is the inspiration of the polar day, at least I don’t have other explanations.
It was still rainy and zero visibility. So we ate some breakfast (we just waked up, so it is breakfast) and continued to sleep. What also we can do?
Heavy wet snow replaced the rain. It covered our tent and land around us with a deep heavy blanket. We slept further on, just waking up from time to time to shake the snow from the tent. Gees calls were above us, they were on their way to their nesting places. There are many birds on Svalbard, mainly on the seaside, but only during the summer. Only one bird species, the polar ptarmigan, live here year-round, the rest just came for nesting. Our travel was during the season when birds start to come on the island. We didn’t saw many of them, they don’t usually spend their time on the glaciers.
Waked up once again we checked the time. 4-40 am April 20 (yes, we should check not only time but a day also).
The snow stopped, but visibility didn’t really improved. However, we can see something, so we decided to move. There are three possible routes for us, but all three are bad. The avalanche danger after the long heavy snowfall is very high. Finally, we decided to climb to Esmarkbreen using its left-side moraine.
Our tents. It was the first and the only time when we used Hilleberg during this trip. After this only rain, we used our polar tent.
Visibility is very low, +1C, fresh snow is deep, wet, and heave. The skies don’t slide at all, stick to the snow, and deeply sink under the snow. The sledges also deeply sink. Moving is very difficult.
The terrain is hardly visible, the vision is deformed. Sometimes you see the descent, but in reality, you moving up, it is very distractive.
To reach the glacier, many moraine canyons should be crossed. We must follow to very steep traverse, and our sledges in such conditions demonstrate awful behaviour. We transferred some weight from them to our backpacks, but it didn’t help really. Finally, we started to use shuttle technique, moving back and forward and carrying backpacks and sledges separately.
Finally, we climbed onto the glacier and started to move up along it. Even some visibility appeared for a short time.
Such heavy work made us very tired, and at 2 pm we set the tent for lunch.
While we had dinner, the snowstorm started. the temperature dropped below zero, deep snow and a strong wind started. Visibility disappeared completely.
Only we can do now is hit the pillow.
It is fantastic how much I slept at this travel. Long nights (normal dark nights) in the tent is always painful for me. I cannot sleep so long, but also nothing to do in the cold tent. However here, at constant light, it was very difficult to wake up. The most difficult thing in this sleepy life is shaking the bush. Leave the warm sleeping bag, dress up, untie the tent entrance, leave the tent, tie the entrance, meet the snowstorm, come back, untie the entrance, come to the tent, tie the entrance, undress, come the sleeping bag…..much easy just continue to sleep:)
The snowstorm гun day and night. It brought a lot of snow.
It ended in the middle of April 21. The sun appeared, the temperature strongly decreased, but the wind was still strong.
Ymerbuckta below. We can still see it. Actually, it is not too close as it looks. Without familiar orienting points, everything looks closer as it is.
We started to move at about 4 pm. -7C; strong wind. With high humidity, it feels pretty cold. Going up along Esmarkbreen glacier. Snow is dry but very deep. Well, at least it is not sticky. It is very beautiful around. Cold, unalive and beautiful.
The snowdrifts are very intensive. They cover the ski-traces immediately.
As night is later when the sun is lower, the light is nicer, but cold is stronger.
The movie from the glacier:
About midnight we set a camp.
To be continue…..
