Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen. What, why, and how.
Spitsbergen. Voyage. Longyear
Spitsbergen. Ymerbukta
Spitsbergen. Esmarkbreen
Spitsbergen. Nansenbreen. Borebreen
Spitsbergen. Whiteout
Spitsbergen. Borebreen. Vintervegen
Spitsbergen. Klampebreen. Osbornebreen
Spitsbergen. Osbornebreen. Three Crowns
Spitsbergen. Fatumbreen
The night of May 7th was not too cold, just about -8C, the wind also was not too strong, however, the ocean froze, and Golfstream didn’t help. During the night the bay was liquid, but in the morning it was already solid. If for the ocean with salty water and warm stream it was too cold, how it was for us….
In the morning we organized a parade (you can see it in the movie at the end of the post), because why not?
After the parade, we started to move forward to the bay.
Descent along the glacier to the sea. It is so impressive how are different Kongsvegen and Kronenbreen.
The glacier ended, we descended to the moraine and continued skiing along the seaside. There were many ice blisters on our way. Some of them were frozen, but some pretty wet. Frozen ones are better than wet ones but still unpleasant, skies didn’t behave properly on pure ice. It was good to have snowmobile trace to Ny-Alesund. It avoided most nasty ice blisters and rocks, without it we would spend much more time looking for the appropriate way.
Behind us, both glaciers dropped icebergs into the ocean. They did it with clouds of icy and water splashes and with a roar that duplicated by the echo.
By the way, this crack in the mountain is the place where we planned to descent from Fatumbreen. Happy that we didn’t.
Little icebergs in the ocean.
Three Crowns. Actually Two, the Third one is behind the corner.
Continued to move along the shore to the west.
Finally, the ocean warmed up, the ice melted, and catspaw appeared on the surface.
Crowns
A glacier on the opposite side of the fjord.
Kongsvegen
Crowns again
Approximately after 8 pm, we met people. First people in the last three weeks. Three of them at once. They drove snowmobiles from Ny-Alesund to the glacier to bring some broken snowmobile. it was very weird to see people. They said that it is 12 km to Ny-Alesund yet, but in one km we could find the cabin, that was unoccupied and we could use it. Arriving in Ny-Alesund in the middle of the night didn’t have any sense, we were tired, and the idea of the cabin sounded promising.
And the cabin appeared on our way.
Don’t be confused that it looks like a shed. The cabin was built in 1967, it survived all snowstorms, hurricanes, polar bear invasions, and other local bed lucks. Global civilization was detected inside the cabin. it has a stove! And birchwood for the stove from inland Norway (there are no trees on Spitzbergen). By the way, the cabin quickly warmed up and keep the warm pretty long. The cabin also has a gas stove for cooking, four beds with pillow and blankets, chairs, plenty of cooking utilities, even paper towels and toilet paper (toilet itself doesn’t exist, only the seashore for this purpose). Vacation home.
Actually, it is a vacation home. Scientists of Ny-Alesund, like many other people, want some outdoor recreation. So they have an organisation that provides them necessary stuff for this – kayaks, skis, boat and other things including this vacation home where they can spend an outdoor night.
Ny-Alesund is a small settlement in the middle of nowhere. Between it and closest civilization (Longyer, actually) there is 30 min by air or several hours by sea. Only glaciers and mountains around Ny-Alesund. However, even inhabitants of such wild place want to have even more wild place to feel more close to nature. So the have a cabin in 11 km from the settlement. Very cute.
People are very serious about this field trips. There is a journal with may fanny notes in the cabin.
One-day expedition with expedition leader, expedition cook and expedition tourist:
What a pleasure was to spend the night in a warm place! For me, one of the most unpleasant thing about this travel was organizing the camp. The setting of the tent, preparation of the bed, cooking – all those things are very slow physical activity. While finish everything – would be completely frozen. And after you should put the icy body in the sleeping bag trying to heat it unlit it starts to heat you back.
In the cabin, after 20 minutes as we came in the corner near the stove was warm, and after another 30 min, the whole cabin was warm. Relaxing supper, rest after and sleep without fighting with the sleeping bag.
We even waked up in the warm room! The cabin keeps the warm pretty good, and a little amount of wood in the stove makes breakfast and packing very pleasant.
The cabin has a window in every wall – ready to go outside – check a polar bear on every side.
The cabin doesn’t lock. Well, actually it does lock, but by such lever that human can easily open it from both sides.
A bear didn’t come to us, however, we so first mammal other than a human! Reindeer visited us.
Reindeers of Spitsbergen are the smallest reindeers in the world. Also, they have the shortest legs (among reindeers of course). In return, they have very long and very dense fur during the winter season.
We met with a young male in very good shape.
In the morning we enjoyed the warm, had long breakfast and lazy packing, but finally continued our way to Ny-Alesund. The road is long and wavy.
On the rocks just arrived bird organized the nests.
To the MAIN BUILDING of Ny-Alesund, we came only at 3-45 pm, in the last minutes, actually, 15 more minutes, and we should go back behind the town boundary and organize the camp. It was not a thing that I really wanted.
About Ny-Alesund in the next post, it definitely worths its own one.
And the movie:
To be continued…
