This is when the teaching about the shortest distance between A and B takes a beating…
Day 24 & 25, Tuesday 18th September: Tuesday morning at 12:00 Anastasia, Camilla and Bengt stepped off the ice and onto the moraine dirt at Height 660. It did not come without a fight, but even with the food running out yesterday, they were absolutely clear that Greenland in the fall was the way to go. It is unpredictable. It is raw. It is icy. And it puts up surprises and challenges at a rate you can not believe. If you want to pass the Nature U’ with the highest degree, this is it.
Yesterday the plan was to get out. But they braved trying a more Sothern route for the last part of the Icefall. This did not work at all and they had to backtrack. This lost them a lot of hours, and as daylight faded they still had 5 kilometres left (or 4,9 as Bengt insisted on…).
For all those who have not tried to traverse a lower icefall after summer, we can tell you that it is constant waves of ups, downs and arounds. You never have more than a few metres of rest before the next wall of ice towers over you. If you are in good spirit, it is enormously challenging and fun and beautiful. If you are tired, hungry and down it is like a nightmare were there is not waking up.
Our friends, even though they were short (to say the least) of food, kept their spirit up, and after sone 4 hours today they could cheer like crazy.
At 16:00 they were picked up by a car and taken back to Kangerlussuaq, or Søndre Strømfjord as it was called in the old days. Since we have not herd from them, – we have the feeling they are still eating…
Plan is to fly back tomorrow to Copenhagen and then back home.
Putalia / October 20, 2012
Fantastic!!!!