Success in Greenland for Nigel and the army team
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Crossing Greenland
Well it’s great to be back and not heard the ring of a phone or seen a computer for 6 weeks.
Crossing Greenland is one of the great ski Journeys of the world. Most cross the ice cap on what is known as the A1 route. The start and finish are easily accessible, we wanted to follow the original route taken by the Norwegian, Nansen in 1888. It is slightly shorter and further south so the start and finish points are difficult to get to which is why no British team had done it before and it was last done in 1988.
It is exactly 500 kilometers, rises to 2800m and took us 27 days. We each pulled 85 kilos of food and equipment in two sledges. You eat around a kilo of food per day which was mostly dehydrated main meals with choc bars, nuts and raisins, cheese, butter, biscuits and salami, still lost 10 kilos! We skied mostly by day but did a few nights as well, one of which we followed a northern lights display for several hours. At best we covered 120km in 4 days, at worst we covered about 25km in 4 days as we hit crevasse field after crevasse field as we neared the western edge of the ice cap.
Lowest temperature was -22 with a 15 mile an hour wind giving something approaching a wind chill of -60. We all got frost nipped fingers and toes, but nothing more serious than that.
I have not quite got the word enjoyed into a description of the trip as yet. The journey is not renowned for it’s views, the slide show could be a picture of the east coast, one of a white horizon with a blue sky and one of the west coast. That would do the whole trip a disservice though, a 250 km boat journey south through icebergs down the east coast to the start was magical. After 20 days, seeing the mountains of the west coast was quite special, as was stepping off the ice onto dry land and a few days later reaching the coast and seeing our pick up boat coming into the fjord.
Not sure I would do it again as the adventure has gone, I know I can do it. It is interesting though, you cannot do a self supported expedition on foot for much more than a week unless you are on skis and can pull all the food and fuel you need. Also every member of the team has to do every step with all kit and food. There is no heading down to base camp or a requirement to just get 2 to the summit but then there are no issues of altitude or avalanches and you don’t all need a great deal of mountaineering experience.
Nigel Williams
Head of Training
Well it’s great to be back and not heard the ring of a phone or seen a computer for 6 weeks.
Crossing Greenland is one of the great ski Journeys of the world. Most cross the ice cap on what is known as the A1 route. The start and finish are easily accessible, we wanted to follow the original route taken by the Norwegian, Nansen in 1888. It is slightly shorter and further south so the start and finish points are difficult to get to which is why no British team had done it before and it was last done in 1988.
It is exactly 500 kilometers, rises to 2800m and took us 27 days. We each pulled 85 kilos of food and equipment in two sledges. You eat around a kilo of food per day which was mostly dehydrated main meals with choc bars, nuts and raisins, cheese, butter, biscuits and salami, still lost 10 kilos! We skied mostly by day but did a few nights as well, one of which we followed a northern lights display for several hours. At best we covered 120km in 4 days, at worst we covered about 25km in 4 days as we hit crevasse field after crevasse field as we neared the western edge of the ice cap.
Lowest temperature was -22 with a 15 mile an hour wind giving something approaching a wind chill of -60. We all got frost nipped fingers and toes, but nothing more serious than that.
I have not quite got the word enjoyed into a description of the trip as yet. The journey is not renowned for it’s views, the slide show could be a picture of the east coast, one of a white horizon with a blue sky and one of the west coast. That would do the whole trip a disservice though, a 250 km boat journey south through icebergs down the east coast to the start was magical. After 20 days, seeing the mountains of the west coast was quite special, as was stepping off the ice onto dry land and a few days later reaching the coast and seeing our pick up boat coming into the fjord.
Not sure I would do it again as the adventure has gone, I know I can do it. It is interesting though, you cannot do a self supported expedition on foot for much more than a week unless you are on skis and can pull all the food and fuel you need. Also every member of the team has to do every step with all kit and food. There is no heading down to base camp or a requirement to just get 2 to the summit but then there are no issues of altitude or avalanches and you don’t all need a great deal of mountaineering experience.
Nigel Williams
Head of Training
posted by glenmore @ 5:11 pm 
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