Land!

31/05 camp 39
Distance today: 171 km
Total distance: 3528 km
Position: 72.3340 N 31.6164, alt 2770 m
Hours kited: 10 h

We again started out with our Speed 4 10 m2, navigating a succession of dimples, depressions, and ascents in terasses. On our progression map, one can actually see some wrinkles in the isolines close to our route. And the surface was still rough. But soon something else caught our attention. After about 10 km we got a glimpse at two summits to our left, at a bearing of about 135 degrees. In the roller coaster of the hilly terrain, we repeatedly lost and caught their sight again before the panorama of an entire mountain range finally magically unfolded in front of us.

We have not seen land for more than 30 days. This is incredibly rewarding after a period of difficult progression! Even more so, as we had hoped we may get a view of the secondary icecaps of Peary Land at our northermost point, or the rocks of Dronning Louise land a few days earlier. Yesterday we even started to worry whether we would finally be able to see those big mountains.

Image: Mika in front of the Mountains of Kong Christian X Land.

We wonder how many people had a chance to enjoy the view of these mountains from the icecap since the meeting of the motorized (weasels) icecap crossing expedition of Paul Emile Victor, and the geological sledging party of H. R. Katz in 1951 at Cecilia Nunatak? And how many people have actually reached this place on skis?

We were aware of how close were scratching the Nunataks of Kong Christian X land to our east, and during the preparation we worried how far we could actually approch the border of the icecap.
" ... but the weasels always broke through the snow bridges which covered the large crevasses. We were forced therefore to leave them behind.." H.R. Katz 1951.

On the other side, we really wanted to see land!

"We found that the crevassed area at the edge of the icecap extended much further westwards, than we had expected and to an altitude of more than 2600 metres. ... a large barrier of extensively crevassed terrasses, icy slopes and hills falling towards the nunataks lay to the east of our route. On skis however, we found that we could cross it without too much difficulty." H. R. Katz 1951.

We originally planned to stay at 2700 m, but moved the route even a little further up after a detailed look a satellite images showing the region at the end of the season with the lowest snow cover. In the end we did not encounter open crevasses nor any visible snowbridges.

When we started to loose this incredible view, another welcome surprise compensated for the loss. The undulations of the terrain became weaker, and the surface quickly changed from a cheese grater to that of a billiard table. We even found stretches of this perfectly smooth surface covered with a thin layer of soft snow with a velvet feeling. Similar to what Eric had mentioned for the regions further south during our satellite phone call.

After 100 km the wind eased, and we swithed up to our Speed 3 19 m2 to continue a little further. The kilometers were flying by quickly, and we enjoyed the feeling of effortless progression, that we had entirely forgotten during the last two weeks. After 171 km we set camp a little south of the latitude of the summit of the icecap.

The report "Journey across the Nunataks of Central East Greenland, 1951" by H. R. Katz can most likely still be found on the internet.

Undulations...

29/30 mai, camp 38
Distance today: 113 km
Total distance: 3357 km
Position : N73.858 W30.900, alt 2720 m 
Moving time : about 9H30 (using Speed 10)

We are now on the Land of King Christian X. We left to our north-east the great glacier Waltershausen, which leaks out into the Kesjer Franz Joseph fjord, and can see on our south-east the Petermann mountains and the Land of Glaciers.

Within a few days we gained about 1000m of altitude (from about 1700 to 2700m). While the Inlandsis slowly and smoothly goes down in the north-east (which allowed us to travel at lower altitudes) here it collapses against high mountain ridges, which we have to go around the peaks at quiet high altitudes.

For a few hundreds of kilometers we have kited onto a pretty corrugated ground. On the land of King Frederik VIII already we felt like crossing some kind of small depression valleys, without really being able to measure properly the scale of it, because of the possible magnification due to light reflection for example.
Close to the Land of Queen Louise we could notice wider undulations, as we were getting higher in altitude.
Today the corrugated grounds were even more noticeable. Every uphill bit was marked by a strong flow of katabatic winds. On those grounds we saw the biggest sastrugies we've ever seen : some kind of "monsters", with edges up to about 40 cm high. No way we were gonna try to get or skies through there ! With winds up to 40km/h we tried our best to take them sideways, and navigate through them as good as we could ; we had to be very focused and pay attention to our wing positions and to what was going on the surface.

In one of the difficult bits in a tiny little lack of attention my pulks managed to get stuck in between 2 sastrugies. I tried to play with the wing to create enough force to get the pulks unstuck... I lost the game, and ended up falling myself, before the wing did the same and literally planted into a sastrugie. During a good 5 minutes i tried hard to pull and pull on the lines, hoping they'll eventually pop out of the monster. But no, that was not gonna work either ; i have to untie myself and walk out there to undo the mess. Of course as soon as it was free the wings was happy to take off and start to pull the 140 kg pulks again. It managed to catch the barre, luckily cause if not, i would have been left on my own !
A suspention line is now just flapping around... WOG a mess !

The temperatures tonight have been a bit colder than the last (about -25°C), and with the 30-4- km/h wind it's been hard to keep our finger tips very warm ; every break was a bit painful for the fingers.

Today we passed the latitude of the Bear Island (between the south of Spitzbergen and Cap nord in Norway).

PS :
- Again, thank you Damien (Fourcy) for your satellite pictures ; we're now going through a difficult terrain, very close to the mountains, and a careful analysis of your datas keep us away from the major crevasse areas.
- Humongus thanks to all of you that send us messages ; Hervé "350", Chrys, Alain, Cyril (have a nice journey home), Sophie, Thomas, Pascal #Golgot", brother Rémi, Niko and Lucile, Eric, Mai and the kids, Niklas, Corinne, Eric Gruyere, Matt le voisin, Aurel, Xav Ducros, Bernard and Jacqueline, Carène, Laurence and Luc, Nico and Anne-Laure (i'm doing my best for the 14th ;-)), Jean (we're still waiting for the "rattrack") and the others... We're delighted to read you all !

Surprise

29/05 camp 37
Distance today: 70 km
Total distance: 3243 km
Position: 74.773 N 29.264 W, alt 2500m
Hours kited: 7h

"... sun is shinin' the weather is sweet, make you want to move your dancin' feet ..." a little fresh snow without wind the last night, excellent weather, rest, some good music, and the prospect for a good night of kiting. In short: a feeling of holiday. We had reached the eastmost point of our expedition yesterday and we ought to move sout westward from now on. Wings Over Greenland II does not cut on corners:

Farthest south, starting point on the pack in Qaleraligd Fjord: 61.019 N 46.732 W
Farthest west, automatic weather station Humboldt: 78.528 N 56.840 W
Farthest north, "confluence" 81 N 40 W: : 81.001 N 39.993 W
Farthest east: 75.354 N 28.291 W

Admittedly, east is cheap at this latitude, and For this one Marc was a little scared we would be "blown off the continent"!

Yet the best of the day was a surprise. First we received mails via July Brown and Laurent on one side, and from Marc on the other side, that Dixie and Eric were kindly asking for an appointment for a satellite phone call! We were tent bound, waiting for the wind to turn a little north easterly to get out of our last 'corner'. And sure enough at the end of the suggested time slot, our satellite phone rang! Dixie and Eric took precious time to share their experience, and to listen to ours. The precise content of the conversation is probably even not that important. But hearing their voices and spending a long moment connected with the two people who likely know best what we live, who face similar difficulties, and who experience similar moments of reward is a really generous gift here on the ice. And we thought it would be great to meet all of us one day off the ice. Thank you very much Dixie and Eric.

Dixie and Eric are now on their final stretch to complete their circumnavigation. All the best for the remaining kilometers!

Speaking of corners, there is one of these points we will have to visit a second time, in order to close the circle. For us this is still a challenge and a long way to go!

After a nice morning and this incredible surprise, We started with high spirits and good hope. Unfortunately our progression today was a little unlucky, and we didn't make the best of a really favourable slot.

Getting a bit confused here...

27/05, camp 36
Distance today : 153 km
Total distance: 3174 km
Position : N75.354 W28.291, alt  2400 m
Moving time : about 10 hours

How many days, haw many camps, what's the day today ... ? We sometimes loose track of all this, It's even harder to tell what of the week is today, probably because it doesn't make any difference for us now. But what's noticeable is that we're also loosing track of time within a day !
Our daily rhythm stretches over a 28-30 hours of time. It's not like we've decided it that way, but in the end it seems to be a good balance between effort and rest. A kite session (the moving time only) is for about between 1/3 and half a normal day time. Intermediary sections would be pitching and wrapping our tents, another one (important) is the food time, in the tent (dinners and breakfasts ; in the northern parts of the trip, because of extremely cold temperatures we even had lunches in the tent, before to start our kite session ; we added snack pauses while kiting during those hours.The rest of the hours go into sleeping , resting and communications.

During the first weeks we don't need to rest as much, and we use more time kiting than resting or eating ; that enable us to keep our daily routine into the 24 hours frame. But as tireness kicks in the routine stretches a bit, we need to rest more (we can't skip a rest time), and 28 to 30 hours is the time we need in one day. That's made easier by the never ending day light.

Considering this daylight it's no problem to live a 30 hours-a-day life, as long as we don't have to follow any accepted standard, or if we don't have to attend social life. What gives the tempo here is the aerology. Catabatic winds are often stronger during the night hours for instance, while winds directly connected to the weather are more unstable and don't follow any rhythm.

This extra long daily routine makes us therefore sometimes miss some good catabatic windows unfortunately... But the presence, force and direction of winds are so hard to really understand in a very precise way, despite all the information that we collect and observe, and despite the deep analysis we get from our routers Marc and Fritz every day.

To be short, our challenges are strictly connected to our direct environment, so it's impossible to establish a regular rhythm. As we're trying to follow the catabatics which happen to be often at the coldest hours we continuously shift a little our rhythm by a few hours, forth and back, and we just simply loose tracks of time ; it gets really confusing. We just sometimes can't make head or tail of it all.

For 130 of the 153 km kited today we used the Beringer 8, with wind speeds up to 50 km/h and drifting snow (that gave us wonderful lights when we departed around 3 in the morning. If we were a bit challenged in the beginning skiing upwind, it got better after ; we even kited the last 20 km/h downwind, with a bit slower winds.

This is got to be the most eastern point of our trip now, at the longitude W28 ; we plan to head south-south west for now on. We've now passed the southern latitude of Spitzbergen.

PS :
- special greetings to our norvegian friend Niklas Norman, who did the first longitudinal crossing of Greenland. He still has got the time record for it : 2300 km in 21 days, in other words about 110 km per day. Niklas, thanks for your message, we really measure its value :-)
- Greetings as well to my friend Loulou (we don't forget Franck and the other family members), for the good memories of the "T-shirt times" of the first Latitude Nord expeditions. Thanks my friend for all your help, i don't forget that...
- Alain R ; don't worry about Iceland this summer ; the message was aimed to Alain K ;-)

Food for thought and thoughts on food

26/05 camp 35
Distance today: 3 km
Total distance: 3020 km
Position: 76.7023 N 29.3240 W, alt 2080 m
Hours kited: 1h

Food for thought

Rest day - Marc had strongly recommended a rest day, as the south westerly and westerly winds would make progression along our route difficult without being pushed too far east. We thought we knew better. We had an entire day of upwind kiting (on 8 m2 Beringer Skisails) in strong winds in 2008. We had made our first precious kilometers to gain altitude upwind uphill at the beginning of this trip. And we had kited slightly upwind yesterday in lighter winds with our Speed 3 19 m2. And anyway, at home, or in Finse, without the pulks, this would just be ridiculously easy. We tried with the speed 4 10 m2. The kite was fully powered at windspeeds of at least 30 km. But we could not find a comfortable going. Soft at the edge of the window, strong opposition in the center when at speed, but we didnt find the golden middle. Underpowered on the Beringer 8 m2. And we even tried an unnamed 12 m2 spare kite (a bit too sporty in its original handle configuration on long lines in these conditions) on the Speed bar with 21 m lines as a last resort. Nothing worked comfortably. We admitted that a rest day would be a good choice, in particular with a favourable forecast ahead. And while went out as if we were going to work this morning, we will certainly be eager to kite againg tomorrow or already tonight. Its a little weird. We absolutely need the rest from time to time. But when the occasion is there we always first consider it a loss, instead of appreciating it right away for what it is.

Nivology - there is not that much precipitation, especially here in the north east. And while we had a short occasion to kite in dry powder on the western side of the icecap in 2008, this is probably rare, as the fresh snow, if dendritic, is quickly transformed to fine grains through the continuous mechanical action of the wind. But here the snow likely falls already in small crystals in most occasions. It gets quickly hard packed. When the surface snow gets covered and lowered into the mantle it would gradually turn into more or less compact ice under the increasing pressure. Sometimes there would be surface melt. Generally the snow would undergo destructive transformations. Thats what I thought, and I didn't really look any further. Yesterday, when digging a little when mounting the tent, I was therefore surprised to find a continuous layer of large grains (platelets/faces planes or maybe even beakers/gobelets) of 80 cm thickness right below the hard and partially glazed crust on the surface - a clear sign of constructive transformation under medium to strong temperature gradients close to the surface. It may also explain the surprising surface cracks that had started to appear on the icy patches between the sastrugies.

Thoughts on food

Polar menu:

Breakfast: different varieties of crusty muesli, with chocolate, red berries, and nuts. Hot chocolate, coffee, and effervescent soda drinks.

During the day: Muesli and chocolate bars. Water, tea/infusions in our thermos bottles.

Lunch: Wasa bread, cheese, sausage, dried fruits (Raisins, figues, melon, mangue, papaya, coconut, banana, raspberry, peas, peaches, abricots, ananas ...), and chocolate.

Dinner: Nuts and grains for aperitif (Peanuts, cachew nuts, walnuts, macadamia, noix d'amazonie, salted almonds ...) followed by a soup, a freeze dried main dish, cookies and tea/infusion.

Nutrition facts - our daily routine here is strenous for the body, even if we are often not aware of it. There are the typically 5 to 11 hours of progression. This may not really appear to be an effort, as we are pulled by the kites, and the main force goes directly to the harness and from there to the sleds. Yet we have to continuously hold an edge, re-direct the traction of the kite to the sleds, absorb the shocks, and fly and work the kite which generates some pressure in the bar. Although an incomplete analogy, one may try to compare it to downhill skiing. 5 km are surely considered a long descent in a ski resort. 100 km would find their equivalent in 20 runs in one day .... Add mounting the tent, and the continuous exposure to the cold. Our insurance even requires a daily ration of 5000 kcal per person and day to be valid, more than twice the usual calory intake recommended for an adult man. And while we were unable to eat the full rations in the beginning and kept some spare, we now start to enjoy the entire portions, as Mika wrote yesterday.
Image: lunch ration with Wasa bread, sausage, cheese, dried fruits, and chocolate.

Many thanks to the Epicerie Arax in Grenoble for their help and patience in selecting about 10 kg of various dried fruits, and 10 kg of nuts and grains! We also gatefully acknowledge the fromagerie Barbieri from the marche de l'Estacade for choosing different varieties of cheese that would withstand the conditions of transport and travel, and for vacuum packing of the 67 daily cheese rations.

Sastrugies vertigo

25/05, camp 34.
Distance today: 94 km
Total Distance: 3017 km
Position : N76.730 W29.347, alt: 2090 m
Moving time: 7 hours

Yes, sorry, just the same story again... More than 500 km skied on this really annoyingly wrinkled field, the "corrugated sheet" of the northern latitudes. Yesterday was one big of a day, by the size of them, their amount, shapes...
We went through them using our biggest wings, at speeds almost averaging 25 km/h for hours that we tried to hit sideways.
With the Speed 19, propped quiet high in the "window", we even sometimes use the momentum to take off the ground for a few meters. The pulkas do the same, tirelessly.

All our equipment is under great challenge due to the friction. It's amazing : i've never destroyed as much equipment than here, on this trip ! In the beginning we were constantly trying to repair every little hole and break. Now, we just realized that we're not gonna win this battle : holes are everywhere : even small sneaky ones make it to the powder food container, spreading our breakfast powder chocolate just everywhere : this even sneaks into the other food containers ; nothing is sealed anymore, the chocolate managed to go all the way into the sled itself. Wonderful, isn't it ? Even in some of our wings we have holes now.
Basically everything that is hard is going to pierce everything that's softer...

As we cannot reverse the destruction process, we have to accomodate to it : some of the equipment is not going to be re-used. We are more concerned with the electronic equipment (even though we have carefully protected) and our cooking gear (only one set left). All of our absolutely necessary equipment is now on our backpacks, for how long as it needs. At least until we get on better grounds.

Our bodies are also pretty challenged in this "shaker". Even though we have been accumulating fatigue after 3 weeks travelling, and exposition to cold temperatures, we have come to observe our increasing appetite at dinner time. We're sleeping more as well. And unfortunately we are travelling smaller distances ! We would like to do better, we don't manage these days. The ground condition is very difficult.

Today sastrugies were still going strong. But it was a bit smaller than yesterday. But the wind conditions (south-west) forced us to go a bit against it with our biggest wings, which requires a heavy foot work. And that's where my (Mika) feet are showing signs of fatigue : the pain is getting so big that we just have to stop at km 94. Without immediate solution i can only hope it's not gonna disturb systematically our progression...

We are now at the edge of the land of Reine Louise and have skied just a little over 3000 km.
I (Mika) dedicate those to my parents : since 3 years the Greenland authorities have changed the rules when it comes to take an adventure on the inlandsis, in order to avoid the greenlandic society to bear the cost of unfinished and abandoned expedition on the icecap that required heavy and expensive rescues and evacuation. Our expedition we need a cash guarantee of almost 30 000 € that could be used by the authorities in case of a need for evacuation for other reasons than sanitary, like because of the loss of cooking gear for example :-).
My living choices and conditions did not bring me to the condition of having even half of this guarantee, even though i'm 43 years old. My parents found the way to lend me this money ; here is my chance to say sincerely thank you again !

Cornelius wants to dedicate those 3000 km to all those he has had the chance to spend wonderful time with, going back country skiing, climbing, kiting and on other Arctic journeys. Experiences that nourished the idea and greed for this biggest expedition in the cold arctic environment...

Not alone

23-24/05 camp 33
Distance today: 130 km
Total distance: 2923 km
Position: 77.538 N 30.476 W, alt 1870 m
Hours kited: 10h30

This morning there was a little air of spring. We are again more shifted into the 'day' and got up, when the sun was already warming the tent. Outside, the wind was not as cold as the last days. Everything felt a bit easier today. And for the first time since at least two weeks we started kiting without the down trousers, down jacket and over-boots.

We were travelling south-south-east with our Speed 3 19 m2 at 160 degrees, while he must have been heading north-north-east at about 25 degreess. After about 80 km, the tracks of our skis and sleds crossed those of his pawns at 77.963 N 30.980 W. We are not alone!
Today we had the rare chance to observe the absolutely unexpected: polar bear tracks far into the 'Inlandsis'.

While this big predator is known for his enormous autonomy, necessary to survive in the cold of the arctic winter, this seems absolutely remarkable to us. There is no food to hunt for here on the icecap. We estimate the shortest distance between the point where we crossed the tracks of the animal to the shore in Jokulbukten (Glacier-bay) in the east to about 200 km. And if we naively extrapolate his heading to the north eastern shore, he would have nearly twice this distance to go in order to reach Danmark Fjord.

We should likely be more happy than worried. This animal was certainly determined in his direction, and we follow our heading for some time. At an angle of 135 dgrees, our tracks had to cross somewhere. Looking at the prints, some had already become positive. The compression under his huge weight has prevented the softer snow from the erosion by the wind. There must have been some time since he has passed. How long? And how incredibly small is the probability for a meeting in both, space and time?

We are legally required to be prepared for such an encounter, which is indeed possible in particular close to the coast. (Post on our blog: "Firearm permit - aiming at safety".)

We had a break at this remarkable place, put on our down-trousers again for the cold of the evening, and continued. The wind was picking up and we tried to switch down to the Speed 4 10 m2. An unlucky choice, and after 15 km of waving and some loops we were quickly back on 19 m2 before we finally set camp after covering 130 km when the wind increased again.

Today, we have crossed the latitudes of Longyearbyen and Barentsburg in Spitsbergen.

We didn't mention sastrugies. They are still there and have become a part of our daily life - likely still for a long time. They come in an infinite multitude of shapes including ridges sometimes separated by canyons, shark fins, breaking waves, spinxes and table mountains. And while they are all different, their common principle of formation through the wind gives them an artistic unity. The lighting can turn them into fantastic landscapes. Yet from a skiers perspective, they look a little less romantic. We have entered and left regions with and without, and we can sometimes observe their formation. We are wondering how they disappear, and when ...