Weather Delay and Glacier Trip

You can kind of see the road as it parallels the glacier. It can be easily seen in some areas b/c of the wide snowdrifts on it

6/3/16

We got up bright and early for our flight to Summit, but it was delayed due to weather at Summit. Delayed for an hour, then another hour, then another hour, and so on until 1:00pm when they cancelled.

I again wanted to try to make a trip up to the glacier tongue, but again we couldn't use a PFS vehicle b/c they were all busy. But I asked around and found a Toyota pickup that I was able to rent and recruited 4 other people (Elissa, my boss Matt O,  Matt S, and Bo) to go with me. We went in the evening after getting some pizza for the road.

It's about a 25 mile drive to where the road ends to the east as it runs into the ice sheet. The road also goes about 10 miles to the west and is thus the longest road in Greenland (almost entirely dirt and rutted). The drive was absolutely gorgeous! At first it went along the wide glacial river bed and the cold flowing river surrounded by hills of tundra and small rocky mountains. Lakes were also sprinkled here and there. As we started to gain a little bit of elevation we could see the glaciers coming off of the ice sheet ahead. Eventually we drove for several miles along the edge of the ice sheet with great views of the glaciers spilling down from the icecap. We also often went by little waterfall.  The road ended abruptly at the ice sheet. We all got out and went for a little hike onto the ice sheet, walking across the ice and jumping little streams coursing through the ice. A very unique and beautiful landscape. After we finished our hike, we went back to the truck and then drove back to Kanger.

Just a mile or so out of Kanger in the glacial moraine park, there is actually an 18 hole golf course. It has absolutely no grass and the greens are just smooth raked dirt areas. Pretty funny

During the drive we saw several small groups of caribou (reindeer), several large, fat, and white arctic hares, a bald eagle, and an arctic fox. That's almost all of the land mammals in Greenland except for polar bears, arctic wolves, and musk ox. They often see musk ox in this area, but I had no luck seeing them except on my dinner plate.

The group was interesting. Matt S, is from CU Boulder and is the PI on a large snow project. He's been ALL over the Arctic doing stuff. He's been working for several years on a project in collaboration with the Russians and Germans to take an icebreaker and get it frozen in the Arctic ocean and do science from it as it drifts in the ice. He told me if I need a short-term job in 2019 when it gets going, I should contact him. Bo is a carpenter here. He's been a carpenter here, at McMurdo, and at Palmer off and on. When he's not building near the poles, he is a professional sports photographer. This year he was capturing the Broncos superbowl victory and the Final Four. He's also shot at the olympics and other championships. Het met his wife at Palmer station in his late 20's. He said they tried to live a "normal" life in their 30's in Portland and Bend, but it just didn't work at all, and they really struggled, so then they went back to seasonal positions that involved travel in-between.   Since the 3 of those guys have spent lots of time in the Arctic and Antarctic, they have lots of amazing and dream-inspiring stories.

Super happy there was a flight cancellation b/c the trip up to the Glacier was stunning, and I felt like I got to get a good idea of what the non-frozen inland part of Greenland is like. I'll of course get a great taste of what the frozen inland is like. Then the other major part is the coast and fjords, which are supposed to be spectacular (probably similar to Norway's and Alaska's, except much more remote and almost completely uninhabited. Did I ever mention the entire population of Greenland is 49,000 people! By far the lowest population density of any country in the world. But yes, super beautiful and amazing day trip

arctic fox