En route to the Trip Start
On May 26 and I began a ski randonee touring trip to Svalbard (North Pole) with two friends; Svalbard is the furthest north permanent human settlement in the world...Our trip started with a 2.5 hr flight from Geneva to Oslo where we stayed the night and then an early 3 hr. flight the next morning to Longyearbyen. Leaving the early summer in Geneva (75F) to something more similar to home (Oslo - 60F) to then the Arctic (Svalbard - 0)).
Note that this was my first experience doing ski randonee, which is a mix between cross county skiing, downhill skiing, and mountaineering where the back binding is loose and "skins" are attached to your ski base when hiking up the mountain. This was also the first ski trip of the year where I was not in a cast, brace, and able to use poles. I had full intentions of doing some practice prior to the trip, but with no poles this was not possible.
Svalbard - Arrival
The views from the flight showed a massive white island covered with snow; basically like a snow desert given the lack of vegetation. The Island seems to not receive massive snowfall each year, but the snow keeps given the low temperatures.
Following our arrival at our hotel, we grabbed a quick lunch and went dog sledding in the afternoon. For dog sledding, we were paired off in groups of two with 6 dogs where we would take turns riding in the sled or driving the sled over a few hours; our guide was a professional dog sledder who will be racing in the Iditarod in 2018.
After dog sledding, we grabbed dinner in the hotel; I had whale carpaccio and reindeer.
Following dinner was bedtime during complete daylight as we were so far North where there is 24 hours of daylight. It was quite bright and felt midday at 11pm based in the daylight and the same even when awaking later in the night.
Day 2
Following dinner was bedtime during complete daylight as we were so far North where there is 24 hours of daylight. It was quite bright and felt midday at 11pm based in the daylight and the same even when awaking later in the night.
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| Svalbard - 11:37pm |
On our 2nd day, we took a boat cruise to Barentsburg, which is the most Northern Russian permanent settlement in the world. The boat cruise was 3 hours each way, with a lunch, and then we had 2 hours to have a short tour around the city.
The boat cruise was very pretty with arctic mountains in the background, plenty of birds, and we saw a walrus. We also picked up a pair of randonee skiers that had been camping and apparently had a polar bear visit their tent the night before and were unharmed.
Lunch was grilled Salmon, ribs, and whale; I gave whale a second chance and still did not find a preferred method for eating the animal...
Barentsburg was very different than Longyearbyen as the city had an active mine and did not have a commercial airport so it felt more like sustainable city with heavy support from tourism (although with only 500 residents). We tried beer at the local brewery along with some Russian Vodka before heading back home. We arrived at 7p and grabbed dinner at the restaurant next door and met our skiing crew for the following day.
Day 3
In the morning, we took a kayaking trip within the fjord; it was cold! We were in full dry suits and the length across the bay was 3km where we paddled to an abandoned mining village to walk around and have a quick warm up drink before paddling back as the ski trip was to start that evening. Our ski trip started off with a slight delay (1 hour) as the boat heater was being repaired so we used the extra time to run to the grocery store and buy last minute snacks (which coincidentally was a coop - same store that I go to in Switzerland). We arrived in the boat and departed that night to arrive at the first fjord at 1am to then awake at 7am for skiing.
Day 4
Our group seems is a total of 9 skiers (mostly Swiss), two guides, a cook, and a captain:
1st day of skiing started at 8:30 and ended at 3; quite a long day of skiing. We climbed two mountains and covered 9.7 miles. In the morning, they drove us to shore with a small inflatable dingy and then we started skiing. The views were quite spectacular and and some of the climbs were also a bit epic and scary likely due to my inexperience (day 1 of randonee and my hand is still recovering). At one point, we were mountain climbing on skis and trying to perform types of climbing/turn maneuvers that I had never seen, yet alone performed, before. It's also quite a challenge as any instruction, or warnings, are made in French and then translated to English...sometimes...
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| I'm the guy in back with my ski lodged in the snow! |
We finished the day on a very long descent, to a glacier that we then had to hike around; this probably added at least a mile on flat terrain that was very tiring. We then skied on to a sheet of ice that the boat picked us up from using a ladder.
Quite sore on day 1, but spent sometime on the boat hot tub for some recovery!
Day 5
Day 5
We started skiing at 10 today and covered 6.7 miles and the two summits we covered both required ski crampons and the first requiring the team to take off our skis to attach to our packs and then using an ice axe to summit the last 20 meters. Using the crampons was a nice safety option and I generally felt much more confident on steep climbs using these rather than randonee climbs.
The two runs from the summits were great with the weather improving throughout the day so our last run was amazing as it was sunny with good fresh snow where we were able to ski down all the way to the shore where the boat then picked us up.
We finished the day enjoying the hot tub in the sun on the boat in the sun with the mountains in the background. We spent on our extra time in the boat reviewing pictures, playing uno, and spotting wildlife (walrus and birds).
Day 6
Our tallest summit of the trip was this day; we hiked Phippsdjellet, which was 1013m and the day was gorgeous with no clouds and low wind so we didn't have to wear too many layers as we neared the summer. We covered a total of 7.9 miles.
Upon reaching the end, the dingy had beers waiting for us in the shore. For future reference, never use your ski boot as a beer holder as when it tips it then drenches your boot with beer. This has never been an issue in the past as I've rarely taken my boot off on the beach while waiting for the boat to pick me up!
No hot tub this day (or the remainder of the trip) as we lost a bit too much water in waves the prior night; I did get a hot shower though!
Day 7
On our final night, we anchored our boat to the ice sheet and started our ski tour today by climbing from the boat down to the ice by ladder (more like a chicken coup) and started from the open ice. Terrain for the day was nice and the climbs weren't too technical so that was a life saver!
At the end of the day, one of the skiers fell from ladder into the water and got scratched up and destroyed a few electronics (camera, phone, and iPod); luckily, that was it as it could have been a dangerous situation near both the ice and boat. When back on the boat, the crew took the dingy out wake boarding using dry suits and a few of us were able to try; I wore warm clothes beneath a dry suit so this was not too bad. The boat crew tried a few other stunts such as pulling a wake board on water along with a skier on ice and then a snowboard that went both on and off water.
Day 8
The final day of skiing was sunny with two summits and a great final day. This day had likely the hardest final summit with a very steep cliff on both sides of a traverse; very happy to behind me to then ski all the way down to the boat!
We finished up the day returning to Longyearbyen to grab a last dinner with the group and visit the only two bars in the city; I'm quite sure that one of the bars had more bottles in its repertoire than the population of people in the city. It was an early night as most of the group was on the 7:50am flight the following morning so we went left around midnight and walked home in the full sunlight of the midnight sun.
All-in-all this was a great trip with new people and many firsts: midnight sun, ski randonee, dog sledding, and, whale tasting. Everyday was a nice balance of 6 hours skiing to then being completely disconnected from the world with virtually no phone/internet. I really enjoyed the experience and plan to randonee again next year as it is quite relaxing yet challenging.
One of the skiers in our group had a drone and made the following two videos:
Short Intro (2 min.) - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByJ4_6pL1xvpQ1d3RTZqaldCSUE
Full Video (30min.) - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByJ4_6pL1xvpaVNyay12Y09Oc0k
Mannequin still frame while relaxing after skiing:
