I promised to take him caving. The only problem: June is not necessarily the best month to go caving in a tidewater glacier. 1-1.5 m of icy water and slush were filling the cave entrance when we arrived. At least I now know that these… Read More »Did someone say cave?
Practicing and testing different types of snow anchors. I had hoped for some realistic practice of breaking through a cornice and jumping down a canyon to test the rope team. But, as we didn’t manage to get on the glacier, a slope had to do.… Read More »Practicing the ropes
Trying to reach a small glacier nearby today to practice crevasse rescue under real conditions. In summer it takes me around one hour to walk there. Well, early June is not quite summer yet when the snow is still blowing in your face. Walking with… Read More »Wet feet
The weather forecast promised sun, instead we got rain and horizontally blowing snow. A good opportunity to organize and prepare equipment for the coming weeks of intense and busy fieldwork. Testing timelapse cameras, preparing survey equipment, charging batteries and assembling a mooring. The cage on… Read More »May I present? The mooring
When you bring a french field assistant and he puts together his glacier safety equipment…
Another of those exciting unpredictable Arctic days. Starting out at 6 am with a luggage drop in the harbour for boat transport. 15 m/s wind, snow, ran, fog, 6 m waves. No idea if our equipment would even make it. In the afternoon everything calmed… Read More »Unpleasant surprises
No pictures from our shooting training today. Instead I’ll finally tell you what we are up to in the coming two months. It’s a slightly more complex project this time, which took me about 10 months and a lot of proposals to put together. We’ll… Read More »The plan
We’ll spent the coming weeks working a lot on small boats, so it’s time for some safety training. Practicing swimming in the emergency suits, climbing in boats and man over board. And of course not all the suits keep all the water out. At least… Read More »Safety training
Loads of luggage, nose pocking and a 10 day hotel quarantine for one team member later, we made it to Longyearbyen. Now a few days break before heading further to Ny-Ålesund on Thursday.
You’ve probably seen all these beautiful pictures of people packing for expeditions: Everything beautifully sorted and tidy. Well that’s not my packing approach. I’d rather pile up everything and then start figuring out how I can squeeze it all in. Trying to pack for a… Read More »So much gear