Hi everyone,

I am pleased to say I have made my decision that today is going to be an awesome day and I hope yours is too 🙂

I have changed my mind on what I was going to write for this posting and decided to make it more of an album instead. I was looking through my photos the other day reminiscing and realised there were still a lot to share and many that would help provide a bit more substance and colour to the expedition overall.

So with that thought in mind I have included in this post a plethora of very cool happy snaps not yet seen, which I am sure you will enjoy and hopefully have a bit of a giggle with too. They are not in perfect chronological order but hey, I am sure you will manage 😉 A couple of sentences are included for each to set the scene as well:)

On the home stretch now, final Greenland blog to come… ENJOY!

 

1. Equipment check before packing and leaving London.

 

2. I left my Arc'teryx hardshell behind at Eggert after finishing my Iceland crossing to have a Siberian racoon buff added in time for my return in a couple of weeks, ready for the Greenland crossing. Big thank you Anna and Harper for your help and for doing such an amazing job on the buff. If anyone is ever in Reykjavik look them up and check out their shop!

 

 

3. Ready to fly out to Greenland and bumping into old friends Gaddi and Jón upon arriving at Kulusuk (my guides re Greenland kayaking expedition up the fjords to visit the Knud Rasmussen glacier).

 

4. Spending time with the fisherman on the frozen inlet of Tasiilaq with the mountains in the background, waiting for our supplies to arrive. Then seeing those mountains slowly disappear as we are heli lifted out two days later to the edge of the Hahne glacier to start our expedition.

 

5. Our ride out to the ice sheet, and looking all fresh ready to take on the world. Little did we know the storms Greenland was about to throw our way and that we would be one man down in a few days.

 

6. Oh how the weather can change. Good days, bad days…

 

7. Just another day with lots of cold, clouds, fog, wind and ice building up on everything everywhere.

 

8. Eric the Red! Our mad scientist team mate who regaled us many a night with his evil plans of taking over the world, one ice sheet at at time. …after taking bacterial samples from each of course 😉

 

9. The boundless joy of finding a packet of bacon in our food bag 11 days into the journey, and yes a dinner pack does indeed make a very good impromptu foot warmer before eating it.

 

10. Going off track slightly to an abandoned scientific station during our approach towards the western edge. The one place we could leave a marker for a cache of food for an expedition group 14 days or so behind us who were facing problems, not making good time and potentially going to run out of food. GPS coordinates sent back to head office and passed on, just hope the temperature doesn't get too warm otherwise the place could very quickly become a lake!

 

 

 

11. Cold days with -27.4 degrees, and javelin days with some well deserved sun! …albeit still a tad chilly.

 

 

 

12. Taking expedition bacterial swabs/samples from beard, hair, under-arm, feet and face for Eric the Red, to study and analyse back at the lab. Noooo, he's not mad, really. Plenty of anti-inflammatories to go around as well to try help our traumatised muscles and maybe enable some sleep *chuckle*

 

13. The torturous terrain when approaching the western edge and eventually trying to find an exit point out of the warren of blue ice. Very lucky to still have a bit of snow left so we didn't need to get the crampons out. Bit of bad luck coming out at the top of an ice cliff at one point, lucky for us our guide Robert did an awesome job navigating us around it and out.

 

14. After 27 days on the ice… we finally exit the ice sheet! East to West crossing of the Greenland ice sheet done! Yes, that does indeed deserve a beer 🙂

 

Keep on smiling!

ANT