Greenland
Ski Touring & Snowboard Mountaineering Expedition
Greenland Ski Touring & Snowboard Mountaineering Expedition
25 April to 1 June 2018, Kulusuk, East Greenland
The following is an article that was written for the New Zealand Alpine Journal and was published in the 2018 edition.
Written by Rowan B, Photography by Rowan B and Soren Rickards
The sound of nylon fabric flapping in the wind was broken by the skull-piercing noise of the tent door suddenly being zipped open. It was 3am, the clouds had broken up a little, but the weather still hadn’t settled.
"It looks like it's beginning to close back in again," were Ryan's first words of the day as his half-opened eye assessed the morning through the gap in the tent door. Comfortable as it can be our cosy sleeping bags, we didn't really have any choice but to get up. We had run out of food so we had to pack up camp and go.
Two weeks prior we had set off from Kummiut, a small Inuit village situated near the head of the Amassilak Fjord, East Greenland. We dragged polkas (sleds) for several days heading North East toward a snow-clad, alpine labyrinth of glacier valleys that converged upon a single zone which offered us multiple riding options.
Snowboard/ski mountaineering was the focus of the trip and we were all impressed with the abundance of quality terrain that was on offer. We took advantage of the fine weather early on in the trip, which allowed us to explore the zone and ride some really nice lines.
However, the weather was crook for almost our entire second week in the alpine, which left us with little to do other than eat the food rations and chill out in the tent in between small weather clearances. We were camping underneath a rock, sheltering from the powerful storms that had been battering the region with heavy rain, snow and severe gale-force winds which could have easily flattened our tent had it been exposed. We scored good conditions in between storms and were hoping for a bonus clearance at the end of our alpine camping mission. The clearance never came and when the supplies ran out there was only one thing to do.
Returning to Kummiut meant we had to haul our gear and ourselves across 20km of snow-coated sea ice and 10km of undulating land, breaking trail in not so favourable conditions. "It's pretty warm," concluded Soren. "Oh well, hopefully it gets cold after this storm and the snow improves again." Air temperatures were at about 3 degrees Celsius and on the increase, it was sleeting steadily, wind blowing down from the north at about 25 meters a second and also increasing, flat white visibility.
Due to recent heavy rain 20cm of water lay on top of the sea ice, trapped there by being unable to drain off the sides of the expansive flat sheet.
“This is horrendous!” I mumbled as the water seeped right the way through into my snowboard boots. I could actually feel my soul being extracted out through the bottom of my soaked feet as we sloshed our way across. If you can imagine skinning across the mud at low tide in the Avon/Heathcote estuary, whilst dragging a truck tyre that's tied around your waist, that was what it would feel like.
It wasn’t all horrendous though, many incredible days were had. The storms were generally coming in hot and tapering out cold. Powder turns were going down! Springing up and out of bed was easy when I knew that in 20 minutes I would be blazing a crispy cold, fresh line right back down to camp. Riding perfect smokey powder definitely felt like the right thing to do as the sun rose at 3am, right after the storm had cleared!
Earlier on at our first camp, on one particular morning before all the major storm systems had arrived, we decided on riding the line right opposite the fjord from the tent. "It should be on, it’s in the shade, lee slope to a sprinkle of spin drift, let’s get up there and check it out?" Encouraged Shane. "Yeah man it looks good! Shall we take avalanche gear just in case?" The crew formulated a plan over morning coffee whilst squinting up at the line that we chose to climb and ride. "Looks like a bloody ripper!" Breakfast in bellies, skins on splits, we set off across the fjord then up an aspect and into an elevated bowl. At the bottom of the couloir we strapped the snowboards onto our backs, crampons onto our boots and began booting up the couloir which was safely holding good quality snow.
The line was a corner drainage embedded into a sharp granite ridge that featured interesting multiple stages. It varied in width and aspect angle and tended to gradually narrow and steepen toward the top.
Eventually the snowy couloir turned to mostly rock so we discussed whether we should continue to climb the not so rideable terrain. Curious animals as we are, we decided to continue to climb to the top, “just for a look.”
Turns out it was only 15 steep rocky meters to scale before we emerged atop the dramatic ridge on a long, thin island that was shaped like a sword poking up through the sea. To the north lay a pure white frozen fjord and to the south was an open sea fjord, complete with blue glacial icebergs mixed in with white sea icebergs.
Impressive was the easiest way to describe the landscape. Ancient glaciation once carved deep fjords into the solid granite bedrock that extends far out from the mainland. Hugging the east coast lies an archipelago of islands that are connected seasonally via sea ice which stretched out as far as we could see. Apart from the three Kiwi and one English snowboarders nothing created by man was visible anywhere. Beautiful sheer peaks and fjords dominated the landscape, decorated with ice and snow. Without even a breath of wind it truly was one of those moments that just felt surreal.
To top it all off, riding the couloir was epic. Heart pumping at full pressure, we dropped into fast sluff racing turns in the passage between the cliffs. Banked up snow sections on the walls begged us to hoon up and carve, which also helped us to check speed and keep an eye on the river of sluff that flowed down the concave fall line. Apart from Ryan's entry at the very top, which was a bold attack on the steep, 'not so rideable terrain' straight off the ridge, the line allowed us to rip it to bits with flowing turns all the way down and out onto the sea ice. What a day!
That skull-piercing tent zip noise at 3am is a distant memory now. However the epic riding, crack-up laughs and crazy good times keep playing through my mind over and over like a video on repeat. It certainly was a life-changing first trip to Greenland and I have a funny feeling that I will be back soon..
Thanks Shane Orchard, Ryan Taylor, and Soren Richards!
