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The Route
Our expedition will start on March
29th 2007 from Longyearbyen, the main settlement of Svalbard and
the kingdom of snowmobiles! We have planned our whole expedition
not to depend on these noisy and smelly machines, but only on
our legs!
We will first head out to the wild south,
skiing along the west coast. We will pass
by Svea, a small mining settelment, cross
two fjords: Vanmijenfjorden and
Vankeulenfjorden, which should be
completely ice covered at this time of
the year. We will then reach the big
glaciers of southern spitsbergen and
Hornsund. Hopefully, we could stop by the
polish research station and say hello!
Crossing Hornsund might be tricky, the
glaciers are full of crevasses and the
sea ice might be unstable. |
Click to enlarge
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Eventually,
we will reach the foot of Hornsundtind, one of
the most beautiful and remote alpine peak on the
archipelago. If weather allows, we will try
climbing it! Continuing south, we will then reach
Sørkapp our first goal.
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From Sørkapp we will
start our long trip north, along the wild
east coast. Bad weather, polar bears
expected! Around the end of april, we
will hopefully reach Inglefieldbukta, a
very special bay, where Vagabond, a polar sailing
boat stays overwinter. Eric and France,
the skippers of Vagabond, are the only
inhabitants of the east coast! They enjoy
the wild arctic life and offer a base
camp for scientists doing research in the
area.
Leaving Vagabond, we will continue north,
reach the glaciers and ice caps. Once up
on the big Lomonosov ice cap, we will try
to reach Atomfjella, which is a very
alpine moutain range. It is less remote
than Hornsundtind, a few people come
there to climb the nice peaks, but still
hundreds of km away from civilisation! |
Our
quest to the northernmost point will continue on
Åsgardfonna, a 60km long ice cap! By mid may, we
should reach the 80° North, and finally,
Verlegenhuken, the northernmost point of the
island. After such a long journey, we will have
to turn back south unfortunatelly!! We will ski
down to Pyramiden, an abandonded russinan mining
settlement, reaching the ice-free west coast.
From Pyramiden, a boat might pick us up to get
back to Longyearbyen, unless the conditions are
good enough to hike/padle back to town, around
isfjorden :)
Can you imagine how good beer is going to taste
after 2 months on the ice!
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