Day 23 of the expedition
Distance traveled: 41.7 km / 25.9 mi
Position: N 67'11.333' W048,35.093'
Elevation: 1398 m / 4,557 ft

Lately we've been travelling at night when the temperatures are cool and travel conditions fast. At 11 p.m. the winds still hadn't picked up, so we strapped on our cross-county skies and headed down the gradual slope, starting our decent off the ice cap.

After our first break the winds increased and we quickly unrolled our kites. Eager to make some ground, we sailed on a down wind tack with our largest kites. But progress was drastically slowed as we started to encounter more and more ponds of melt water.

Ever year in the summer on the coast of the ice cap, the temperature warms enough to melt out systems of rivers and lakes.

Roughly a hundred years ago when Nansen and his team became the first to cross the ice cap, their only source of water was what they were able to melt with their body heat. So when they encountered the melt ponds, they were excited to finally have all the water they wanted. However for us the water meant slower progress.

The first melt ponds we encountered were frozen, but as we dropped elevation and the temperatures became warmer we zigzagged our way around open lakes and flowing rivers. To add to the excitement as the slopes became steeper, the crevasses were more common.

After 8 hours of travel, we found the perfect runway. The winds were still blowing steady, so before erecting camp we took some time to kite and enjoy our last day on the ice cap, before getting picked up tomorrow.

Sarah

Day 18 of the expedition
Distance traveled: 0km / 0 mi
Position: N 66,50 W 047,17
Elevation: 1,774 m / 5,820 ft

No wind. That's probably the best way to sum up the last few days. Slightly un-enjoyable is another way to put it. Given the bad weather, a mix of head winds and snow that melts on contact, we have largely been confined to our tents. This confinement has its positives though, it gives us time to relax, read, charge our various batteries, film, and contemplate our futures. And when we have exhausted the joyfulness in these activities we can always resort to skiing.

We are easily a leisure 3 days ski from our point of departure, and a mere 8 hours by kite. Its staggering to note the difference, it makes one question whether skiing is even worth it, and we do pose the question often. As a general strategy we only ski to get to a location where we think there will be better winds, or out of pure boredom. We are quickly approaching the threshold of the second criteria.

Myself, I have spent these last few days enjoying the rest, reading a book regarding the future of electric vehicles and charging the variety of appliances in our possession using two Brunton solar panels. Currently they are strapped to the top of our hilleberg tent, and when wired in parallel they provide 28 watts of power. Inside the tent we have a solo battery pack which when fully charged has a capacity of 153 Wh, more than enough to power our satellite phones, palm pilots, music players, camera batteries, GPS, and even a small speaker. If this ever fails to be enough power we brought along, purely as an experiment, a 400 watt wind turbine.

Eric McNair-Landry

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This dispatch was created and posted using Dispatch 1.0 - an expedition dispatch software developed by The Will Steger Foundation and Global Warming 101 Expeditions.

Day 15 of the expedition
Distance traveled: 58 km / 36 mi
Position: N 66,50 W 047,17
Elevation: 1774 m / 5,820 ft

Having spent a few days at Dye 2 it was great to travel again today. The winds were straight at our backs and it was nice cruising for 58km (36 mi). We now only have some 80km (49 mi) to the west coast, a distance we can easily do in a day. During the last part of our trip we will focus on testing equipment and training further on both skisails and kites. The snow is becoming increasingly rotten. Without skis we sink down over our knees and it can be difficult to move from tent to tent.

The skis that we use while kiting and skisailing are alpine or backcountry skis. These types of skis are all derived from the traditional Norwegian Telemark skis. Telemark is a rugged and hilly county in Norway and the conditons there meant that the local skiers developed a ski that was shorter, lightly carved and was easy to turn. These skis became popular in Norway in the late 19th century although they had been used in Telemark for centuries.

The skiers from Telemark were superior in competitions for many decades in the early years of the skiing sport. Legends like Sondre Norheim became famous internationally for his skills, and in particular, his ski jumping skills.

The skis that we use when we haul are longer and straighter than the Telemark skis. This is to get a better glide towards the flat horizon on the ice cap. While hauling there is no need to make sharp turns and a longer and uncarved ski is therefore an asset.

All good on the ice cap.

Toby

Expedition day: 15
Distance traveled: 126 km / 78 mi
Position: N 66,29.482' W 046,18.260'
Elevation: 2097 meters / 6,879 ft

The winds started to gradually increase as we ate breakfast. Eager to move as soon as the winds had reached a high enough speed for us to travel, we were out of the tent unrolling our kites.

The sun was out and for a change we kite-skied through the day, enjoying the sun and warm weather. With steady winds, a flat surface and an inch of powder snow, the conditions couldn't have been more enjoyable. These moments were what I loved most about Greenland!

After a full eight hours of travelling, a black dot appeared on the horizon. Within a couple more hours we approached the abandoned building of Dye-2. Built during the cold war by the Americans, it was part of a chain of 5 buildings that acted as distant early warning stations. In the late 80's, the building was quickly abandoned, according to rumors due to structural stability.

Twenty years later, Dye-2 still stands abandoned and out of place, slowly the snow drifts pilling up higher and higher. But there is life a couple kilometers to the West at Raven camp were two people are stationed for 5 months of the year to maintain a snow runway, were Hercules aircraft pilots practice landing on snow.

Tired after a long day, we erected camp just beside the old building and got some rest.

We were woken early the next morning from the sounds of a plane landing and taking off. The winds were blowing, but we had other things to do on our agenda. We dug out our head lamps and ventured up the rusty stair case into Dye-2. The place was abandoned very rapidly, and everything was left in place; eggs in the fridge, food in the kitchen and spare parts in the storage rooms. The paint peeling off the walls gave the building an eerie feel. We made our way from floor to floor, through the bar to the living area until we reached the top dome, where inside is a huge satellite dish.

After our venture inside Dye-2, we headed over to say hi to the two people stationed at Raven Camp, before calling it a day, and crawling back into our sleeping bags.

Sarah

Day 11 of the expedition
Distance traveled: 133.9 km / 83 mi
Position: N 66,30.532 W 043,28.892
Elevation: 2,488 m / 8,162 ft

We grew restless of staying still and in the absence of winds we were forced to ski. In six hours of skiing we managed a decent 27 km (17 mi).

This last night we managed to do much better with the aid of the winds, of course. We are now cruising at 2488 m (8,162 ft) of elevation, just high enough to feel the difference in our kites, and in our lungs. This will probably be as high as we will get, from here we cross over the saddle and start our decent on the west side. This is by no means the highest point in the ice cap though; at its summit the ice cap is more than 3 km (1.86 mi) high.

Above us a flurry of planes travel from Europe to the eastern United States and back, their east-west contrails leaving the sky scarred. There is growing evidence that these trails are having an impact on global climate, as part of a larger phenomenon known as global dimming.

Above the planes at an even higher altitude are an elaborate arrangement of satellites. A vast array of over 60 satellites make up the Iridium Satellite Communications network, others support our GPS, and currently two identical satellites are measuring the mass of the Greenland ice cap. These two are GRACE, an advanced system that measures the change in gravity around our planet. Using this information scientists can tell roughly if the ice cap is loosing or gaining mass, and while the system needs a bit more tuning, all the data that has been collected shows that Greenland is indeed losing ice.

Eric McNair-Landry