Wildlife

Just got back from a two day trip back over to Gurreholm. Another night spent there, making four for me this season. This time the weather was fine and it was much nicer there with only four of us and no clients. We were there because we were delivering a load of equipment for Leo Houlding who has an expedition to climb something big and hard this summer. We made a depot of kit near SydKap so a helicopter can ferry it to to his base camp, greatly decreasing flying time and therefore cost.

  Equipment depot by Sydkap huts.

 Just as we came over the hill to the Gurreholm hut, about 300mts away, we saw three polar bears there, a mother and two cubs. Great excitement and out came the camaras. I had only seen one once and the others had never seen one. Alex wanted to pat their furry bottoms! The bears moved away as soon as we came into sight and wandered off onto the sea ice and away to the icebergs. They had smashed a few windows which was a bit of a shame and we made sure we had the gun inside the hut and always went outside with a flare.

Polar bears at Gurreholm

Polar bears wandering off to the icebergs

Polar bear watch

Polar bear tracks

When we got to the huts at SydKap to depot the kit, many of the windows in those huts had been smashed by a bear. I wonder if it was the same one?

 Polar bear damage to hut windows

Raven prints

We also got some good views of these prehistoic like Musk Ox on the way back over Jameson Land. There are often groups feeding on moss and roots, but mostly in the distance. These two were right by the track. I walked closer to get a better look while they just stood there.  The others thought I was going to get charged!

Wind, glaciers and broken skidoos

We had a good journey the other day over to the east of Liverpool Land to deliver an equipment depot for West Lancashire Scouts who are coming in the summer. There were at least four sledge loads of kit to carry and the depot site was a long way up a glacier which had to be accessed from the east coast of Liverpool Land. We had to get across Liverpool Land and we used a valley called Kalkdal which cuts right across it. This was the first time we had used my glacier travel system for a long journey on a glacier and we took the opportunity to traverse a number of glacier systems, going up one glacier and coming down a different one back into Kalkdal.

 

It all seemed to work well apart from the descent down the last glacier, where Paul seemed to burn his brakes out down the steep hill.

 Recceing route up glacier snout

 Lunch stop before roping up

 

 Roping up skidoos for the glacier

 Laying depot

 Ready to leave depot to travel further up the glacier

 

 Decent back down into Kalkdal

View from rear skidoo. The black pipe over rope is to stop damage should you run over it.

A bit of a stop to operations in otherwise fine weather came when a strong wind sprang up covering everything in spindrift for a couple of days. Work outside was impossible, so we spend the day in the Weather Haven. The main problem however, was the amount of spindrift piling up against the door threatening to trap us inside. It was having to be dug out every 15mins, clearly a task that needed sorting. The solution was to cover the pit by the doorway with upturned sledges forming a little cave with a small entrance with a snow cute that you had to slide down to get in.

After the wind. - Sledge roof to stop door drifting up from spindrift.

  

Emerging from the tunnel

The other excitement was that one of the four skidoos completely blew up on the way to Leo's kit depot at Sydkap meaning we had to abandon it and carry a passenger for most of the journey. Once we had got rid of Leo's kit we picked it up on the way back and loaded in on to our special rescue sledge which worked well, towing it back to CNP at about 30kmph. Two skidoos down, three to go!

Lashing the broken skidoo onto the rescue sledge.

Busy Week

It all started with a telephone call one evening. We had got the Staunings group delivered and the next day was relaxed with all the staff looking at roped glacier travel systems and practicing driving whilst roped up. We then all practiced steep slope driving, going up down and across slopes and turning round on slopes as if you were going to get stuck.

Steep slope driving

 Three journeys in the last week - 600 kms

Then the telephone call. The Staunings group had been avalanched in the afternoon and although no one was seriously hurt, all their skis had been lost and they were facing a 6 hour walk back to camp in deep snow. They got back after midnight very tired. Understandably they wanted out, but were uninjured apart from a twisted knee and various bruises and sprains. They were also safe back at camp with two weeks of food and fuel and effective comms.

Avalanche started at the top of the slope

A 6 hr descent without skis in deep snow

With these facts, we started planning the evacuation. We needed two days of fine weather to get over to them and recce a new route all the way up to camp to bypass the river gorge. We had dropped them short the day before in poor light when we were stopped by blue ice in the river gorge. We also had a group of 12 French military to transport from Ittoqqortoormiit the next day.

Traveling trough sea ice on the way to Ittoqqortoormiit

The trip to Itto. was fairly smooth running, just quite a number of stops when the poor overloaded Doos started overheating. We used a lovely fellow called Ole from the village, for a fifth skidoo who was very helpful and accommodating.

Ittoqqortoormiit

The French team on a rest stop

The weather for the next few days was not favorable to go back to the Staunings; good on Monday morning and then cloudy afternoon and bad on Tuesday with snow. After much discussion, we decided to go for it early on Monday and the four of us made good progress and were due to get to Gurreholm in about 4 ½ hours. 10 km from Gurreholm, the light went flat. Finding the track was almost impossible and it took us another two hours to get there.

Flat light forced us to stop

Refulling at Gurreholm 

While refueling at Gurreholm the sun came out again so we continued, finding a new route round the river gorge and reaching the Staunings team by about 4.00pm The light was going again and two of us had to skidoo 3kms further up and then walk up on snowshoes to retrieve a rucksack they had left on their 6 hour walk out. It wasn’t until 7.30 pm that we got back to Gurreholm after nearly 12 hours of traveling.

Old boots at Gurreholm

Due to poor weather, we were now stranded for the next day at Gurreholm, a scientific research station built in 1937 and now a bit ruined.

Cooking dinner at Gurreholm

Most of the rooms are full of snow with only a couple fit for living. Four of the seven of us had to sleep on the floor which was pretty disgusting; covered in snow, water, ice, sand and food, but a tent mat made it a bit better for lying on.

 A day spent in bags waiting for the weather to improve

Clearing ice from the tracks

 

 Satellite phone call to check the latest weather

By 12.00pm on Wednesday the light became good enough to travel. We needed good contrast for the first section, which went over numerous valleys and in poor light we could easily drive over a cornice. After 5 hours we got back to CNP, out with only a few stops to sort overheating skidoos, three days after setting out.

No rest yet. We had to set out again the very next day to take a group out to the top of the glacier in North Liverpool Land 100kms away. After 10 minutes, I noticed on a Doo, that one of the plastic sliders that the track runs on, had completely meted through.  Back to base to put the last spare in, but this meant that we were not away again until after 2pm.

When we got to the glacier, we used our roped travel system to put a safe track 9 kms to the top and over the other side to the groups camp site and then had to ferry the group and their kit in several journeys resulting in 2 broken drive belts. It all took time and we were not on our way home until 9.30pm and only got back at midnight. Fortunately the weather was perfect in the evening with wonderful views across the mountains from the top of the glacier.

 Removing ropes from glacier travel system at final camp

 Stowing ropes at campsite

 Returning to CNP at about 9.00pm

Route back to CNP

Back in the saddle

I got back to Constable Point last week after a couple of weeks back in the UK. We set off next day for one of the bigger journeys of the season, taking 3 people up to the Staunings Alps area; a round trip of nearly 300 kms.



We had to go a different route from last year due to the uncertainty of the sea ice conditions. Instead of going straight to the Fuel Depot, we cut straight across to Gurreholm, a ruined scientific station. We had traveled this route in reverse last year with light loads and had great difficulty crossing some of the numerous valleys, so with full loads and a group of three, we were a bit concerned if we would make it. We also could not overnight at Sydkap due to the poor sea ice, so we were to 'bivi' in the one useable room at Gurreholm that wasn't full of snow. We also had to take 200 lts of fuel to supply us for the return trip and for the pick up in a couple of weeks time.

At the Red House where we dropped 50 lts of fuel off. We were supposed to be going with 4 skidoos so we could keep the loads on each lighter, but as we were de-icing the undercarriage in the morning we discovered a broken shock absorber.  With no spare to replace it we had to start off with heavier loads and only 3 skidoos and 3 clients .

Negotiating one of the steeper slopes in a valley that we had to cross.

Scouting the route ahead.

 

 One one slope my drive belt broke with a large bang, but Claire enjoyed replacing it with a spare and we were on our way in 15 minutes again.

On some of the valleys we had to cross, the skidoos with the heavier loads had to have several attempts to get up. On this one we got stuck and had to dig the skidoo out and get the sledge back to the bottom for another go.

After 8 hours on the go we reached Gurreholm and spent more time digging out the doorway and refuelling the skidoos. There were polar bear tracks all around the hut and this window which was broken, we hoped, was not big enoiugh to let one in!

Evening sunset at Gurreholm looking across Scorsbysund

Next day we were up at 6.00 am and reached the valley called Gurreholmdal by 10.00 am where our group wanted to go. Last year we had got a group 11kms up this, but this year after only 2kms we were stopped by blue ice and slush. With poor light and no contrast we were in no position to be looking for another route in, so we dropped the group here and they skied in.

 Unloading sledges before the group pack up to ski in.

 Tackling a steeper slope in poor light

The weather improved during the day which meant that following our tracks back was quite easy and with lighter loads we made good progress, getting back to CNP by 4.00pm. We saw numerous Musk Ox on the way home.

 Claire taking a rest break