yann in the arctic

Saturday, 21 February 2009

urg and yay

Nybyen this morning

doesn't stop some people ...

Monday, 16 February 2009

Svea

The season of adventures has arrived, and I really do not want to miss any of it! Apparently the sun now officially comes over the theoretical horizon (not that I have seen it yet) and so we are now getting a few hours a daylight every day (and increasing!).

After Bjørndalen, I still had another day or so off and decided to go to the other student cabin found in Svea, a coal mining settlement found 50km south of Longyearbyen. I actually went there with my class back in September. The only realistic way of getting there is by snow scooter or plane, and the students here at UNIS have an agreement with Store Norsk (the coal mining company) that if there are spare seats on the plane, then we can go for free. And that is exactly what we did.

The plane was tiny, but there were very few people in it. As we took off, we got to see the most incredible views under the most incredible light. I swear our trip was made worthwhile simply by taking this flight.

Boarding the plane

Flying over Svalbard :)

Wow

Just amazing ^^

We departed on Friday and landed back this morning (Monday) and so spent three nights in the cabin. When we got there the cabin was of course freezing, but because of the nearby mine, coal in available (for free) in a plentiful quantity. We got the fire started and soon the cabin was too warm - so warm we were almost suffocating.

Student cabin at Svea

Polar Bear footprints near the cabin

So over the weekend we went skiied close to the shore of the fjord and then closer to the mountains the next day. Nothing crazy, but it was just nice to be outside and away from Longyearbyen. We saw lots of reindeer and even some polar bear footprints - but no polar bear :( 

View from the cabin

Skiing on day 1

lol

At first Friday to Monday sounded like a long time, but it really went by fast. I've come back energised. The only drawback was that the cabin was found not too far from a mine, and so there was actually quite a lot of soot on the snow (not so nice when having to melt it to drink - but we just used juice concentrate to get rid of the foul taste). So next time it would be nice to find a more isolated cabin.

Last time I came to Svalbard, I was camping all the time. As much as I would love to have that experience again, it was also nice to sit down and relax at the end of the day, around a roaring fire. It also meant we could dry our clothes and have a more comfortable experience.

Arriving back in Longyearbyen, Monday morning

Thursday, 12 February 2009

bjørndalen

For some reason, as biologists, we had three days off this week. I'm not complaining. And so a few of us decided to hike over/spend the night in the student cabin in Bjørndalen.

I went there in the summer, and it took me less than an hour by bike. This time round it took us 3 hours! I can't say that it was that bad, but we were hiking along a road which was a bit dull at times... and it got dark quite quickly. We took a few pulks (sledges) which made it a lot easier.

The cabin is quite charming, but not very well insulated and I did keep my down jacket on pretty much the whole time. Even though we didn't stay long, the views were spectacular. It's like a whole new Svalbard has been revealed since it has been in darkness for so long, and the snow has finally covered the mountains.

Wednesday, 11 February 2009

ice cave

The Longyearbreen ice cave has finally been found and opened. It's basically a melt water channel inside a glacier. At the moment not too many tourists have been inside and so the marvelous ice formations are still relatively intact.

This year it is found quite some way up the glacier, and so took us nearly 2 hours or so to reach by ski (last Saturday) - but it was well worth it :). We got to a part which was a bit steep, but obviously very icy and so going down would have been easy, but not going back up - so we stopped there.

And then, a few days later, a few of us decided to go back - this time with some equipment and see how far we could reach. We got to the slippery slopes which was no problem, and finally reached what can only be described as a frozen lake. The ice looked pretty solid, but we could see some water seeping through. A few meters later we were presented with a small wall of ice, which we decided to climb. Going up was quite straight forward. However, the "frozen lake" ice randomly collapse and one of us (I was still hanging on the ice wall) went right through a layer of slush. Nothing too frightening except that he got very cold feet, which wasn't very fun especially since it took me ages to climb back down. When we (finally) got out of the ice cave, there was a mini whiteout and one of the scooters stopped working (obviously) so we had to toe it down with the other scooter. Overall we had just had a mini adventure :)

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

more twilight photos ^-^

Thursday, 5 February 2009

snow scooter course

Wednesday, 4 February 2009

Villmarkssenter

How cool. I have just come back from this place called "Villmarkssenter". It's basically the only ecotourism company here on Svalbard, and we visited it as part of the Arctic Environmental Management course I am taking.