Saturday 11 October 2008
time goes by ... so quickly!
I have once again neglected my blog, but I really have not had the chance or the courage to spend 5 minutes to write anything. I guess my problem is that I'm trying to squeeze too many things at once... especially since they there will be no more daylight in 2 weeks time! We have already passed the halfway mark of this semester, and I just haven't yet had the time to reflect on how lucky I am to be here.
It's still surreal. I mean, last night I was walking back home, looking at the stars and mountains ... and Svalbard is actually a pretty big island (62 000 km2 - similar to Ireland) ... there is so much to explore, thousands of polar bears, places people have rarely explored ... and yet here I am walking back from university in a microscopic town. I can't wait for more snow to arrive and for the scooter season to arrive.
Two weeks ago, I went for a walk back up to Trollsteinen since I had heavily snowed a few days before.
I couldn't believe how much the landscape had changed in such a short space of time. My face got frozen at the top as the wind was blowing quite hard.
Fast forward one week, and the Icebreaker Party was soon approaching (last Saturday). This is the biggest party of the semester, and all students take part in organizing it. I really didn't want a party to take up my entire weekend, and so I thought it would be a good idea going camping on Friday night, going up a mountain on Saturday morning, and then running back to Longyearbyen on time for the Icebreaker Party... and that's exactly what I did. Only one crazy person came along aka Maria.
On Friday afternoon (3rd) - right after lectures - we headed out with our heavy bags into Adventdalen. We also had to carried several liters of water with us, since there isn't enough snow in Adventdalen to melt, and the water streams are frozen. Our aim was to hitchhike down the road which would save us a few hours ... and luckily we found someone willing to give us a ride :). We crossed Adventdalen with ease (over frozen streams) and set up our campsite at the base of the Operafjellet range.
The aim was to go up Tenoren, this pointy mountain that I can always see from UNIS. It didn't look that bad on the map .... but how wrong was I ...
The first part of the ascent was really easy. As it got steeper we put crampons on. The snow was really bad though - just really really light and fluffy, covering annoying stones and rocks. It's difficult to explain, but we got to the first rocky bit of Tenoren (see above photo - it's much bigger than it looks on the photo) and walked along the ridge a bit ... but then came a point of no return. It wasn't that easy going along the ridge, nor was it very difficult, but turning back wasn't really an option (since it's easier going up than down - at least in this case). The problem was, the further we went the loser the rock became. We therefore decide the simply contour aroung the peak (and not get to the top) and simply get onto the other side. As we tried walking along, parts of the slope would simply crumble down the mountain. And there weren't just small rocks, but big ones too.
We looked at the map again and decided it would be best to just go up the mountain (literally) as once at the top there would be an easy ridge to come down. Afterall, the summit was only 30m above us ... but the most horrible 30m ever. Each step felt uncomfortable, but we eventually made it to the top. From then on it was ok, but neither of us enjoyed it.
We really didn't anticipate it, but I guess the conclusion is to always be careful. Once back down, we ran back to the road, called a taxi and headed back to Nybyen, and then went straight back down to UNIS on time for the Icebreaker Party (this semester's theme was High School).
Icebreaker Party - Gangsta High School Rap
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