Snowflakes greeted me first thing this morning when Jason’s voice probed me to jut my head out of the tent. Soft flakes of white floated around as a very sleepy me looked on with wonder. I spotted a couple of curious mountain hares. The sun wasn’t out, the snow stopped falling and Adam was back with the 4WD. He brought hot chocolate and bagels along with generator power to charge our dead batteries whilst Jason and Dan watched a piece of ice, for hours, which never fell. We packed our tents and gear, and headed off for another great adventure.
We filmed the 4WD maneuvering over the hilly sand banks and headed off towards the polar ice cap. En route we passed two long lakes and a small settlement, which looked like a picture perfect tourist site. Adam remarked that the first Inuit to come to Greenland had settled here. Hunting has always formed a major part of survival, and the Inuit relied on their instincts to hunt. There were no guns in those days though, and reindeers were the easiest prey and the tastiest meat. Adam elaborated, the Inuit used to drive reindeers to the top of a mountain, corner them, and make them jump off by forcing them to commit ‘suicide’.
We spotted a reindeer grazing away lazily, and Jason wanted to shoot it in action. Adam is not just an amazing driver but great with animals and nature. He made some deer ‘calls’- deep guttural high-pitched sounds- and true to his claims, the reindeer responded by jumping. The reindeer frolicked around either probably alarmed or overjoyed and balancing the 800mm against a rock, Jason got some shots of it. Without a long lens, I enjoyed the moment and looked around, taking shots of the area. There was a group of Musk Ox on the other side of a lake, on our next stop. I had a 70-200 on, but with the distance between us, it wasn’t much use, and I resorted to shooting landscape.
After a 30-minute drive from the last lake, Aujuitsup Tasia (imagine having to write its correct spelling in a geography exam!), we reached the base of our hiking trail. Adam parked the 4WD and we headed off for our great polar ice cap trek. I was quite excited about the idea of hiking on rock solid ice. Reaching the ice cap was not easy, involving kilometers of hiking through rolling hills where grass grew in all shades of red, yellow and green - sinking my feet a little, making walking painfully slow but pleasurably lovely. After the tiring but beautiful heather walk, the site of the Glacier flanked by a huge lake greeted me, renewing me with determination to go on further. The next stretch of walk involved braving loose sand, scree, uneven terrain, and boulders ready to leap off. And I soon had my first tumble.
A while later, I saw Simon, who always managed to reach ahead of all of us, waiting for us as he feverously dug onto a rock. Presenting me with a small stone he smiled, the little rock was Garnet. Greenland’s souvenir, out in the open! It was incredulous to look at the two Greenlanders, looking at the stone with nonchalance. Rocks like this elsewhere would have been swiped off clean.
Few mountainsides later, we stopped for a while, filming Jason as it started to snow again. I took a moment’s rest as it snowed. Hiking through lateral moraines, debris deposited along the side of the glacier, - the path was incredibly slippery and after crossing a small stream, we reached the base of the polar ice cap.
After the Antarctic Ice Sheet, Greenland Ice sheet is the second largest in the world and covers 80% of the country’s region. Without sampling this vastness up close, my Greenland adventure would not be complete, and I was naturally excited.
Aputsiaq and Adam helped me put crampons, which was like wearing six tiny pointed heels underneath your shoe. Each metal ‘heel’ helped scrape off the ice, aiding walk, where otherwise we would have been sliding from the lack of friction. Hiking on ice was a great adrenaline rush.
The vast expanses of ice, stretching on for miles, met the horizon. I was reminded of sea and its flowing vastness. Here, solid water also flowed, in frozen stretches. The whites from snow and ice had a false sense of softness to it. Looking in the distance, it felt like a spread of white fluffy cotton. Up close, walking in a file, we had to check its solidness with our walking stick before every step. I checked one landing ice, over which two others had already passed, but what seemed solid to my stick, hardly contained the weight of my left foot, and cracked. With one shoe immersed in icy cold water, I lost my balance and had my second treacherous fall, to which several cameras fired simultaneously. My socks were wet, it was cold outside, and now, and I felt miserable but we couldn’t help laughing.
Walking on ice and shooting did not go well together. Stopping for a shot meant holding up everyone behind you waiting; digressing from the trail meant, not knowing which crevasse you might end up in. Adam was infuriated, and at one point asked me to pick between my life and photography.
Maneuvering deep crevasses and pressure ridges, I was tired, and my back was painfully sore but I wanted to see more. Adam alarmed us with bad weather warnings from the hissing sounds of a howling wind in the distance. We had to stay put. But Jason with his insatiable urge for better, went on ahead with Adam for more, disappearing across the ice cap as we waited filming the area.
A while later, we hiked back. It was like a forced march in the darkening and worsening weather. Hiking back meant walking like a Cowboy, without a Cowboy’s élan, battling cold, bending your knees to maintain balance. On the walking trail back, I was eager to stop and take photographs. But it the end it was either I reach the 4WD back in time, or by take photographs and get left behind. Sometimes, you wish you had longer legs and stronger stamina.
We hiked out of the darkness and raced back along tundra tracks to town where a café had stayed open to feed the crew, we were VERY grateful. With pizzas parceled, back at the hostel, we sat eating and drinking. And just like that, one petite woman and four Aussie men, toasted to a great day and its heightened adventures.
