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Diary
26.5.2008Location: 72 34.75 N, 38 27.79 W We reached the top. We headed out in the morning in almost total fog and were barely able to see our feet. After continuing in the light wind for forty minutes, we realized that we are going too much east, so we changed course and after seven kilometers some buildings started to appear from the mist. We were close. Around the Summit camp there are several "clean areas" which are surrounded by fences and just in the last second we noticed one and landed our kites in front of it.
There is everything a man needs here: fresh food, washing facilities, music, movies, good company (21 people) internet, phone and a sauna. We will spend two nights here and tomorrow we'll have a chance to get to know the activities in the camp. Hopefully we'll get to try the sauna as well, I don't think there will be another chance very soon. The Summit camp was built in the 90's by the US as a research center. The main activity has been the drilling through the ice all the way down to the ground. From these over 3500 meter drillings they have been able to study the climate changes in the last few thousand years and make comparisons to the climate changes we have now. There are altogether three such holes drilled around the camp. Nowadays there are personnel around the year at Summit, but most of the researchers and personnel spend their summers here and winters in the Antarctic which in fact is summertime there. It remains to be seen how this visit will affect our mental state regarding the expedition. But we are curious to see what is happening here and we welcome the hospitality offered by the personnel. This is probably the only time we will visit here so we'll make the most of it. As far as we (and the manager of the camp) know we are first Finns and anyway the second expedition to come this way. I once wrote that the memory of a man is short. After eating Vuorenmaa's cooking's for 35 days the meal here (fresh salad, meatloaf and rice) didn't taste that different. Although it was excellent, it was just a meal. The same goes for the shower. The first minute felt awesome but that is it. The conclusion is that a man only needs food for the energy and the shower is totally unnecessary. :-) 27.5.2008Location: 72 34.75 N, 38 27.79 W The day started a bit differently this time. We got up and walked from our tent to the main building 100 meters away, took coffee from the coffee machine and made some fresh sandwiches. We are heading out again tomorrow, so today we will get an introduction to the research and other activities here at Summit. As I said yesterday, they have drilled over 3500 meter deep holes into the ice and they have measured and analyzed temperatures and CO2 levels even from 250 000 years ago. New measurements are being done and the results show that while for hundreds of thousands of years the level of CO2 was 270, in the 70's it had risen to 320 and now we are just below 400. With these figures it's hard to deny mans effect on the climate. The rise in CO2 levels can be pretty much timed to the beginning of the use of coal and other fossil fuels.
A building crew is working on a new construction built to the clean area, 10 meters under the ice. Once completed, it will have a pipe to the surface to collect the particles from the air to be analyzed. There will be a special event in the evening. It will be the first time I will give a presentation about an expedition while still being on the expedition. And in English, which will be another first. We still have about 1100 km to the finish line and we are mainly going ski. We'll just use the kites first to get a little bit further down, since skiing with the heavy sledges in these altitudes is pretty tough. 28.5.2008Location: 73 34.34 N, 38 22.42 W We spent another night with very little sleeping, instead we were going through the events of the day. We even caught ourselves talking English to each other after spending a couple of days talking with the others in English. I had my presentation in the evening and it went quite well. I talked about our expedition so far and we had a good conversation afterwards. At 10 pm a couple of researchers came in after a day's work out in the cold. One of them was Crispin Day who has for example made the first ever kiting expedition from the South Pole to the coast. Also on that expedition was Will Steger who has received many awards for his work on arctic areas and global warming. We had long discussions about various subjects and we didn't get to our tent until well after midnight. In the morning we enjoyed some fresh sandwiches and packed up our gear. The whole crew was there to send us kiting towards the north. We were excited to get on our way, but also at the same time a little sad to leave the place. Once more big and warm thanks to the crew of Summit. We kept a steady 20 km/h kiting speed and enjoyed our ride. On the way we saw eight different flocks of birds, around 3000 birds altogether. Looked like they could belong to Alcidae family, at least the size and flying style would match. Although they shouldn't be here flying from east to west. Now that we have enjoyed some food other than what we brought with us, we can no longer be categorized as an unsupported expedition. The whole expedition has somehow changed its form after visiting all the places and seeing all the people. It has become sort of a sightseeing trip around Greenland. And there is more to come, but I'll write about that later. We thought about what this all mean in terms of our expedition and came to the conclusion that all the expeditions turn out to be what they turn out to be. They will find their own shape on the way. The places and the people have been more then interesting, so we'll keep on going and enjoying. 30.5.2008Location: 73 51.60 N, 38 57.20 W We've experienced some connection problems for the past couple of days, no messages coming in or going out. We don't know exactly what the problem was, the batteries were full and the equipment worked normally, but we just couldn't connect to the mailserver. One possibility is the poor reception with the Iridium satellite phone. We had to make some calls to sort out the email problem and calls kept breaking up. But at least now everything seems to be working again. Yesterday was quite windy. We measured wind speeds up to 15 m/s. We started skiing in the morning and continued throughout the day since it was warm and the wind was blowing from behind. The result of the day was a pleasing 19,6 km, the longest leg so far using only skis.
So far we've skied about 250 kilometers and the rest has been kiting. We decided to try to get over 1000 km of skiing under our belts on this expedition. If we get in a hurry we can take out the kites again, but the original idea was to stay here for 3 months so there is time. We have over 1000 km to go and we are not even half way through our three months. We'll see how it goes. We have had a lot on our minds lately with the connection problems, Summit visit and all. Both of us are thinking over and over again about the conversations we had in Summit, and since those were done in English we sometimes start talking to each other in English during the breaks. The connection problems have bothered a lot since there seemed to be no clear reason. €My daily thoughts are usually about the things I will write here in the journal and now that routine was broken. But earlier I wrote about breaking free of the city life and finding a piece of mind on this expedition. Now despite of all the problems I have found it. And just as I expected it happened when we are sort of starting the journey home. Thanks again for all the messages you have sent. We've had some catching up to do and it has been nice reading them now that the connections work again. A special Happy Birthday message to my godson Eeli on your 1st birthday on the 29th of May. First year is always the hardest. (Ask your dad to read this to you.) 31.5.2008Location: 73 58.54 N, 39 12.64 W It's Saturday May the 31st. Thousands of kids are finishing their school year. There is nothing quite like the summertime. Happy holidays to you all. I was singing the traditional school ending song in my head the whole day. It makes you feel like it's holiday time. This time I did it only in my mind since earlier I was singing with such volume that every other living creature within a mile ran away. Apart from Vuorenmaa, who admitted to having heard something resembling singing behind all the squeaks that the skis and sledges make. So I will continue signing in my mind.
The first few hours felt quite warm since there was no wind. The temperature was -12 degrees Celsius, but we still didn't have our shell jackets on. Around noon the wind picked up a little and it was getting colder. By the time we made camp again, after eight hours of skiing the temperature had dropped to -13,7. Tonight we will have one month of expedition behind us. There is still another month and some days of July ahead of us. Yesterday evening and this morning it was dead silent. No wind at all. Sometimes the silence sort of fills your ears with a humming sound. In the evenings you can clearly hear your own heart pumping or your beard brushing against the sleeping bag. Fortunately my beard is getting longer and softer so it will make less noise. A little injury report to finish today's journal. Vuorenmaa's knee is fine and now that we are skiing it is less demanding for the knee. Although skiing has its own effect on joints and muscles, only more subtle compared to fast pace kiting. Feet and toes are swollen almost all the time. I'm using just the Bridgedale liners during skiing, so there's plenty of room for the toes. 1.6.2008Location: 74 05.93 N, 39 24.48 W
We are in a downward slope, it is more or less impossible to notice it, but that does not change the fact that this is a downfill slope. Well, today we thought we saw some downhill slopes, but they might as well been upward slopes, so we decided not to try to detect any slopes for now. A rough calculation shows that we will descend one meter per each kilometre and this will continue for the next 500 km. One more thing about the Summit, there is a sauna there. And it seemed like a proper Finnish sauna and even had the proper smell. But we decided not to use it, because we didn’t want to wash off the protective layer of filth on our skins.
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We continued to the front of the main building of Summit camp and got a warm welcome. The personnel had heard about us from the people in Dye2 and knew we were coming their way. We got invited to lunch and were offered some beers along with a place to shower.
They are also measuring the ozone layer and CFC levels in the atmosphere as well as other emissions. We accompanied one researcher out into the clean area where he took samples from the snow to be sent to US for analyzing. They are looking for particles coming mainly from Europe.
This morning was quite the opposite, practically no wind at all. So we started skiing again and since the glide was somewhat poorer compared to yesterday, the result for today was a couple of kilometers less. We did just seven fifty minute legs on both days, so we seem to have a nice downhill now.
We were woken in the morning by a signing bird and it made it feel quite like summer. Pretty soon Vuorenmaa discovered that it was in fact a wheatear resting underneath a sledge. When we packed up our tent, the wheatear moved slowly into what appeared to be its’ final resting place.
The lowest temperature at night was –24 C. In the morning when we took off it was –17 C and in the afternoon when we stopped it was –14 C. The whole day we had partial headwind of 7 m/s. Despite of all that the day was one the most pleasant skiing days so far.
