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Diary
12.5.2008Location: 65 55.66 N, 46 10.18 W It was kind of a boring day being pulled by the kite. The wind speed was very low in the morning, but we tried kiting anyway and achieved relatively good speed. At least three times faster compared to skiing. We are trying to avoid comparing kiting and skiing speeds; otherwise we might skip skiing altogether. But if you think that 120 kilometres is probably the maximum achievable distance per day with our skills, the distance covered today is kind of disappointing. It is just that in the morning the expectations are so high that when we realize around noon how far we have actually gone it brings the spirit down.
We haven't really felt hungry yet. Sure we have lost some weight, but it hasn't made us graving for more food. At the moment we are more or less avoiding eating our current rations. Once a week we do major cleaning to get all the crumbs and uneaten bits from our main supply bag (includes food and miscellaneous equipment needed in the tent) and load it with a new 15 kg batch of food supplies. We did that on Saturday evening and noticed that a JetA1 canister had leaked into the supplies in Vuorenmaa's sledge. So this week's food rations have a peculiar taste. The dinner consists traditionally of minced meat, veggies and spaghetti. Lately we've been adding some blood bread and cheese soup mix for taste. Even some garlic sometimes, but this week's spice is JetA1 fuel. You can eat it with holding your nose, but it is not exactly a treat. Of course we should have tested the canisters beforehand, but now we just have to hope that the other food rations haven't been contaminated so we don't turn into human rockets. 13.5.2008Location: 66 29.86 N, 46 17.13 W We made a personal kiting record today when we raced towards the Dye2 base achieving 63,7 km in just four hours.
We went over those well maintained runways using our kites (perhaps being the first Finnish people to do that) straight to the base headquarters. One of the personnel, joyful laughing woman came out and welcomed us to the base. She showed us a place to put up our tent and where to find the toilet and other facilities with such routine that we had to ask if getting such visitors was a regular event. She admitted that there is a group coming almost daily. Seems things have changed from the days of Boucht-Pihkala expedition back in 1966 when there was hardly anybody trekking on the basic trail. After leaving our gear to the designated area we skied to the Dye2 radar. We went in and climbed to the 1st floor re-enacting the scene from Mr. Boucth's description from the 1966 expedition. Vuorenmaa was playing the role of Mr. Boucht while I was operating the camera. But when he opened the door (the one on the left side) instead of running into the personnel we stumbled into a room with pile of adult magazines lying around. We continued exploring the 1st floor including the kitchen area where apparently some trekkers had spent the night using the mattresses left in the station along with everything else. I don't know the reason for it but it seems common to leave everything including the trash as is when a place like this is vacated. We noticed the same thing in the former Russian station Pyramiden in Svalbard. I doubt fifty expeditions a year would manage to litter the place more. One could also wonder why the whole base was built here anyway, but let's leave it at that.
When we were exiting the radar building three French guys showed up with kites from the south. They were heading to Qaanaaq and had been trekking since 1st of May. They had food supplies left for 32 days and with five kites per trekker, that should do it. When we got back to the camp site there were more trekkers coming. This time from the east, two German guys who started their trek from Isortoq and were following the basic trail. They are nice guys and we will continue chatting with our new neighbours in the evening. We had already started talking that maybe we should continue our trek today because of all the comings and goings, but we decided to stay for the night here in the center of Greenland and start our journey towards the highest point in the morning. 14.5.2008Location: 67 18.00 N, 45 38.94 W Yesterday evening was spent in the comfort of Lou's and Mark's (part of the personnel at Dye2) home, if you can call it that. It seems to be more of an open house. They have had already this season 55 trekkers visiting and an equal number of other guests. I guess they'll never have time to feel lonely.
So big thanks to Lou and Mark for their hospitality and greetings to the other guests.
We turned our backs and distanced ourselves from the noise and hassle of the airbase. The wind had settled into 9 m/s SE so we decided to try the kites. And it wasn't bad at all. After 7,5 hours we were almost 100 km from the Dye2 base and the air was clean from the JetA1 fumes again. That of course changed when we set up camp and took out our own JetA1 flavored food rations. I will conclude this time with a small list of current injuries. Vuorenmaa is fine with the exception of dodgy knees, my little toe is still hurting. I wrote about my back problems earlier but thanks to regular stretching exercises every evening it is fine. It's round 3 with the facial sunburns. 15.5.2008Location: 67 25.36 N, 45 27.48 W After a good night sleep we headed out around 10 am. It had been snowing all night and it was totally calm. The temperature was around +5 degrees Celsius and it was grey, just a hint of the horizon was visible. We figured it would be hard to ski on the fresh snow, but the sledges glided well and it was nice to ski for a change after several days of kite skiing. We also applied some glide wax to prevent the snow from sticking to the sledges.
While skiing I let my thoughts wonder and I felt like I was in a time machine. In my mind I was resting in my own bed at home, then I was building a shed at my summer cottage and a few times I even saw us already in Qaanaaq. The most important thought concerned the breakfast this morning, just a couple of cups of coffee and some blueberry soup. Thanks to the JetA1 fuel flavor we didn't feel like eating anything else. I decided that we have to get proper food and the proposition met no resistance from Vuorenmaa. So we opened up a new food package which didn't have any extra spices. This pack also included some special treats. We were feeling festive and ate a packet of salami. Thanks for all the messages received from friends and strangers. 16.5.2008Location: 67 35.76 N, 45.21.85 W We started the morning in -20 degrees temperature. The sledges made such a noise that Vuorenmaa was struggling to hear his classical music from the headset. Eventhough the low squeeky sound of the sledges is almost music to the ears, it doesn't really go well with the classical tunes. We skied for an hour and pulled out the kites, but the wind died down after only 8 kilometres. So the rest of the day we skied in the calm weather with the sun keeping us quite warm, even without the shell layer coat. I probably haven't told yet that we are now heading to our second pitstop, the Summit research base. It is situated on the highest point of Greenland. There are around 25 researches and maintenance people working there. In the Summit base and the neighbouring Grip base they have drilled into the ice over 3500 metres deep. There is still something like 614 km to go, so we are hoping to reach it in three weeks. It is possible that our progress is too slow to have time to visit the base, but hopefully we'll make it. I have tried to figure out what Vuorenmaa is thinking while we are skiing, but so far it has been difficult and even more difficult to remember his scattered thoughts once we have made camp. So I will continue my monologues for now.
We have what we consider to be the best choice in socks from liners to woollen socks and they are perfect for the job. And they are important keeping the feet warm. There are of course other just as important equipment and things that make this whole journey possible to go through. I was actually more thinking about the socks I have back home in my sock drawer. Almost all of them seem to have a hole or two. Is it because of the way my wife runs the household? No, absolutely not. When I was younger I use to wear the good socks first in day to day life and once they were worn enough I would put them aside to be used in trekking. The same applied for other clothing as well. Once they were permanently stained or otherwise worn out, they would become trekking clothes. Nowadays it's the other way round. For trekking I have the expensive socks and for other use the ones with the holes. I was wondering if it would make a difference in the long run if I would make long term planning and preparations for life the same way as for these expeditions. Maybe even buy some new socks, would that make journey of life more pleasant. 17.5.2008Location: 68 03.61 N, 45.03.94 W We started kiting straight away in the morning. It felt really cold especially for the feet. First time I felt my legs was after a couple of hours. But we did progress nicely. The wind was mere 4 m/s from the east, but since it was side wind, with the wing shaped kite we were able to get good speeds. The wind died after about 6,5 hours so we decided to call it a day and have our washing up session today instead of tomorrow.
And as if the washing up wasn't enough, we also did some laundry. We decided not to take 12 pairs of socks for the expedition; instead we took 4 pairs and some laundry powder. The powder takes less space than 8 pairs of socks. As a washing machine we use a Minigrip plastic bag. Our trek started a little less then month ago and we were roughly on the same level as the town of Hämeenlinna in Finland. Now we are going somewhere slightly above Muonio level. I guess there is hardly any snow in Finland left apart from the Kilpisjärvi area. But here we have plenty. There is enough for washing and even for drinking. I've heard that the Inuit people have a couple of hundred different names for different types of snow. We usually have just two: good and bad. The good snow is such that is easy to melt a pan full of water and it is easy to ski on. The bad snow is the opposite. 18.5.2008
Today we used the kites the whole day. It was pretty rough. Soon after we took off a cloud covered us and at times we did not see each other at all. It got worse later on and the one leading in the front couldn’t see anything at all. So we had to proceed by what we could feel under our feet and it was some what challenging. The sun hardly sets anymore. Today sun sets at 23:33 and rises at 02:00. Within a week the sun will not set at all. After we left Dye2 the snow has turned soft. A storm or hard wind would make the surface better.
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Usually at this stage in an expedition we are getting in to a racing feeling and start rushing towards the finish line. Now we have to pace ourselves and take one day at a time. After all there are still some two thousand kilometres to go.
Dye2 is an old unused US radar base. But it is not abandoned, the US Air Force uses two runways built aside the base for practicing take off and landing in arctic surroundings. They are using giant Hercules cargo planes which are used to service the various research bases in the Antarctic.
We climbed via the residential floors up to the radar dome itself, the white blob in the picture. The other picture is taken inside the dome. We found evidence that other Finns have visited the place before us. The advert of Länsiväylä is probably the work of the Airborne Ranger Club's expedition in 1999, but to our surprise somebody had also put up a sticker from the arctic Nanoq museum beside it.
With us there were also other trekkers from Germany and France whom I already mentioned yesterday. We stayed up late, perhaps almost too late, drinking lots of tea and having a vivid conversation. Lou gave us valuable information and tips about the places we will visit during this expedition including Summit. He has worked in practically every base there is in Greenland and also in the Antarctic. Lou and Mark are spending their 7th summer in a row here and even before that they have been here many years 1999 excluded.
In the morning we waited for a Hercules cargo plane to arrive before heading out again. While waiting we enjoyed some real coffee. The plane landed little before 11 am to the icy runway. The size of it was a disappointment. I was expecting to see something much bigger, something to entitle the name Hercules, but it turned out to be a lot of noise and smoke from a relatively small plane.
The weather got clearer around noon and the temperature dropped rapidly. We contemplated about taking out the kites, but decided to continue skiing in the traditional way. We kept a slow steady pace for 7,5 hours (that's 7 times 50 minutes of actual skiing) and then set up camp on a beautiful plain with a nice view. It was a great day spent skiing, although some could call it walking which is perhaps a more accurate description. After all who would want to ski 2,5 km/h.
Today I've been thinking about socks.
When we were setting up the tent we got a whiff of our odors from inside. And once we entered the tent we got a noseful of the same. It was time to wash up a bit. So we melted some washing water and cleaned ourselves to something more decent. Of course that makes us again members of the sissy club. The whole sissy club thing comes from the Svalbard 2005 expedition where one of the team members, Sepe Virtanen (from "Hervannan Hurjat") didn't do any washing up for a whole month. And called us sissies when we did.
Location:68 34.24 N, 43 40.53 W
