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Diary
19.5.2008
In the morning we trying to decide whether to use kites today or not. We decided to go with kites and ended up proceeding 110 km in 7,5 hours. Nice ride. Today we arrived to the world’s largest national park. It covers roughly the whole Northeast Greenland. We also passed one historical point, the trail of A.E.Nordenskjöld’s expedition 1883. 20.5.2008
Cold ride today. We are pretty high up now both in absolute altitude and in latitude, and that means full winter up here. The soft surface we had in the morning soon changed in to concrete like snow dunes. The snow dynes are quite big so it was a bumpy ride. Today was the ultimate test to the new sledges, and apparently they will survive anything. The speed was 30 km/h at best and we had several over one-meter jumps (man and sledge). Trough out the day we were adding more clothes. At 17:15 we finally stopped because we were freezing. The temperature was -18 C and the wind was 11 m/s. It is better to stop before serious frostbites etc. 21.5.2008
Last night we decided that we would have a day off today. We feel it is best to have one after the nine hard workdays out here. In the morning there was still –22 C. We found two dead wheatears outside our tent. We spent the day reading. 22.5.2008
When new took off the weather was far from optimal, -20 C and 10-13 m/s headwind. I started ski-ing fast in order to warm myself up. After 30 minutes a stopped to look behind me and there was nobody. After some ten minutes Vuorenmaa appeared. His ski skins had come off. We set up the tent and put on the cooker in order dry out the adhesive soles of the ski skins. After that we were able to continue, but our bodies did not warm up. So after three hours we decided it is best to stop. I might be getting flu. There have been some signs of that yesterday and today. I'm wondering is it something I picked up at Dye2. A lot of people visit that place. 23.5.2008
In the morning the weather was beautiful: no wind and a bright sun on a clear blue sky. The nice weather did not help our skiing however. The friction on the snow really slows us down. It actually feels worse than in Iceland in 2001 when we had to pull our sledges on tarmac for 10 km. It is probably the combination of the high altitude and dry air up here. We spent seven hours skiing and managed 9,1 km during that time. It is not much, but we feel it is better to be on the move and to do at least something in comparison to just sitting in the waiting for the winds. 24.5.2008
Today we were able to use the kites. We were on the move for 7,5 hours. We could have gone further, but we want to hold on to our normal daily routine, and so we stopped at 18.00 as usual. The day was hazy and we made sure we stick close to each other (within some couple of hundred meters). That was pretty easy, as the wind was fairly stable to whole day. Thanks to the snow dynes we were jumping up and down the whole day. 25.5.2008
Location: 72 25.56 N, 38 27.96 W This is our 35th day on the expedition and it was a good day with a record distance. We were on the move for 8,5 hours finishing around 6 pm.
We are getting pretty close to the Summit base. There is only 17 kilometers to go, so we can almost congratulate ourselves. As far as we know we're the first Finns to climb to the highest point of Greenland. And we will do it from the more difficult south side. The air is getting thin like in the mountains. Even the smallest physical task makes you breathe heavier. Vuorenmaa had yesterday the same flu as I had before and has been feeling a little weak today. The highest point of Greenland is reported as 3228 m above sea level, but there is actually over 3500 meters of ice. The ice has pushed the ground underneath about 300 meters below sea level. If the ice was suddenly removed, the map of Greenland would look a lot different. There would be some mountains on the edges and a sea in the middle, like a lagoon. Well, 3500 meters is enough so we don't need to wear drysuits like they do in the North Pole expeditions.
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© 2007-2008 Petet |
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Location:69 25.01 N, 42 14.67 W
Location:70 17.99 N, 41.02.32 W
Location: 70 17.99 N, 41.02.32 W
Location: 70 20.86 N, 40 57.67 W
Location: 70 24.89 N, 40 49.32 W
Location: 71 16.24 N, 39 29.40 W
We were kind of sailing in tailwind today. Somebody who is experienced with kites might wonder how that is possible, but slight uphill and heavy cargo along with poor glide kept our speed under the wind speed thus preventing the kite from stalling. I measured the speed while kiting and the top speed was 30,9 km/h. It didn't feel that much in tailwind though.
