| Report Type | Full |
| Peak(s) |
Nasaasaaq - 2572 |
| Date Posted | 01/10/2018 |
| Modified | 01/11/2018 |
| Date Climbed | 08/24/2017 |
| Author | Conor |
| Arctic Circle Trail - Greenland |
|---|
|
In search of more adventurous vacations I decided my wife and I could dip or toes into an easy backpacking trip. Since we take an annual international trip sans the rugrats, combining backpacking and an international destination seemed logical. After getting sucked into Steph Abegg's webpage for about 4 hours one weekend, I decided the Haute route in France/Switzerland would be cool, but I wanted a destination we both had never been to. Somehow I stumbled onto a blog about the arctic circle trail in Greenland. Supposedly only about 300 people hike the trail a year, a good guesstimate of how many people were on the trail at the same time as us in 2017. Solitude was hoped for, but too much change has taken place. We flew the long way, through Copenhagen. Since the Danes occupied Greenland for many years, the only way to really get there is through Europe. And it used to be only through Copenhagen on Air Greenland, but that is quickly changing. Air Greenland flies a once daily flight in their sole A330 (heaven forbid it goes down for maintenance) between Copenhagen and Kangerlussuaq. Kangerlussuaq is home to Soderstrom Air Force base, a hoping off point during the world wars. The US has since turned the base over to government of Greenland, and it is the sole airfield in the country that can take a heavy bird. Well, there's one on the ice cap that the US military still uses, but that is a different story. Day 1 We arrived at the Copenhagen airport to check in for the flight. Standing in line to check in for our flight made us wonder, "is Greenland the place people go to spend their last moments on earth?" Turns out, old people just love cruises. It's the all you can eat buffets.  Once you land, you clear customs and immigration just as you would in any country. They make it very clear through signage that they do not stamp any passports. The old people and their poor eyesight still ask, and the apathetic immigration guy will sternly shake his head no. Customs is all about making sure you don't bring too many cigarettes into the country tax free. No duty free, no questions. The Kangerlusuaaq airport has lockers. You can store stuff here if there are things you do not want to carry with you on the trail. You'll have time to collect your things on your layover, but if you aren't planning to spend time in Kangerlusuaaq, I'm not sure why you would get a locker. The next trick is to find fuel for your stove. The 2017 fuel beta - If you have a canister stove, you buy canister fuel with the proper threads from the ice cream shop. Do not go to the grocery store across the street. After 2 hours of trying to communicate with the store clerks, I finally ventured over to the hostel, where I once again attempted to say "benezin" (white gas). It doesn't seem too hard to pronounce, but looks can be deceiving. I would have been more than happy with a canister, but for some reason I did not think to ask the guy selling "ice cream to eskimos" for a canister of camping stove fuel. Luckily, some danish woman at the hostel took pity on me (they all speak excellent english) and the lady working the front desk pointed to a bunch of blue tanks right by the airport fence. The kind Danish woman explained to put my credit card in the machine, and I could buy white gas from a traditional gas pump. I went over to the gas pump and truck driver was buying diesel. Luckily the truck driver showed this stupid american how to put his credit card in the machine. I bought a liter of white gas for 3 danish krone, or about 50 cents. It almost made all that lost time seem worth it. Over 3 hours had passed since we landed. I hadn't gone further than 0.2 miles from the airport, but I felt like I had walked all over. My wife was trying to find 1 of the 2 taxis in the city. Reportedly, they both were gone driving old people where ever they needed to go. I suggested to my wife that we start walking. She reluctantly agreed. We got about a 1/2 mile down the road and some guy in an 80 series landcruiser picked us up. Philippe is a french canadian and studies the northern lights at kellyville, the research town. I wouldn't pay the taxis, as almost everyone stops to ask if you need a ride.  The first hut you encounter, hundeoso hut, is about 2 miles from Kelleyville. It is disgusting. It's kind of cool from the outside, but I'd rather sleep outside this one. A downside hiking S-->K, you'll have this hut to potentially stay in, but you may not care at that point. If you think the hut itself is bad the outhouse will truly be for the bravest of the brave or the neediest of the needy.  The water is deemed to be pure and no need to purify. But, I swore that if I ever again had a musk ox poop in my water source I'd only have myself to blame. So, we filtered water. Along with the water, the mushrooms and berries are all deemed to be edible. My wife took this to heart and felt each mushroom should be eaten. At a minimum, each mushroom was to be inspected to deem if it was worthy of our bowels.    The rest of the 14 mile day that started in Copenhagen ended at the Katifitik hut. Of course, my normal off route "exploring" was taken en route. It was purely to allow us a nice view of the hut from on top of the hill, rather than walking around the hill where we wouldn't have had such an advantageous view. We could see 2 tents pitched outside the hut and assumed it to be full. Since we were now pushing 9 pm, we decided to make camp near the hut.     Day 2 The next "standard" day goes from Katifitik to the canoe center. Word is that there are canoes somewhere along this 12 mile stretch. I saw 2 all the way at the other end of the lake, past the canoe center. This hike is easy, very little elevation gain and almost impossible to get lost. We woke up to rain and wind, and we hiked in rain and wind. We opted to eat the bars for breakfast to get going sooner since it was now 10 am. We saw the people staying in the hut departing and I counted around 9 people walk by us at 10 am. I hoped there weren't any early risers amongst them. We had the worse weather of the trip on the way to the canoe center. A soft drizzle paired with an unrelenting headwind. I rationalized that it would be horrible trying to canoe into the headwind and acted grateful there was no canoe option for us. It took 3 or 4 hours to get to the canoe center. We arrived to probably 10 tents pitched and the biggest of all the huts already full. It was a bit disappointing. My wife opted to cook a meal inside and we talked about our options. It was super windy for our tarp tent. We could survive, but it wouldn't be comfortable. The decision was made to eat and then press on, hoping for better weather. Just a side note, all these huts have toilets. They have heavy mil bags and when 1/3 full, you are suppose to be responsible and pull the bag out, tie it with the provided copper wire and then set it out in the bin to be taken in for disposal during the winter. It seems no one ever changes the bags out when they're a 1/3 full, so you end up with a mess. A good idea, poor execution. We opted to plan our business and practice our "disco dancer" out on the trail. I'm not sure what is better, but when all the bags are too full for even me to lift, not sure what options there are. They also have giant trash bags for you to leave your trash at each hut, we carried our trash the entire way.  We set off from the canoe center around 4pm. The wind, as we had hoped, died down and it turned out to be a wonderful afternoon. They had a wild fire burning, apparently from moss heating up. It was tough hiking through all the ash and mud, but we slowly picked our way through. We were rewarded with a nice rainbow.  we pushed on to a giant lake, Kangerluatsiarsuaq, which had a known beach to camp on. Once again, we arrived around 9 pm, made camp, ate and went to bed. It was a beautiful, almost windless night. Well deserved after a ~25 mile day.    Day 3 Alpine starts were not in the cards for us on this trip. In fact, since we had covered more ground than we expected in the first couple days, the attitude of the trip became much more relaxed. The next hut was ~6 miles from our beach camp, but included a significant climb right from the beach. We took our time and we were rewarded with beautiful views.  By 1 pm we had made the Ikkattooq Hut. We decided to have lunch and then push onto the next hut, some 6 more miles away. We ate down by the lake and enjoyed the views.   My wife informed me during lunch that her knee was hurting. As an engineer I diagnosed her problem to be a tight IT band. I rubbed her offending leg, moved some weight from her pack to mine, prescribed some stretches and gave her 1/2 of a 800mg left over from her child birthing days. It was slow going and the downhill killed her (which is what we had in front of us). My wife blames the trench we had to walk in the entire time.  We picked our way down the hill to Ole's Lakseelv. The terrain was becoming more rugged, but increasingly more attractive. The descent to basically sea level took some time with the aching knee, but we eventually made it.   Once we hit the valley floor we were able to set a good pace across it. Eventually, after guessing the hut to always be around the next bend, the hut finally appeared. We had one guy pass us, so we knew there would be at least one person at the hut. Turns out there were a total of 3, plus us. 2 of 3 people already at the hut we ended up hiking with the rest of the way.  The Eqalugaarniarfik Hut represents the first place you can actually somewhat easily bail on the rest of the route, all though I think you would miss the best part. The wife and I talked about the possibility of trying to catch a boat down at the fjord, but my wife felt she could poke away at a rate of 12 miles/day, which is about what the huts are spaced at. The good news was we were now staying in huts, which saved some time from making camp and breaking camp all the time. We also had found 2 people we got along with and we enjoyed some conversation with other people than the one we are wed to. And it wasn't overly crowded and we didn't feel we needed to race hut to hut to get beds inside. Bonus: when I got up to pee in the middle of the night, I noticed some weird clouds in the sky. Then I saw a light green wave move across the sky. It was pretty amazing to see the northern lights in august! Day 4 The next day had some heavy uphill and then it was pretty flat. I was excited because uphill didn't hurt the wife's knee as bad. After the uphill and across a lake, you turned off into the boggiest section. It made me happy I wasn't wearing gore tex, as the boots would have never dried and been miserable. Trail runners with wool socks are the ticket, IMHO.  You end this day at my favorite hut, Innajuattoq Hut. I just love it being on the end of the lake. I also liked that it was bigger than a garden shed.   Day 5 The stretch to the next hut is my favorite - the Nerumaq valley. Stunning, excellent relief on the valley walls, waterfalls. It was just awesome.    The hut leaves a little to be desired, but 4 of us managed to fit just fine. Arctic char are said to be up and down this stream. But, I didn't bring anything to fish with. Day 6 We woke this day a bit tired and cold. Being in the valley, we were patient to get started so the sun could warm us up a bit. Finally we shoved off and had a lovely morning exiting the Nerumaq valley.   Once you pop out of the valley, you skirt a lake which takes you to the fjord. There is a tourist hut there, but it is sometimes used by fisherman. Huts can be seen all over this fjord, so the feeling of isolation is starting to wear off. But, if you don't want to risk sleeping with fish guts, you can climb above the fjord to a second tourist hut, which also has an added benefit of making your last day shorter.  We were a bit surprised to arrive at an empty hut. The people we were hiking with were always adamant about staying in huts and not skipping any along the way. One of them had also left their flip flops at the Nerumaq hut. We had hoped they were ok, but assumed they had gone into town since this span between huts was super easy. With my wife's knee, we were a bit slower and felt we should take the time since we would have to spend a couple nights in sisimiut. Day 7 The last day starts with a climb, then it levels off for a bit and ends with a descent to the ocean. We weren't looking forward to the descent. Nor the ascent really. But, we had excellent weather and took our time.    As town drew closer we grew more and more excited. We of course took our time but as the trail turned to dirt road to paved road, the easier it became for my wife. We drooled at a banner showing food on the side of a building and not only realized it was a restaurant, but the Hotel sisimiut. We went in and booked a $250/night room. I would expect to pay $75/night in the US for this room.   Post hike Although I booked a "flexible" fare for the return, no flights were available. We had get a room for 3 nights in Sisimiut. We ended up moving to the Seaman's Home, which was a bit nicer, a bit cheaper and saved us a $20 cab ride to the airport as they offered free airport transfers. The weather turned once we arrived in Sisimiut - the Greenland drizzle and low level clouds would plague us the rest of the trip. We spent the days walking around town, eating at the bakery and relaxing. Not the worse thing in the world. We found our hiking mates to reunite them with their missing flip flops. One of them was brazilian and he had found before the trip some greenlandic girl who did a foreign exchange in brazil and he had scored a free place to crash. Facebook. We were invited over to the apartment for dinner that night, an offer which we happily accepted. Our greenlandic host, a young single mother, had just finished the arctic circle trail that year as well. So, we were all able to share stories and company. Also invited to dinner was a german couple who had recently come off the trail. Oddly enough the german girl also did a foreign exchange in brazil with our greenlandic host. It was a fun night and a reminder about how connected and small the world can seem. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
|
| Comments or Questions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Caution: The information contained in this report may not be accurate and should not be the only resource used in preparation for your climb. Failure to have the necessary experience, physical conditioning, supplies or equipment can result in injury or death. 14ers.com and the author(s) of this report provide no warranties, either express or implied, that the information provided is accurate or reliable. By using the information provided, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless 14ers.com and the report author(s) with respect to any claims and demands against them, including any attorney fees and expenses. Please read the 14ers.com Safety and Disclaimer pages for more information.
Please respect private property: 14ers.com supports the rights of private landowners to determine how and by whom their land will be used. In Colorado, it is your responsibility to determine if land is private and to obtain the appropriate permission before entering the property.
