Day One. Wednesday 14th August.

Leaving the UK. 

All my plans for this adventure had involved me completing the trek on my own as a solo venture.  However, at the last minute, my good friend Richard had decided to join me much to the relief of my parents and my wife.  What was a solo adventure was now a two person mission.  Richard is a character to say the least.  He has the personality and behaviours one would associate with Victorian gentry.  He works as an English teacher at an independent school and for him modernity seems to be something that happened to other people.  Richard was due to fly out from Bristol airport but unfortunately his bag sparked off a security alert as he had neglected to purge his stove fuel bottle of petrol vapours.  Having missed his flight from Bristol he travelled to Gatwick and was on the verge of actually joining me on my flight which would have been great.  However, he had done nothing about the circumstances which had lead to the incident at Bristol. Hence, for Richard at least, events repeated themselves at Gatwick.  There was a heated exchange between Richard and the airline staff and I did my best to calm everyone down, but missing my own flight was not an option.  The airline staff informed me that my bag had been moved closer to the aircraft door just in case I decided to stay with Richard. Self preservation kicked in. "No" I said. "I am getting on that flight, if that's ok with you".  Richard was escorted to the security area where, apparently, he was asked to remove his stove fuel bottle. And that was the last I saw of him.  The delay meant that there was now no chance of him getting on to the same plane as me.  I apologised to the airline staff for Richard's behaviour which was out of character for him.  I was the last passenger to board the flight and I was instantly aware of stares from my fellow passengers who had witnessed Richard's verbal dexterity and who were clearly concerned about whether I posed a risk.  I smiled politely at them as if in some attempt to reassure them that I was not a risk to their flight.  I took my seat, avoided eye contact with everyone and flew to Copenhagen and then to Greenland on my own.
I had got into the mindset of doing this expedition on my own, and then I had changed my mindset once Richard had asked to join me.  I had become grateful for the fact that I would at least have some good humoured, intelligent company with me on the trail and that there would be an extra pair of eyes to help with navigation. Now, on the plane to Copenhagen, I was beginning to change my mindset once again to psych myself up for the hike being a solo affair once again.

Top Tip:

If you are flying overseas on a camping trip you need to think carefully about the sort of stove you want to take.  You will NOT be allowed to carry any form of fuel on the aircraft in any part of your luggage. So, if the availability of gas cylinders is unreliable in the area you are heading for, you are pretty much limited to a liquid fuel stove.  This needs to be properly prepared for the flight.  You need to burn off ALL the fuel that is in the stove's system.  The fuel bottle needs to be completely empty.  As any fire fighter will tell you, an empty fuel tank is actually more dangerous than one full of petrol because it's the vapours and not the liquid that pose the risk.  So, you need to purge any fuel bottle of all petrol vapours.  I took two fuel bottles with me and they didn't trigger a single problem, not even a question.  Several days before the flight, I emptied both bottles.  I then washed both of them out with warm soapy water.  To expel much of the vapour, I put a small amount of soapy warm water in the bottom of the bottles and then agitated them in order to fill the bottles with bubbles formed from the vapours. When the bubbles are rinsed out, they take a lot of the vapours with them.  After thoroughly rinsing out the bottles, I left them both outside in a sunny position with the lids off for a couple of days.  This allowed any remaining vapours to evaporate.  If it's not sunny, leave them (lids off) on a radiator.  I then packed both bottles with the lids off in a water proof bag close to the top of my pack.  This way, any x-ray could clearly see that the bottles were packed without lids and if there were any questions, I could get access to the bottles easily.  

Some of the utilitarian structures at Kangerlussuaq.

Sign at the airport 

A visit to the glacier.

The morning started with a visit to the bathroom at the airport to stock up on fresh water. My plan for today was to visit the glacier this afternoon and to use the morning to sort out my kit in preparation of starting the hike tomorrow.
I sat at the picnic table at the camp site drinking a cup of tea and reading my book.  I was enjoying the unusually warm weather.  Looking up from my cup, I saw Richard walking into the camp site with his pack on his back.  He had managed to get a later flight from Gatwick having had his fuel bottle confiscated.  He had had to purchase new flight tickets so his mistake with the fuel bottle proved to be rather expensive.  I was pleased to see him as it was good to be able to share this experience with someone, especially a good friend.  I persuaded Richard to sign up for the truck bus to the glacier.  There are a couple of options regarding a glacial visit.  You can visit an area called Russel's Glacier which is a glacial tongue.  You get to see the glacier but you don't get to touch it. Another trip visits an area called Point 660.  This takes you right on top of the glacier via a walk through an ever changing landscape of gullies, ridges and valleys formed and reformed from millions of tons of glacial rubble gauged from the landscape by the ever moving glacier.  This is the trip we decided to do and it didn't fail to impress.

The river from the glacier which can be seen in the distance.

Pretty pink flowers on the bank of the river.

The Russel's Glacier calves straight into the river.

The river, mud flats and the distinctive Sugar Loaf mountain.

The route roughly followed the banks of the river.  The river flows directly from the glacier carrying melt water and tons of sediment into the fjord.  The sediment creates huge mud flats, the character of which changes each time the river goes into flood.   If the ice goes through a period of rapid melt, this has, in the past created enormous and violent flood waters.  These flood waters have been violent enough to rip out the road bridge further down the river.  The route to the glacier also goes past a mountain called Sugar Loaf which stands out on the Kangerlussuaq skyline due its distinctive shape.

Pretty flower with ice crystals.

Reindeer print.

Melt water lake with the glacier off to the left.

The leading edge of Russell's Glacier

Me with Russell's glacier in the background.

Me on the shore of a melt water lake
with the glacier behind me.

The drive to Point 660 was spectacular.  We stopped at a number of points including a picturesque lake and the wreck of an USAF aircraft which crashed in the 1960s.  Apparently, a small group of aircraft had flown to Kangerlussuaq from the States and had flown straight into a thick snow storm.  Not only did the aircraft not have enough fuel for a safe return journey, but the airfield suffered a power cut and all the lights went out.  The aircraft crews couldn't land and they had no where else to go.  Each were told to fly a course over the airfield and to eject. All the crews were picked up safely, but their aircraft, crew-less and out of fuel, crashed in the surrounding hills.

The remains of a US aircraft crash

Aircraft wreck overlooking the river. 

Part of the tail section of the aircraft wreck.

We passed Inuit graves and a couple of research camps occupied by PhD Students from Columbia State University.  The truck bus stopped short of the glacier and we walked over the fractured moonscape of moraines looking like some huge chaotic stone quarry.

Me on the glacier.

Part of the glacial moraine near Point 660 

The Glacier's leading edge near Point 660

Melt water flowing across the glacier.

Before we knew it, we were walking on the ice.  The glacier stretched out before us disappearing over the eastern horizon. It's truly vast. I drank from one of the melt water streams.  The water tasted as you'd expect - fresh, clean and untainted by chemicals. The colour of the ice varied from white to blue and even black depending on the age and air content of the ice. On the return journey was passed the worlds most northerly golf course and then in the distance our attention was drawn to a small cluster of huge moving figures.  This was a small family unit of muskox; a male, at least two females and at least two calves.

The fragmented landscape in front of the glacier near Point 660.

Stepping foot on the glacier

Richard set against the glacier.

On our return to the camp site, we met two guys who had just completed the trail starting in Sissimiut.  As we were due to start our adventure tomorrow, we picked their brains for any useful hints and tips.  They talked a lot about their experience of the trail.  It was as if they had become somewhat trail crazy and were relishing the opportunity to talk to someone other than each other.  Perhaps this would happen to us! Their enthusiasm was great, but their presence began to grate on Richard and me just a little to begin with, but the irritation increased as they began to actively interfere with our own plans and preparations.  It was almost 11pm by the time these two guys had finished talking at us and we were beat.  Instead of talking about our own route and instead of me learning how to deal with any issues relating to Richard's diabetes, we just retired to our respective tents and went to sleep.  The weather today was pretty good.  Cloudy and cold but no rain.  The plan for tomorrow is to get up when we feel like it, sort out our kit, pack and hike.  Having our own tents gives us the independence to walk as much or as little as we like as you can camp anywhere.

Me on the glacier.

There be polar bears!!

As I try to get to sleep, my mind thinks about my short visit to the Kangerlussuaq museum before Richard turned up. One thing in particular sticks in my mind.  None of the guidebooks or articles I had read about the Arctic Circle Trail mentioned anything about polar bears.  Indeed, the impression I had was that polar bears had not been seen that far south for many many years. However, there, in the museum was the skin of a very large polar bear which had been shot on the outskirts of Kangerlussuaq in 2001, just 11 years ago! I couldn't help thinking about how many polar bears could go unnoticed for every polar bear spotted and shot. I thought about the geographical area and the population of Kangerlussuaq, and tried to estimate the probability of a polar bear being spotted in all that open space. The label in the museum stated that only two polar bears had been seen near to Kangerlussuaq since the late 1940s and that one of these had been in 2001. For me the key word was "seen". But just how many polar bears got to within sniffing distance of Kangerlussuaq without being seen?  Obviously no one knows.  This wasn't the comforting thought that I needed floating around my head as I tried to go to sleep.