fall 2022

FOLLOW kathinka, caro & TEAM ACROSS the GREENLAND ice

All preparations are made, training is done, permits issued, equipment bought and sent, everything is ready for adventure !

On this blog pages you will be able to follow our team progress through the Greenland Ice.

We will have daily reports, audio, photos, from the field , some days longer reports, on tough days it might just be an “All OK” message and campsite position, and we will post here as often as possible.

Ousland team.

Packing and Preparations. & It was Elaine’s birthday today

Day 1: departure day

We left Tasiilak around 10and in beautiful sun and calm water we were in Isortokfjord by 13:00. It was hot, so the rest of the day carrying our gear up we were wearing only long-johns and t-shirts. We had dinner at the ice, packed our sleds and went on to the ice for one last pull. Life is better on the ice!
All super happy with our first day!
Kathinka &Caro

Day 2: labyrinth

Hello!

The team started the day after a good night for everyone. The campsite was beautiful. We had a perfect view on the fjord. Each of us woke up in the night to do a bear watch shift. Even if we have a lot of salami in our sleds :) , no bear were interested to come closer, we saw none of them. It’s good!

We had a coffee in the morning and we started around 10h30. We had to be patient today as we got into a bumpy area where small rivers and hills were on our way. We learned to help each other and work in team. We laughed a lot and we had to make camp really fast because darks clouds were behind the team. They finally reached us and we can say that our tents are not placed on a flat area like yesterday, we tried to stay dry inside them. Some of us will maybe sleep with the head down and the feet up a bit. We can’t wait to find our way out of this huge labyrinth to reach the plateau! We already forgot that we were in a city some days ago. It’s good to be on the snow. Let see what tomorrow brings! ;)

Caro

Day 3

After a good night sleep in rain and wind we headed into the ice maze. After several hours of crevasses we were able to make good progress up the long hills (shout out to our lead scout Dan!).

It was a long day of struggle and it was magical to find a place where we could camp that was remotely flat. We set camp at 803 meters above sea level.

Looking forward to the next couple of days - hopefully we will find both snow and sun.

Xoxo - 2x Sletten

heading up

This is Dan, reporting on the East to West Greenland crossing:

We had another really good day, when we transitioned transición, on skis today, started rougher crevasse area, which we navigated around, as well as a lot of standing and moving water. Then we finally found snow, and put skis on to had up to the plateau ! Eirik and Arjen did a fantastic work leading the team.

Really good weather, sunny, and hardly any wind today.

Making our way up, everybody happy and smiling and we are having fun !

day 5, Greenland East to West expedition.

Kathinka reporting from the Ice: Another beautiful day, sunshine, clear blues ski, snow all day and we made our way up to the top icefall, then we finally turned west !

15,9 Km covered today, very happy with our progress and so ready to a long night now :)

Everything is great, everyone is happy, and weather for tomorrow seems nice too !

Day 6, breathtaking whiteness

Good morning from the Greenland Icecap.

07:45 am, weather is brilliant, clear sky, just some clouds in the distance

We had a good night sleep, covered 22 Km yesterday, hope we can do the same today.

Spirits are high, going for a week, and enjoying ourselves

Not many problems, having a good time. I hope everyone is well at home, and looking forward to another beautiful day

day 7, another beautiful day

Merete, reporting from the Greenland Icecap: another beautiful day today, sunny, just a bit of wind, and we covered 23 Km

Looking forward to another beautiful day tomorrow

Byyyye!

day 8, into the womb

Reporting from Greenland Icecap: We entered this womb where there is nothing else except the person in front of us

Still a bit to reach the summit, we are going well, a lot of snow, good work for everyone

21 Km covered yesterday; we hope today will be as good.

Ciao, Ciao

Day 9, too hot in Greenland !

Eirik reporting from Greenland cap:

Big day until lunch, walked on t-shirts and our bare skin today, way too hot for some!

Now we have set up cam, we are at 1935 masl, and awaiting a bit of wind during the night

Covered 21 Km today, team spirit is high, see you!

Day 10, checkin’ in from the Ice

Good evening,

This is Elaine, checking in  from the Greenland Icecap: Beautiful day today, just a bit breezy, a bit slow to start but we are all set up now.

Hope everyone is great at home,

Cheers, Elaine

11th, another brilliant day

Thursday 25th August: another brilliant day of skiing

We do about 20 Km every day, we are now at about 2100 masl, so we still have some altitude to gain, and about 90 Km to the summit

Spirits are high, weather is good, so far we only had one day of weather, and so we are having a great time here in the Icesheet of Greenland (where the closest human beings are onboard planes flying overhead…)

We keep slowly walking towards Kangerlussuaq,

¡Cheers !

day 12th, birthday in the Icecap

Hello Ousland headquarters, and everyone !

Sending report from 2193 masl on the Greenland icecap, only 99 Km to the summit

All team, 8 of us are held into one tent today to celebrate Arjen’s 33rd birthday, started the day with cake, will end with dinner.

Today we had a good day, we went 22.4 Km. Difficult conditions today, visibility was not too good, had a lot of navigation challenges which we got through in good fashion

We are in good spirits, everyone is healthy, everyone is happy, looking forward to the next few days and maybe a storm coming, this should make things interesting 😊

Cheers.

day 13, pretty rough

Today was a pretty rough day. During the night and morning it had snowed about 10-15cm and it continued during the day. White-outs made navigating difficult. We could not go as fast as we wanted, but we made up for that by skiing longer. It was smooth arriving at our campsite after 10 hours of hard work. The pasta bolognesa with 3 scoops of both butter and cheddar is about finished. Gonna hit the sack early tonight. Life is good on the ice. Sigurd, out

day 14th, Daniel, reporting from Greenland Icecap

Today was a good day. As we approach the summit of Greenland, the weather is getting a bit more spicy. It’s been snowing steadily for 2 to 3 days and it’s windy. Fortunately the wind is from the east and at our backs which makes for delightful travel. We’re breaking trail through 6 to 12 cm of snow most of the day. We alternated leaders every 30 minutes which kept everybody fresh and happy.

We skied 21 in today with a bit of climbing as well.

A bizarre, melancholy sight tonight: we saw three birds flying around looking quite lost and desperate. They came to our camps and if they’d stopped we probably would have let them spend the night in our vestibule as they are the first living things we’ve seen in ten days. They likely will not survive.

We are currently in a race to get over the summit as the weather is predicted to turn worse in the east.

Spirits are good and we’re looking forward to the challenges ahead !!!

day 15th, Caroline from the Ice:

In between two storms the team is giving everything to reach the summit. We are like a caravan in a white desert. Everyone knows by now how to navigate in whiteouts because since the beginning of the week we are surrounded by them.

The routines are well established, we are working hard! We have weather forecast report from Lars Ebbesen who takes good care of us. We help each other to set up a camp in the chaotic wind. We can feel that fall season is really established here now.

We have a great positive energy that pushes us to confront everything:) !!

Thursday September 1st - day 18

After yesterday’s party we were of to a slow start, as we left camp around 10:30. With the good weather (sunshine without any wind!) and supposedly downhill skiing (45 meters descending in 24 horizontal kilometers) we were having a great time.

After yesterdays summit, we now have our eyes set at DYE 2, an Cold War abandoned US radar post. At our current pace, we plan to be there early next week. Until then we hope the weather gods remain favorable to us…

Cheers!

Arjen

Day 19th

This is Merete reporting on day 19th from the Greenland icecap:

Today we woke up inside an ice glazed tent. It was covered with 5 mm ice after icy rain during the night and we had to break our way out. But our skiing was fast today! 25 km in 6 legs.

It was pouring rain all day so the rest of the day and evening we have been inside the tents trying to get our stuff somewhat dry.

Skiing in heavy rain and wind is not the most enjoyable but the team is at good spirits. Seems to be another rainy day tomorrow.

So long! M.

day 20

Eirik:
Spent the morning drying the rest of our gear from last days rain, to little use. It poured down from first leg till about 3 pm. Then came snow until we finally had three good legs without any precipitation.

8 legs today and 25,5 km. Hope to get a visual on DYE II tomorrow. Feeling strong, and our spirit is high.

Eirik and the rest of the team.

day 21, thinking of times long past

We all awoke to pouring rain again in the morning, and as it was predicted to let up later in the day, we opted for a bit of a lie in. The skiing was good once we started, spirits were high for not being rained on, and the kilometres ticked by. Eventually though, all the rain that has saturated the snow began to take its toll on the skins, causing us all to clump badly underfoot. It got bad enough we eventually called it a day to start again tomorrow in the hope that colder temps overnight will firm the snow up. As we prepared for bed, the skies continued to clear, allowing the crystalline Greenland stars to shine through, and a lovely aurora arched across the sky, rippling in that ancient dance, making us think of times long past.
Elaine

Day 23. Greenland crossing East to West 2022

In the morning the team left the site of DYE II in cold weather. Approx. -5 degrees.

We were all happy to not ski in the rain again! What a chance. Merete shared with us a bottle that warmed up our hearts after the afternoon where we completed our first 34.3k .

Also Daniel told us that we just reached the Arctic circle, that was a perfect day ;)

The sun tanned our skin since the last weeks and we don’t know if we will recognize our face in the mirror.

Caro

day 24

Did 30 km in 7,5 leg. Snow and a little bit of wind from west most of the day. Came across a lake of melting water, which probably is telling us what we are about to face in the coming days.

We are feeling strong and confident.

Eirik and the rest of team “numero uno”.

day 25

The day started with sun and warm weather and we headed north the first two pulls. After that we saw a great looking passage going west, so we jumped on the opportunity and made the turn. We passed between two frozen lakes and continued over a lot of frozen marsh in a westerly direction. Across the blue ice we were gliding quickly and ended the day on 31,5 km today!
It’s been a great day and the team is strong and happy!

Kathinka

26th day

Woke up to rain this morning (again…). The snow was wet but we kept a good pace. After a while we hit ice while crossing a frozen lake and we could pick up some speed. After lunch we hit a tricky area containing a lot of crevasses. We passed that pretty fast and found solid ice again.

We called it a day after 10h of skiing. Today we went 29km.

day 27

Life on the Greenland icecap goes on. We decided on an early start, and woke up to a beautiful reddish full moon. After a cold night we had fast conditions. and the first pull went down to a river, where we had to stop and scout for a way to cross safety. Dan found a nice spot about 700m south.
After that we passed a beautiful blue lake and continued west. As we were closing in on the waypoint called Dog Camp the ice got a bit trickier to navigate - but, we made it!

Go Team!
Kathinka

Day 28, Hello!

Today we entered a section of our itinerary called The Icefall. Everyone was really impressed by this crevasses area. We needed to go really slow in order to be safe. We had to stop in the morning because we were not able to see in front of us. We did our best and at the end of the day we saw that we did 6km only, but the icefall section is behind us now, yeahhh !!!

And also, the team made me a surprise for my birthday, I was so happy :)

Thanks all.
Caro & team 1

29 days in the Icecap

Merete reporting from the icecap of Greenland, day 29th.

We are for sure on our way down., descending many meters each day. Today we struggled to cross a big river. We walked north to check possibility but no luck. At the end we rigged a system for crossing with big bags on our feet, just to experience a hundred other rivers to follow. We crossed with skis and pulk and our feet got wet. But all good :)

We did almost 20k in 11,5 hours today. We are now going to bed at 900 m above sea level. Tomorrow will try to reach 660. Thanks

Day 30, what a day!

Ooouuuf, what a day! We thought that Greenland has given us everything but it was not the case!

We entered a really bumpy area with a lot of different water channels. We feel that we are in a maze. We need to collaborate and take some strategic decisions. Our sleds are becoming our boats when we cross rivers. The end of the glacier is really tricky so we take our time. It’s not the end yet. We will reach our last checkpoint tomorrow morning (hopefully) in 2.3 km . A bit too tired, we took the decision to sleep at the end of the ice section.

We all slept in strange position because it’s a really hilly area here! We are wet because it’s raining but full of energy because tomorrow we will be at the hotel ;)

Team 1

We made it!

We woke up really early this morning and were able to go out of the ice maze. Arjen took the lead and helped us find a way out. Only 2 km left!

After spending days in this beautiful labyrinth we finally reached the pick up point that was located over a moraine area where we had to climb a quite difficult section. The last push for the team!!

Yeah. Henrick our bus driver brought us to Kangerlussuaq. He said we were not smelling so bad after 1 month on the glacier. I think he was lying ;)

Our first desires in the city were to find good food, take off our wet clothes and boots and have a shower. Everything was perfect!

We had a dinner all together and some of the team members tasted the famous muskox burger.

Elaine and Daniel will leave tomorrow for a hike! We will have to say bye to each other and meet in the future for new adventures.

“A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.” Quote by Tim Cahill.

Thank you to our families and friends that followed the expedition.  ☺️