GREENLAND SNOWSHOE TREK

Limited Group Size: 8

LAND AND SEA OF ICE

Our journey takes us through a pristine arctic haven of frozen fjords, icebergs, glaciers, mountains and night-time skies illuminated by the Aurora Borealis. On our journey you are fully immersed in our experience of a wild and dynamic arctic environment.

From the tiny, isolated village of Kulusuk, we explore a vast region of fjords and mountains completely dominated by snow and ice. The scale is humbling – you could travel for months without reaching another village. We spend many hours snowshoeing out on the ice, sometimes heading inland to cross islands by low passes that cut between alpine summits. The land is heavily glaciated – in places reaching the saltwater of the fjords in massive calving faces. Icebergs, frozen until their break-up in spring, tower over our path. We are always watchful for the animals that are at home here -  arctic fox, snow buntings, ptarmigan, cormorants, ravens, ringed seals, with rare sightings of polar bears, narwhal and gyrfalcon. At night, the sky is often illuminated by flowing threads of the Aurora Borealis stretching east to west.

DEPART GREENLAND

• DAY 8 -  Fly Greenland to Iceland
• Meals -  Breakfast

 After breakfast, we pack up our gear and return to the snow strip and the plane that flies us out over the Denmark Strait back to Reykjavik, Iceland for your onward journey.

KULUSUK - NANOQ LODGE

The lodge is a traditional wooden cabin built by our Greenland partners over the years and is nestled in the tiny Innuit village of Kulusuk, home to 200 people.

A comfortable and practical base to explore East Greenland, the lodge provides cabin bedrooms, running water, hot showers, and flushing toilets, a rare thing in this cold climate. There’s a drying area for your gear, a sitting room heated by a stove and a big table we all gather around each evening. Cut off by sea ice six months of the year, the stores and freezers are well supplied to provide a plentiful and varied menu. Whenever possible, we eat locally caught fish including salmon, arctic char, cod, and halibut.

WINTER TRAVEL

We have worked hard to make this trip accessible to anyone looking for adventure and a deep insight into the pristine wilderness and culture of this arctic coastline. If you have previous experience of cold-weather conditions and camping, it will help, but is not essential. Travelling with experts, you’ll have a lot of opportunities to learn and refine the many skills essential to travelling in this environment. A good level of fitness will allow you to get the most out of the trip, whether it’s helping pack the loads, maneuver the sleds or set up camp.

If you have any questions as to whether this trip is suitable for you, just give us a call:  +1.775.833.9700  •  1.800.231.1919

ABILITY

Depending on depth of snow, we’ll walk in snowshoes, or choose just to walk in boots if the surface is hard. You’ll need to be comfortable hiking for approximately 15km while pulling a lightly loaded pulk (plastic sled) containing everything we need for the day, plus some basic safety equipment. While being an experienced hiker is essential, you don’t need winter hiking or camping experience – we’ll look to build skills and experience during the trip. These are physically arduous trips in a cold environment and we ask everyone to get involved in all aspects of the trip, from digging snow walls to loading sleds and putting up tents.

Rather than sticking to a fixed itinerary we’ll decide what to do each day depending on weather, conditions and how the group as a whole is feeling. That could mean we’re on our feet hiking for 8 hrs under the arctic sun, or we’re traveling in difficult conditions during which covering 2km could be a major achievement! An extreme condition - a Greenlandic storm, known as a Naqaajaq (low pressure systems moving up the coast) could mean our day is focused solely around maintaining a safe and comfortable camp – every expedition is different. Variation in fitness and walking speed is inevitable in any group, but it’s important that everyone meets the minimum requirements outlined above.

TERRAIN

In the winter months many of the fjords to the north of Kulusuk freeze over, allowing extensive travel by dogsled. It’s this sea ice which has allowed the Inuit to hunt during the winter months for countless generations. It’s also what allows us to link together our journey. We’ll spend much of our time, both on snowshoes and on dogsleds, traveling across the ‘fast-ice’ which covers the fjords – the ice which is held ‘fast’, not moving, by the islands. An ever-changing medium, we’ll carefully assess ice conditions as we go to choose the best route. What starts out as a hard, icy surface in January is normally, by March-April, covered in several feet of snow which often absorbs moisture from the sea below, and we could experience conditions underfoot which are everything from ice to neve (hard snow) to soft, slushy snow – it’s essential that boots are fully waterproof. The sea ice, by nature, is flat. On land, we’ll stick to low-angled terrain for the most part, taking in frozen lakes, low passes and snowy shoreline – here the snow can be deep where it drifts behind obstacles. We’ll change footwear to suit, sometimes using snowshoes where the snow is soft, perhaps just walking in our boots on firmer surfaces. With deep and/or soft snow it’s hard going and progress becomes much slower – we’ll adjust our plans to suit conditions.

EQUIPMENT & CONDITIONS

We will be traveling in arctic conditions. These can range from cold, still days of sun to blizzards. Equipment choice makes all the difference to being comfortable here. We provide warm snowsuits, down jackets, mitts, thick sleeping bags and mats. You will receive a detailed gear list of additional equipment to help you prepare.

We’ll plan to take with us as comfortable a setup as is possible, using a large base-camp tent for us all to sleep in, and a stove to provide heat, and we’ll look to develop the skills introduced over the first days of the trip to become efficient in arctic travel. The route involves crossing large areas of fast-ice (ice which is held ‘fast’ by the land), as well as several low passes, all the while dominated by the peaks of the island above us. Each night we set up camp, with thick sleeping bags keeping us warm in a robust base-camp tent for us to sleep in.  There is a small stove to melt snow for drinking, cooking and to provide heat.

GETTING TO GREENLAND

While the  lodge in East Greenland is extremely remote, Kulusuk is served by a regular scheduled turbo prop-plane flight of around 1 hr 40 mins from Reykjavik, Iceland. We can arrange your air tickets.  Many folks overnight in Reykjavik en route, exploring the geothermal pools and vibrant scene of this small northern capital.

WHAT'S INCLUDED