Kite Ski Spitsbergen

Mar 29

#11:
back in Longyearbyen

Published at 21:22
Dispatch created from email
The fog cleared overnight and scattered clouds cast a wonderful swathe of shadows across the surrounding mountains. A cruisy 3 hour ski down Adventdalen took us back to Audun’s house and he drove us the rest of the way into town.

What a trip. I have no idea what distance we covered as it was not an objective of this journey. I just wanted Mardi to get an introduction to polar expeditioning and Svalbard can’t help but deliver that. It is an interesting place, where everything polar - extreme cold, icecaps, snowy mountains, glaciers, sea ice, polar bears, frozen fiords - is condensed into one exquisite location. It’s a great place for novices to learn and experts to be challenged.

As a guide/father I was on hyper-alert. There is a lot at stake on every polar trip but with my own daughter exposed to Svalbard’s many perils it made me see things from a new perspective, with a heightened vigilance. And all very pertinent as next week I head off with a 14yo girl and her dad to ski for 20 days to the North Pole. Stay tuned for that, I’ll be blogging daily as usual.

As for Mardi, she took everything in her stride with an assured confidence and fast-learned skills to match. What a trip! Thanks Mardi.

With love

Eric/dad

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