Adgorpok (travels against the wind)
Second Edition - 21 February 2004
First LightSo I'm on the plane coming out here, and 30 minutes out, the captain of plane comes over the P.A. "Folks, I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is, we're just about to Thule Air Base, the temperature is 48 below and the wind is 36 knots. The good news is, I've just saved money on my insurance!"
That was the start to the Greenlandic tour. It's been a month now. A month of darkness and cold, wind and snow. Well, today marks a day of change; a day when things will seem 'brighter'. That's right, it's "First Light" today, celebration of the first sight of the sun, for most here, since last October. We'll get about 15 minutes of sunlight today, and a steady increase through summer when the sun will be out all day and night. Today is also special because it's the first day where I can get out for an Arctic hike! But more on that later.
The time here so far has been encapsulated with work. Twelve-hour days have not been uncommon, but that's mainly due to getting into the groove and clearing up a lot of backlog stuff. But I'm just about done with that, so normal days are on the horizon with the First Light. During off-time, I've either been playing on the computer, learning more about photography and some of the things computers can do for pictures, or out at the club where everyone congregates for a few hours now-and-again. Last night, we got to hear a sneak preview of one of the bands that will play tonight at the First Light festival. They're a blues/rock band called "The Carsen Downey band" from Canada, and let me tell ya, they are rockin'! Listening to them gave me the feeling of being in a blues bar in New Orleans. After a few beers, and realizing it was getting late, I made my way back to the dorms, hopefully to get enough sleep for the next day's hike...
So, the hike: a couple friends and I got the notion to take the first Thule Trek of the year, and today was the day. Following a satisfying lunch of curry turkey, we went back to the dorms to suit up. I decided to try out the Matterhorns boots I was issued to see if the cold-weather protection really works. Threw on a few layers of polypros and a nice thick sweater, grabbed the camera and was ready to roll. First stop was to check in with the base to tell them where we'd be, and then it was off to the hike starting point. We drove out to an old, abandoned missile silo site to get a view of where we were heading. The cover holes were open, so we went down to check out the insides of the broken down building. Inside was cold and dark, and very icy. So icy, in fact, that the frozen water had built up to mid-way fill the rooms. In the bathroom, the toilet was under ice!! We also saw the bay doors from which missiles would be launched. All this had been out of commission for many years.
After that bit of excursion, we drove out to the hiking start point. There were no real trails, so we just started down the side of one of the mountains towards the arctic bay. The sun was out just enough to give us light along the way, but also gave a beautiful backdrop to the cold mountains. At the bottom, we walked along the frozen water's edge. Standing still, we could hear the slow movement of the ice, with low, deep cracking noises. The sounds would have been extremely eerie had I been alone. After spending a couple hours in the cold tundra air, we decided it was time to get back to the warm truck. On the way back, we encountered some arctic hares, scavenging for some small morsels of food hidden in the snow covered, rocky landscape. I snuck in close enough to take some pictures before they darted away. Making our way back to the truck I noticed it was getting difficult to see. It turned out that the cold air had caused small icicles to form on my eyelashes! That's a first!
Back at the base, after checking in, everyone got changed and relaxed while we waited for the festival to begin.