Saturday 14 September 2013

In the alpine South of the National Park

Pulling back the curtains this morning revealed a truely alpine landscape. The rugged mountains in Alpefjord reach heights of more than 2500m and they rise up almost vertically from the fjord. From both sides, crevassed glaciers wind down in steep valleys and push their glacier tongues out in the fjord. We spent the morning close to one of these glaciers and everybody had the occasion to take part in a Polar Circle Boat cruise along the glacier face. The color of the glacier front was deep blue in some parts, and a number of middle morains nicely witnessed the branching of the glacier in the upper parts. 
  


 During our lunch and the early afternoon, we sailed out of Alpefjord and into Kong Oscars Fjord to reach our afternoon landing site at Nyhavn close to Mestersvig station. A very special landing place, as Bjarki, a member of our Expedition team, has spent parts of his childhood and another year after his service in the Sirius patrol at exactly this location. So he had a lot of stories to tell about this place.

A lot of different options to spend ones time during this landing were offered: people who wanted to stretch their legs set out for a long hike up to a couple of view points, others stayed closer to our landing site and explored the buildings in the harbor area and the surrounding tundra. Or one could even join a kajak trip along the shore and watch the scenery from the water!