Kite Greenland- Final evaluation By Poles.com
One of the aims of Ronny, Tom and Helge was to beat the 21-day record of Niklas Norman and his team on the Narsaq-Qaanaaq Greenland route. After frustrating windless days and crevasses, melt water and moraine on the last day, Ronny, Tom and Helge reached Qaanaaq in 21 days.
Here are the reports of the last three days on the Icecap:
Slow progress with no wind
08 July 12:04 - 77N36562 61W41528: “The day before yesterday there was no wind at all and we stayed put in the camp all day. Yesterday we started to kite on a very calm wind. After some hours the wind grew stronger, and the conditions changed to our favor. Everyone is doing fine, and we once again feel quite confident that we will reach our return flight (home).”
09 July 19:15 - 77N57062 66W49356 : “We camped here last night as progress today is at a stand-still. Nice weather but no wind… We had expected to have reached the destination by now, but we are still here on the ice cap, waiting. Probably there will be a bit of wind tonight, and we expect that the next message will be sent after crossing the “finish line”. Everything is still fine with all of us.”
Crevasses and heavy backpacks
10 July 16:50 - 77N42035 69W26124: “The expedition has now reached the coast. This means that we have actually reached our destination, at 1055 am today! It’s lasted 21 days, and we’ve touched the world record set by Nicolas and co.”
“This last stage was a very hard one with tough kiting. Among other things we had to jump over crevasses with and without water, while kiting. Coming down the glacier went relatively smooth.”
“Everybody is doing fine! We’re a bit tired after running the last bit to beat the record while carrying many kilos on our backs! The last bit we had to carry our stuff on our backs through a real ‘mean’ moraine, which made us almost fall flat on our faces.”
“Our camp is now set, we’re having a meal and have had a small drink. Helge has shot a small duck. Our problem now is that the fjord is frozen and this means that the boat we had intended to call cannot get in here. We must try to get a helicopter to collect us. This seems like the only
realistic alternative at the moment.”
“If we have to walk to Qaanaaq, we can simply forget to reach our return flight back to Norway, and we don’t want that… We’ll figure out how to get in contact with them. Anyway, we made it “Hei og hå”!
11 July 23:00 “A helicopter picked us up earlier today, and we are now back to the civilization. The return plane leaves for Copenhagen the 16th of July.”
Ronny Finsås, is from Finse in Norway. In the Antarctic summer he is the chef at ALE’s base camp, Patriot Hills. Otherwise he is doing kiting journeys and teachings for the past 11 years. He also did three kite trips from South Pole to Hercules Inlet, in 2003, 2004 and January 2008. With the last one he skied the 1130 km from the South Pole in 5 days. On one stretch he covered a distance of 271,45 nm or 502,73 km in less than 24hours.
Tom Svendsgaard is the man with the plan, says the expedition website. Experienced ski sailor with a lot of hours around Finse, Norway. Most of his time he is bringing jazz to the people of Bergen.
Eirik Lutsi Ronny Finsås
In 2005 Ronny’s friend, Niklas Norman, and his Windpower Expedition team did a kiting expedition on the same route, “Using only 21 days on the 2300km (air distance between the camps) long trip from sea at Narsaq to sea at Qaanaaq! This leads to an average speed from sea level to sea level of 110 km/day. Setting a new world distance record in 24 hours of 442,7 km. (Old record: 271 km) Average speed over the 9 last days 210 km/day An unforgettable experience!” Details according to the Windpower Expedition 2005 website.
Hi Geoff,
