This will be a short read with no pictures.

We got back from our hike and took showers at the Leif Erikson guesthouse.  Wow did showers feel good on this trip!

Dinner was then served.  Mine: rice and vegetables.  Everyone else: seal skin, whale skin, arctic char, catfish, seal fat, and whale “steaks”.

The vegetarian in me died a little at dinner watching this carnage.  I understand that meat is meat and it is probably better for the environment to eat a seal than to raise cows and eat them.

Apparently the whale skin and seal skin were okay.  The seal fat was disgusting.  The catfish and arctic char were good.  And the whale “steaks” were very good.

Blech!

I stuck with my rice and vegetables.

I did share in the wine, however.

Whew!  We are almost there, everyone!

Day Seven was a doozy of a hike, let me tell you!

First, I will orient you on the map:

We left the hostel in Qassiarsuk to go to Narsarsuaq.  Once there, we had a short drive to the end of the road and got to what is now called “Hospital Valley”.  It is called this because it is where the US built and ran a hospital during World War II.  At the end of the war, they took the hospital down.  Now, it is a place where there are experimental plants growing…the experiments are with light and cover to see what grows better with what kind of light/shelter.  I think most of the students are from the University of Copenhagen.

The valley was rumored to be haunted as the Inuit people were, understandably, freaked out when they saw people with pretty severe injuries wandering around.

After leaving Hospital Valley, the real hike was underway.  We hiked through Flower Valley, which I was super excited to see because during my last trip to Iceland, I saw so many beautiful wildflowers so I figured I would see even more here because it is called FLOWER VALLEY.

Unfortunately, the beginning of August is really the end of summer in Greenland, and alas, there were no more flowers.  I think the beginning of July is a better time to see them.  (But then you have the mosquitos so it is definitely a give and take.)

Anyhow, we hiked through the Flower(less) Valley to 400 meters up a mountain so get a good view of the Kiattuut Glacier.

Oy vey.

The steep part of this hike lasted for what seemed like hours, but was, in reality probably one hour.  There were lots of ropes nailed to the side of the mountain to help get you up the mountain BUT we couldn’t use the ropes because they were old and fraying (you could literally see strands of the rope all along the path).  Luckily our trusty guides knew where to weave us in and out to get us up there safely.  Whew!  It was definitely in the top three challenging hikes for me.  (At least in the top three that I can remember at this moment in time….)

After we got past the steep part, we then had to walk on this itty bitty path that curved round the mountain with a lake below us.  I tried to explain to Alex (the guide babysitting me at the time) where “poor motor planning” means, but he said there was no such thing, and I just needed to walk with confidence.

Ha!  He didn’t see me on the side of a cliff in Malaysia literally frozen because I couldn’t figure out which appendage to move to get up the cliff.  Luckily some man came from behind and shoved me up the cliff or else I might still be there.

After that, the hike got less treacherous, and we finally reached the summit.  Just in time for one last lunch of canned meats, triangle cheese, “bread” (crackers), and soup.  I ate my peanuts per usual.

We then hiked down and back through the valleys to the road, drove to the dock, and zipped back to the Leif Erikson hostel in Qassiarsuk just in time for a traditional dinner feast.

Oh yeah, and when I say “hiked down”, what I really mean, at least for me, is that I slid down the steep part on my butt like it was a slide.  One of my group members told me that I was going to get my pants dirty doing that – teeeheehe!  Like that mattered!  I was either going to get my pants dirty or suffer severe injuries so the pants seemed like a much safer bet.

(I have no pictures of the steep part or the lake part because I was in survival mode.)

 

Following our hike to Gardar and back, we got back in the Zodiac with Dean at the wheel this time.

We stopped and picked up three Italians (one whose camera was bigger the him) and headed to see more glacier fronts.

We also stopped and collected some ice along the way for two important purposes: one to send to the University of Copenhagen for study and two to make glacier ice martinis!

This gives a tiny bit of perspective of the size. Most of the bigger chunks of ice were about semi truck sized on average.

(Only two more days to go…!)

So today we left the dome tent camp.  Though it would feel good to get a shower and such again, it was bittersweet to leave this place.  It was just so “away from it all”.  It is easy to not care about so many things when you just have a few things to concentrate on instead.

But all good things…or so they say…

Ajo drove us out to the sound of him singing “Happy Birthday” in Inuit and then he played “What A Wonderful World” for us.  Honestly, it was such a poignant moment that I did have a tear in my eye…the song, the sights…it was just all really really beautiful.  It really did restore my faith in the world, somehow.

The sound of nothing really

Blowing up the boat

Inuit Happy Birthday – sorry for the fast stop – Ajo told me to stand up and sing!

(For the full song, click here.)

So we rode to Narsaq for a quick boat change/captain change (goodbye, Ajo!).  Of course, the group needed more wine.  It was a mad dash to the supermarket…only to find that there is no alcohol sold on Sundays!  My heavens!  This did elevate the box of wine that I had purchased earlier to a much higher status.  Prior to the “no alcohol sales on Sunday”, my box of wine was laughed at and scorned for being a box.  But…when there was no other wine, my box started to look pretty attractive.  Wine box googles.

Anyhow, we left Narsaq and headed to Igaliku.  Here it was a short hike (ha! there were no short hikes ever in the history of Greenland) to a very pleasant looking village and the remains of a Viking stronghold, Gardar.

The name “Gardar” just sounds middle earth, doesn’t it?

Today was the day I had been waiting for with much anticipation!  I got to hike on a glacier today!

We took our glacier Uber (a.k.a. the Zodiac boat) to the spot we were going to begin our hike.  Ajo (whose name is spelled using my initials – that seems like a sign, right?) was our captain for this ride.  We had met Ajo the night before at the dome tent camp.  He was the first employee of the Tasermiut Company that I met who was Inuit.  He entered the “cafeteria” tent, took some pictures of us, and then played this song for us.

So I knew that today was going to be a fun boat ride.

We also had another guide along with us, this one (whose name is escaping me right now) was specially trained for mountain climbing.

Mountain climbing?

Along with the inability to carry a tune, I am equally as inept at walking on most surfaces – smooth and flat can challenge me.  So the idea of wearing crampons and climbing up a sheet of ice with a mountain climbing expert…well…this seemed a bit out of my range of ability.

We got to the site (more tomorrow about Ajo as a captain), hiked back to the area where the crampons, ropes, and helmets awaited, put our gear on, and started our ascent.

 

The hike was amazing and not as difficult as I thought it might be.  The crampons reminded me of those old school skates I used to wear to skate around my grandma’s basement.  I did require the services of both Jara and Alex to tighten my crampons once we got started on the hike as they seemed like they were going to fall off, and I am pretty sure that Jara and Alex had an earlier discussion about making sure I didn’t lose it on the mountain, so they were extra cautious with me.  I always seem to end up with a babysitter on these trips.

Of all the experiences I had in Greenland, this hike was probably my favorite.  Seeing the glacier from a boat is beautiful and awe inspiring.  Walking on it, though, puts a different perspective to it.  It is just so hard to believe that there is that much ice!  The purity of the ice and water is just amazing.  I drank water truly straight off the glacier! And the sounds of water flowing, ice cracking, chunks falling – it is like hearing the musical scoring of a sculpture garden.  *Sigh* – I hope this was the first time and not the last time I get to have this experience.