Photos

...here you can see my 3 mates on our hike to Gaffelbreen (glacier). The sailboat "Arctica" is anchored around the corner on the right. The skipper stayed there. We took the rubber boat to get on land in a flat area (not visible, near the boat). The hike along the gravel slope was a bit tiring. I now understand what it means that stones or gravel have a specific angle at which they are just stable. Step on top and you will change these properties, i.e., you will glide down a meter for every step! What on earth should flatten these slopes? Frost for more than half of the year, and thawing produces these stones. After we finally got on top of the glacier, walking became orders of magnitude easier! You might understand from this picture, why we didn't try to enter the glacer here. Very deep trenches and gaps in its surface would eventually make crossing dangerous, if not impossible. An accident in this area would be quite bad: we had a radio transmission on the "Arctica", and in good weather the only helicopter of the governor might come to get us. However, weather wasn't always good and the chopper probably had other things to do than travelling hundreds of miles to get us...