Spitsbergen’s fjords are free­zing over

In recent years, the fjords in Spits­ber­gen did not have as much of a relia­ble ice cover as they used to have ear­lier on. But the cur­rent sea­son is deve­lo­ping well: Tem­pel­fjord is fro­zen and the sai­ling boat Noor­der­licht has taken her posi­ti­on as the “boat in the ice”, alre­a­dy wel­co­ming visi­tors. Alre­a­dy now, the fast ice in Tem­pel­fjord is wider than in pre­vious years: should it get strong enough, then it would be pos­si­ble to take a fast and direct rou­te from De Geerd­a­len to the boat in the ice or even into Bil­lefjord or at least to Gips­da­len, making the win­ter rou­te to Pyra­mi­den much fas­ter. We will see if this actual­ly hap­pens, but any­way: it is loo­king good.

After a dis­ap­poin­ting fjord ice situa­ti­on in 2014, which did not even allow Noor­der­licht to beco­me fro­zen in, both locals and tou­rists are now loo­king for­ward to a good win­ter tou­ring sea­son. Only a few days ago, a hea­vy storm bro­ke a lot of ice up, but both water and air are cold enough now to turn the bro­ken floes into a con­ti­nuous ice cover again quite quick­ly.

Also Grønfjord near Barents­burg and the fjords on the nor­t­hern side of Isfjord are to a good degree fro­zen over now. It remains to be seen if Advent­fjord near Lon­gye­ar­by­en will free­ze over, as it used to in the past. A thin, young ice cover was dri­ven out by the storm on Sun­day.

Why not 2 pic­tures for one ent­ry?

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