Some new ide­as for exci­ting tra­vels to Spits­ber­gen in win­ter 2016: tog­e­ther with Spitz­ber­gen Adven­tures, we are doing a pho­to trip into the arc­tic win­ter. In March, the regu­lar chan­ge bet­ween sun­light and dark­ness is brin­ging con­stant­ly chan­ging light and colours into the arc­tic win­ter land­scape. Based in Lon­gye­ar­by­en and Barents­burg, we will spend a full week to enjoy and explo­re the scenic beau­ty of Spits­ber­gen, most­ly using snow mobi­les for trans­por­ta­ti­on, at a time when the light is often at its best, from gla­cial ice caves to wide val­leys and the cold coast (lite­ral­ly: “Sval­bard”). Click here for more infor­ma­ti­on about this trip.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, Spitz­ber­gen Adven­tures has come up with some­thing real­ly new and spe­cial: the arc­tic bal­loon Adven­ture. Arc­tic sce­n­ery enjoy­ed from a bird’s eye view. Sin­ce flight­see­ing using moto­ri­zed air­craft inclu­ding pla­nes and heli­c­op­ters is com­ple­te­ly ban­ned, this is a uni­que and envi­ron­men­tal­ly sound oppor­tu­ni­ty to see ama­zing sce­n­ery from a total­ly new per­spec­ti­ve. The method has pro­ven to work spec­ta­cu­lar­ly during the solar eclip­se in Sval­bard in March 2015. Now, Spitz­ber­gen Adven­tures is offe­ring seve­ral depar­tures for tho­se who are keen on this adven­ture (click here for more info).

Hiking from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to Pyra­mi­den in the polar night does not sound like a good plan. Not having serious equip­ment does not make it bet­ter. If you start such a deman­ding jour­ney wit­hout at least a good slee­ping bag, solid win­ter hiking boots and a wea­pon (and a lot of other stuff), then you are eit­her cra­zy or sui­ci­dal.

So nobo­dy would even think of this? Wrong. Yes­ter­day (Novem­ber 23), the Sys­sel­man­nen (poli­ce; search and res­cue agen­cy) had to go out by heli­c­op­ter to search for a tou­rist from Eng­land who had left Lon­gye­ar­by­en and told peo­p­le befo­re that this was exact­ly what he inten­ded to do – on his own. Some locals he had been tal­king to had cont­ac­ted the Sys­sel­man­nen.

As it tur­ned out, the many war­ning the man had recei­ved had alre­a­dy been enough to make him chan­ge his mind: he had alre­a­dy aban­do­ned his ide­as of a hike to Pyra­mi­den, ins­tead opting for a much more reasonable walk to mine 7.

The distance to Pyra­mi­den is 50 km as the crow flies, but the distance over land is well over 100 km, espe­ci­al­ly as the fjords are still open. The­re are seve­ral crev­as­sed gla­ciers on the way: altog­e­ther, an impos­si­ble task in dark­ness for a sin­gle per­son.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten