End­a­len – 27th Sep­tem­ber 2017

Wed
27 Sep
2017

The fol­lo­wing days in and around Lon­gye­ar­by­en show how much luck we have had on the last trip with Anti­gua. Now, we don’t see the smal­lest bit of blue sky for days on end, and usual­ly only the lower half of the moun­ta­ins sur­roun­ding us. The sun does not rise high any­mo­re, and as it is con­stant­ly hid­den behind the cloud cover, it seems pret­ty dark even at day­ti­me. It is just over 4 weeks ago that the sun was shi­ning bright for 24 hours a day, and in just about 4 weeks from now we won’t see any of it at all for some time!

Good days altog­e­ther to get things done insi­de. And the­re is of cour­se more than enough to do after months out in the field 🙂 but still, we just have to get out, the tun­dra is cal­ling, the lonely val­leys … you don’t have to ven­ture far from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to find natu­ral beau­ty, silence and soli­tu­de. You don’t always have to go as far as Hin­lo­pen Strait. End­a­len and Fard­a­len have got their own charm.

It is pret­ty mild, with tem­pe­ra­tures well abov the free­zing point, so the rivers still have a lot of water. In other years, you could cross even lar­ger rivers in hiking boots wit­hout get­ting wet feet when the frost was strong enough alre­a­dy at this time of year, but not this time. So we have to find our way, cross some melt­wa­ter streams and find a way around the water­fall in upper End­a­len by clim­bing up the morai­ne of Boger­breen. A huge land­scape of stones, mud and ice, a real ice age world. You could spend a lot of time here, dis­co­ve­ring ama­zing stuff, enjoy­ing the ice, loo­king for fos­sils, but the days are get­ting shorter while the way does not. It is more than 20 km for today.

Gal­lery – End­a­len – 27th Sep­tem­ber 2017

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Most peo­p­le will know Lon­gye­ar­pass with its steep slo­pe that is lea­ding from upper Lon­gye­ar­breen down to Fard­a­len from the win­ter sea­son. Many snow mobi­le groups take this rou­te then, for exam­p­le on the way to or from Barents­burg. The slo­pe can be chal­len­ging, espe­ci­al­ly when the­re is soft snow and poor visi­bi­li­ty, and it has brought snow mobi­le dri­vers regu­lar­ly into trou­bles. Pie­ces of torn V-belts and other debris are silent wit­nesses of tho­se events. It may not seem much of a pro­blem when you dri­ve past it at speed, but in the sum­mer, the pla­s­tic seems – well, it is! – very much out of place and quite dis­gus­ting. Well, not too many peo­p­le come here in sum­mer­ti­me, alt­hough it is just about 6 km from Nyby­en, the nea­rest part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The­re is still Lon­gye­ar­breen bet­ween Fard­a­len and Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Its icy sur­face is blank as a mir­ror now after the rain that we have had the last days, so we are more than hap­py that we car­ri­ed the cram­pons all the way. Wit­hout them, it would be very dan­ge­rous to attempt the hike down the gla­cier now, but with them, it is actual­ly gre­at fun. During the last part of it, the clouds are coming down, tog­e­ther with the dark­ness that is set­ting in, so it is hard to see the way and the morai­ne with its melt­wa­ter streams actual­ly looks a bit threa­tening. Good to know whe­re to go. The last melt­wa­ter river, coming down from Lars­breen, is almost big enough now to give us a foot­bath in our hiking boots, but who cares, we have rea­ched the road and soon, the fry­ing pan is get­ting hot on the coo­ker …

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