Under sails to Spitsbergen’s gla­ciers

With the beau­tiful three mast sai­ling ves­sel Anti­gua, we went into the fjords on Spitsbergen’s west and north coast, up to Mof­fen on 80 degrees, to men­ti­on one of this trip’s high­lights straigh­ta­way in the first sen­tence. This trip was dedi­ca­ted to Spitsbergen’s gla­ciers, mea­ning that we offe­red the chan­ce to do seve­ral hikes on the­se fro­zen rivers of the arc­tic for tho­se who were inte­res­ted, from an intro­duc­tion to wal­king on ice with cram­pons to roping down into a crev­as­se for a bra­ve vol­un­teer towards the end of the trip.

Of cour­se we did not just focus on gla­ciers, but we tur­ned out atten­ti­on to the who­le scenic spec­trum of arc­tic land­scapes that Spits­ber­gen has, to keep the level of enthu­si­asm high throug­hout the trip. And what you want in the­se lati­tu­des in mid sep­tem­ber is this glo­rious warm light of the low sun. We were to get ple­nty of it! Of cour­se you have to expect any kind of wea­ther in the high arc­tic, and we did get our share of wind and snow, but not too much and it did not bother us too much while we were wai­ting it out quite com­for­ta­b­ly in a shel­te­red bay.

We made a num­ber of beau­tiful wild­life obser­va­tions that some may have found sur­pri­sin­gly lar­ge: we saw both polar bears and wal­rus­ses more than once. The high­lights for many were the ama­zing wal­rus encoun­ter on Mof­fen and the polar bear in Kongsfjord, not to men­ti­on the Finn wha­le in Kross­fjord.

In short: it was a gre­at trip! By the way, we will be back in Spits­ber­gen in Sep­tem­ber 2016 with Anti­gua. No gla­cier hikes, but we’ll be more than hap­py to land on Mof­fen again if the wea­ther is on our side …

Click here to down­load the Tri­plog (Ger­man).

The­se gal­le­ries give some impres­si­ons from the various sec­tions of the trips.

Album

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Click on thumb­nail to get the cor­re­spon­ding gal­lery.

Gal­lery 1
Isfjord and Kongsfjord

21 Pho­tos

Gal­lery 2:
From Mag­da­le­nefjord to Mof­fen

30 Pho­tos

Gal­lery 3:
Lief­defjord

18 Pho­tos

Gal­lery 4:
Kross­fjord

12 Pho­tos

Gal­lery 5:
Kongsfjord

15 Pho­tos

Gal­lery 6:
Isfjord

15 Pho­tos

Video

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