The Rough. Real. Remote. fieldnotes. part 1

I’m Arne Hardenberg and I am a Greenlandic heliskiing and adventure guide. This April, I wanted to put together a journey that explored the best winter experiences along the Arctic Circle in Western Greenland.

So I invited my friend Stefan Gimpl, who is this legendary Austrian pro snowboarder, to test a new itinerary with adventure products. I know that Stefan is always looking for new adventures and he was the perfect guy to bring on this trip. So, early March, I got him on the phone and told him I had a pioneering Arctic challenge for him.

Stefan was like: “I already have a trip for snowboarding in Alaska all set up for exactly those dates,” and he wasn’t sure he could go to Greenland.

But when I sent him the map of the trip so he could see that we would be going on a full scale winter adventure with dogsledding, ice cap adventures, snowmobiling and heliboarding, he immediately called me back and said that he had rescheduled the Alaska trip. I guess he didn’t want to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

And so a couple of weeks later we met up in Kangerlussuaq, the gateway to Greenland, just four hours from Europe. Only 575 people live in this town and still it has the country’s international airport and it is the adventure center of Destination Arctic Circle where I do a lot of my tours as a heliskiing and ski touring guide.

That’s what I love about my country, its full of tiny places which lead to big adventures. And I couldn’t wait to show it all to Stefan.

Going up on the glacier
Our first stop was the Ice Cap, and to safely guide us up and into the ice we had organized for local adventure guide Adam Lyberth from the tour company World of Greenland Arctic Circle to go with us on a two day expedition.

Now, you don’t want to play around all by yourself up on the world’s second largest glacier. But we were in Adam’s experienced hands, and he is without a doubt one of the most knowledgable and friendly guides I know up here.

We set off in a modified 4WD truck down the only road in Greenland going all the way up to the Ice Cap, and as we stepped onto the glacier I looked over at Stefan, who just gazed in awe at this jumbled, frozen expanse of ice. Alaska might be nice, but he was definitely glad he’d come to Greenland.

That day we spent hiking through the weird, spectacular valleys and over the hilltops of the ice edge, equipped with plenty of gear to keep us warm in the minus 39 degrees celsius.

Adam led us safely in ice caves, around frozen meltwater holes, and with crampons and ice axes we could even scale small slopes and peer into the deep blue of the Ice Cap.

Camp Ice Cap
Luckily, World of Greenland Arctic Circle had prepared a camp for us up on the ice with sleeping tents and even a communal dining tent. Getting inside to enjoy a hot cup of coffee after a day like that and slowly let the experience get under my skin has always been important for me.

Fresh air and new impressions usually makes me hit the tent early, and there we were, sleeping happily. Until Stefan woke up, I heard him tossing and I knew what that meant. He had to pee. I was like “man, wait till the morning, it’s too much hassle”. But when you gotta go, you gotta go – even when its minus forty.

All the snow crystals from our breath had built up inside the tent and dropped down onto our faces and sleeping bags. Stefan didn’t care (I did). He literally put on ALL his clothes, opened the tent and started running only to stop a couple of meters away from the tent to do his business, run back in, get undressed, and zip up the sleeping bag. I just couldn’t stop laughing at that. Why put on so much stuff to do such a short run?

As we drove back along the Ice Cap Road to Kangerlussuaq I realized that no matter how much time I spend out here, the nature never fails to humble me and Stefan felt the same: “You know its special when it was just such a reward to be out in extreme temperatures like that and still be able to enjoy the stars passing over our heads and the Northern Lights dance in the sky.”