Awoke this morning and met up with the group at UNIS for some exercise and views of Longyearbyen from some elevation, a necessary jaunt before lectures in the afternoon. We set off from UNIS and headed up to a hill, or small mountain, just on the side of town with a great view of both the settlement center and bay. This hike was was about as far as we could venture from the settlement proper as we've yet to have safety/firearms training (Monday) and you can't go beyond the settlement boundary without a rifle here in polar bear country.
The group heads out for a hike.
The views were incredible the entire way up revealing valleys filled by braided rivers and every saddle between peaks had fans of sediment emptying in the open valley. When we reached the top we noticed another previously unseen peak that of course we had to get to. There, we took in the view, snapped some candid shots, and then headed down to UNIS for talks by Mike and Sara on sediment transport in high arctic lakes and karst lakes respectively. The karst lake talk by Sara detailed the work she and the AG-212 students will completing in the field as part of her masters work. Karst refers landforms derived from the dissolution of typically carbonate rocks. The lakes she'll be looking at are particularly exotic as they're on top of continuous permafrost and located next to Lake Linne at Kapp Linne. More on them to follow…
Hannah at the karn near the summit of our hike.
Jumping on making the summit of Sukkatoppin (spelling!?!)
The entire student group at the summit.
With that I must be off to help cook dinner with Mike and Steve. Pasta with hamburg and assorted veggies just bought from the Svalbardbutikken (the local grocery store). Buying groceries is even scarier here as the 1 dollar is roughly 6 kroner...