This morning I hiked out to the waterfall. At this time of the year, the word waterfall is a misnomer because everything is frozen and there is no waterfall. I was able to walk on top of the frozen river instead, which was even better than seeing the waterfall. I have never walked on a river before. I went with Kyle Krabill, one of the IceBridge crew, as my guide and we walked down into the river valley. We walked from the truck down a path and then we were on the river. We walked about a half mile on top of the river and then we climbed up the side of the river bed. We could have gone further down the river but that would have been an extremely long hike that neither of us was ready for. There was a rock cropping on one side of the river which made it easy to climb up. At the top of the river bank we rested for about ten minutes while Kyle flew his drone. He flew his drone through the channel that the river made between the mountains on either side. I haven't seen the video yet, but I am going to ask for a copy of it. It was amazing to see the drone flying trough the canyon and getting an arial view that few of us would be able to see.
Metamorphic rock along a river bed outside of the town of Kangerlussuaq Greenland.
Adeena crawled under a big rock along a riverbed just outside of Kangerlussuaq Greenland.
After resting we decided to move on. The entire area is mountainous and we continued our hike to another mountain. Instead of heading back on the path towards the truck, we decided to climb the mountain. Neither of us have ever been up this mountain before. We started to climb and it was a tiring affair. As we approached the top of the mountain we saw a reindeer, and after seeing him we decided where there was one there was probably more. So not knowing what we were getting ourselves into we made our way to the mountain top to see if we could see more wildlife. We made it to the top and we were lucky to see another reindeer on the other side of the mountain.
A reindeer at the top of the mountain just outside of Kangerlussuaq Greenland.
I was under the misconception that going down the mountain would be easier than going up but I was wrong. As we trekked through the snow, it got deeper and deeper. At first the snow was mid calf but as we descended we encountered snow that went up to my knee. As I walked I felt my left leg hit into the snow, I went for my next step and my right leg disappeared into the snow. I was stuck! I had to take off my boot to get my leg out. Once my foot was out of the boot, I was able to free the boot by digging it out of the snow. When I lost my shoe I fell and when I got up I was sopping wet. We didn't travel that far but it felt like miles. When we could finally see the truck, I was so happy. I thought we would never see it again. Deciding to go down that side of the mountain was a risky move. We didn't know exactly where we were going or if we would be able to make it back to the truck going down that side of the mountain. We couldn't see down the entire side of the mountain to the bottom. As we walked down, we didn't know if the bottom of the mountain would be too steep to descend. As I continued to go down the hill, it felt like the truck was moving further away from us but that was only my imagination and the fact that I was wet, cold, and tired. Don't get me wrong, I was smiling the entire time. I was so happy even though it was a tough hike. When we finally reached the truck, I decided to make a snow angel. After plunging into the snow for the entire walk back to the truck, when I did my snow angel I landed on the only hard packed snow around. How did that even happen? The moral of the story is that I had a great hike but I need more practice in the art of creating a snow angel.
As soon as we got back to our hotel I took a hot shower, hung my clothes on the heater so they would dry, and had a nice hot lunch. It was a great morning.
Looking at the mountains outside of the town of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland.
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