Expedition report:

My team and I have successfully completed the 29-days Greenland ice sheet crossing on June 1! We’ve skied 600+ km/370+ miles in total, 25 km/15 miles in 8 hours of skiing a day on average. I’ve also brought back glaciology samples from across the ice sheet. It’s still surreal to think about it. There were definitely challenging days, but it was one of the most amazing experiences ever. I thought I was obsessed with polar expeditions before this crossing, but now I’m totally in love with it 🥰

The last few days of the crossing were a pretty intense race against the Piteraq (highly destructive stormy katabatic wind coming from the center of the ice sheet). The wind was already pretty strong, and it was quite a struggle to stand still, but it was fun to ski gentle downhill with the strong tailwinds. We managed to reach the end of the ice sheet just in time, rushed to get out of the area with the helicopter just 50 mins after we arrived at the finish line, eventually safely arriving in Tasiilaq.

We didn’t have a “rest day” other than slightly shorter days twice and 1 day waiting for an evacuation helicopter for a teammate on day 5. So it felt like a non-stop grind of 8-9 hours skiing in all kinds of challenging conditions every single day while trying to recover as much as possible each night. Gorging on food (somewhat forced eating) in a tent while joking around and talking about the day with my tent mate was my favorite part of the day. Intense drift snow, whiteouts, polar halos, storms, sastrugi, and sparkly snow crystals made each day so magical. The team of 7 from 7 different countries, languages and cultures made the expedition special as well. There were quite a few funny miscommunications, but we got along really well, and each of us made the successful crossing possible 😆💪🏻❄️