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Some mountain images – 24.-28.03.13  

Some taken in daylight, others in dawn. I left before sunset to capture an almost fullmoon to rise over the horizon with these beautiful colours in Svalbard… did my preparations and everything… checked Google Skymap for location (even though I had seen it yesterday)…  lots of clothes to avoid having a miserable time in -25⁰ Celsius… but of course the moon never became visible due to clouds and/or fog… oh well, I like the photos anyway… and a bit of fresh air has never hurt anybody… 🙂

“Ice-caving” – 27.03.13

Well, in my definition, it wasn’t really a cave, more like a crevasse (“a crack in the glacier”), but it was a very special experience anyway. Just getting there was a challenge, the weather was really windy and it created a total whiteout. We couldn’t see anything, and had to drive on GPS coordinates alone. Luckily we found the entrance to the igloo, and there we put on crampons and harnesses, and down we went. It was really narrow some places, the ice was squeezing both sides of my shoulders when passing.

The tour company states: “The tour is moderate demanding, and is not suitable for people who suffer badly from claustrophobia.”. Well, I have to agree… 🙂

Searching for polar bears at the East Coast – 25.03.13

It is a 200km, 10 hour long ride on a snowmobile to cross Svalbard from Longyearbyen to the East Coast where polar bears can easiest be spotted. The route goes through valleys, over glaciers and finally out on the ice between icebergs where the polar bears are hunting for seals.

I was unfortunately not lucky this time… the closest I got to see polar bears was finding some tracks and holes where they had been sleeping… so instead of getting depressed, I figure it is better to use it as an excuse to return… It is amazingly beautiful out there… 🙂

So, therefore, only landscape photos from this trip… 🙂

However, taking photos in -28⁰ Celsius, with all the clothes, gloves, helmet and so on are very cumbersome and challenging, so coming home with some photos at all is a lot more difficult than one should think, and it makes great memories for me. In fact, we were a group of ten persons, and I was the only taking photos…