In this penultimate update of the Arctic spring season, the remaining teams on the Greenland Ice sheet have either finished or are well into the second half of their journeys. Elsewhere, the spring sledding season has finished in Svalbard, and only veteran Will Steger remains on the trail in the Canadian North.
Greenland
The four-man team of Gilles Denis, Sasha Doyle, Ed Luke, and Wilson Cheung has completed their 1,700km kite-powered crossing of the Greenland Ice Sheet from Point 660 in the southwest to Qaanaaq in the northwest. They finished on May 18 after 30 days. On May 13, Denis posted on social media that he had abandoned the expedition due to frostbite on three of his toes.
Two young Norwegian women, Live Skattum, 25, and Marta Flotve, 23, are now three weeks into an independent crossing of the Ice Sheet from Point 660 to Isortoq. They plan to reach the east coast by June 8, but as yet, they have not updated on their progress. In a rare move in the modern expedition world, the pair appears to have shunned sharing tracking data and continuous field updates.
Point 660, a common starting point for Greenland crossings, is the edge of the Ice Sheet near Kangerlussuaq, where the jets land. It’s reached via a rickety yellow bus from the airport.
The Finnish team on a wet east coast of Greenland. Photo: https://avotunturit.fi/
Finnish guide Nina Teirasvuo and her five clients have completed their west-to-east crossing from Point 660 on the west coast to Isortoq on the east coast after 31 days on May 17. The final week of the expedition started with good weather, until a storm on day 25 left the team tentbound. Their progress across the icefall on the east coast was uneventful, despite rain and significant meltwater.
The Dutch team a couple of days ago. Photo: arcticadventure.nl
Elsewhere, a five-man team led by Dutch outfitter Arctic Adventure is 368km onto the Ice Sheet, on a ski crossing from Point 600 to Isortoq. Since the evacuation of one of the team at the abandoned DYE-2 Cold War radar station last week, the remaining four skiers have been putting in 20km+ days, reaching their halfway point on May 19. The team has passed the apex of the dome-shaped Ice Sheet and is now on the gentle decline to the east coast.
The large Icetrek team skiing in a train. Photo: Icetrek
A 10-member Icetrek Expeditions team, led by Mardi Philips and Steven Giordano, is three weeks into a west-to-east ski traverse of the ice sheet, from Point 660 toward the Grill Hut on the eastern coast. With about eight days left, the group has recently faced unseasonably warm conditions that have made skiing more challenging and forced them down to their base layers.
The Polar Explorers team a few days ago. Photo: polarexplorers.com
Nunavut
Baffin Island residents and multidisciplinary adventurers Erik Boomer and Sarah McNair‑Landry are progressing with their 45‑day expedition on Baffin. They have now joined forces with British climber Leo Houlding for big-wall objectives and are currently climbing an unspecified route at an unspecified location.
A view down from the wall to Boomer and Houlding’s base camp. Photo: Erik Boomer
Later this month, Americans Henry Penfold and Caleb McDaniels will embark on a five‑month, 2,300 km journey around the coastline of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Their plan is to circumnavigate the world’s fifth-largest island using a combination of skiing, hiking, and packrafting.
Northwest Territories
Eighty‑one‑year‑old American expedition veteran Will Steger is now 50 days into a 1,300km solo Arctic traverse, originally projected to take about 60 days. Setting out from the northeastern shore of Great Bear Lake, he is making his way north toward Paulatuk, an Inuit community on the Arctic Ocean.
In his most recent update on May 20, Steger explained that progress has been stalled as he waits for the ice on the Horton River to break up. He has camped above the river for five days so far and expects at least five more before continuing by packraft. Eventually, he will transition to hiking.
River ice breakup on Steger’s 2023 solo expedition in the Northwest Territories. Photo: Will Steger
“So I’m all set for the raft trip, and then I have to hike out,” said Steger. “It’s a long, very long, arduous trip out: unknowns and crossing streams and that. So I’ve got to be really prepared. In other words, I’ve got to do it real lightweight and decide, being realistic, what I can bring and not bring.”
