Tuesday 2nd August - Eqi Lodge: Trek to the ice sheet

 After dinner, those of us booked into the following day's ice sheet trek were asked to meet at the cafe for a safety briefing and I was surprised (although not disappointed) to see that it was just myself and a charming German couple (my 'age-mates' as they would say in Nigeria), Frank and Catharina (left, below).  The main message from our Greenlandic guide Jens (right, below) was good shoes, and to be ready to leave for about 9.00am.  The trek to and from the ice sheet would be about 20km and take 8-10 hours, depending on how long we spent on the ice sheet itself. 

The trail follows the route of Arctic Explorer Paul-Emile Victor who used Camp Eqi as the base camp for 6 years of expeditions into the Greenland interior from 1949-1953. Using track vehicles (i.e. with tracks instead of wheels, like tanks), the path is well marked and, although it includes 1,000 metres of vertical ascent, is rarely steep except in one place. Less mentioned (but more interesting for a geographer like myself), Camp Eqi was actually established by Alfred Wegener in 1930, father of the theory of Continental Drift and therefore Plate Tectonics. Wegener never returned from this, his third Greenland expedition, dying in November 1930 when bringing food to researchers in the middle of the ice cap.

Anyway - back to the walk. We started up behind the lodge, passing the lake which supplies its water, and across the tundra where we came across several Arctic hares, brightly coloured stones, and stunning views of the wilderness.  NOTE I have my friends Frank and Catharina to thank for several of these photos. To make my camera more accessible I popped it in my back pocket.. and then sat down on a rock when we had a break. Although not badly damaged, I put it somewhere safer for most of our trip up...

(Left) stone brightly coloured by iron deposits with lodge in background, (centre) one of several Arctic hares in typical pose (clearly not many hunters around here), (right) mid-morning break - quite likely to be scene of phone damage... 

Fun fact: there are no large mammals around Camp Eqi as the area is effectively a nunatak, almost like a peninsular, cut off from other areas of land by ice cap and water.

The final ascent to the ice sheet is a steep slope where Victor had built a pulley system to get his vehicles and supplies onto the ice sheet. I was particularly grateful for the walking poles up the steep slope, which before long opened out onto a plain or plateau of moraine which we soon discovered was underlaid by ice: we were on the ice sheet.

(Left), at the top of the steep ascent, 9km in. (Right) the edge of the ice sheet.

(Centre) meanders forming in the moraines on the surface of the ice sheet

And some general views as we made our way a short distance across the ice sheet, looking out for patches of snow (which might hide crevasses underneath) on the otherwise sturdy ice surface.

As I'd remembered from my trip to Iceland in 1985, during the day rivers will flow across the ice,  suddenly disappearing vertically downwards in huge moulins often plunging to the base of the ice sheet. I always found these a bit spooky... This was the closest that my courage allowed me to get.  At night, when it gets cold, these often freeze leaving crystal, clear, still glass-like pools on the surface. 

Coming down from the ice sheet surface, the extent of the moraine fields became clear. Although not as picturesque as the ice, these huge expanses of material transported for hundreds of miles by nature's bulldozer, ice, were more surprising to me, particularly since they appeared so high up. However in fact, the ice sheet climbs another 2,000 metres before it's summit near the centre of the island. 

The moraine fields are littered with rocks of every shape, size and colour that you can think of. Unlike rivers which 'grade' their material by size and can rarely transport large boulders any significant distance, glaciers can pick up and move all sizes of rocks far from where they were found. In English, these erratics (rocks that do not match the geology of the area they are found in) are used as evidence of glacial activity. Catharina, who is a teacher trainer with some specialism in geology (amongst a huge variety of other subjects) told me that the German word for erratic is 'findlinge' i.e. foundling or orphan. Rocks that can't find their parents. I loved that!

(Left) a huge terminal moraine left by a retreating glacier, (centre and right) a couple of examples of the multi-coloured findlinger that we found metres apart in the moraine field. 

Another fun fact: underneath the island, Greenland has almost a circle of coastal mountains. When the ice melts, it's likely that a huge lake or canyon will develop in the centre of the island.

Making our way back, we came across Paul-Emile Victor's pulley system that we'd missed on the way up. The position also gave us magnificent views back across our route. 

We took a slightly different route on the 10km back to the lodge.

And all thought we deserved a cool Greenlandic beer on our return as did the insects and this (fully grown) Arctic Fox. Eqi foxes are as brazen as London foxes! This picture from Catharina as I wasn't so excited at seeing foxes.. after all I see one at least every day on my cycle in to work in London....

If anyone's reading this and contemplating a trip to Eqi, make sure you stay the two nights and do the ice sheet hike. A real highlight of the stay!