Going to the east-coast...

.... and barely making it back home.

And I´m not exaggerating - I´ve never ever been through anything like it.

It started like this:


And this (this is Roland and Berit (and me on right) that we went together with (luckily the kids weren´t with us!)):


We crossed the wide glacier Nordmannsfonna in beautiful sunlight - a bumpy ride, but spectacular. Going home two hours later across the same glacier, it looked like this:


Zero visibility - or a proper whiteout (though not really a blizzard, but nearly).


But here´s some of what we saw before the weather changed:

Looking due east across the sea.


Looking back towards the glacier.


Driving across the sea ice towards Hayes-glacier...

- where you can get really close to the glacier front.



What we didn´t see was what we hoped for (and what I hoped this blog entry would be about) - polar bears. The east coast is where people from Longyearbyen - and crowds of tourists - go with a hope of seeing bears, at a safe distance. But no such luck for us.

Going back up on the glacier, the weather changed quickly, it got cloudy and a strong breeze whirled up a lot of snow. We met another group of 6 snowmobiles, and not long after, another group of 3 snowmobiles. It turned out that our GPS was the only one which had registered the track across the glacier, so 12 snowmobiles had to drive in a slow line - stopping every 100 meters or so to help someone who´d overturned or got stuck in the deep snow.

Nobody could actually see the track - barely the snowmobile only a few meters ahead of them - and the wind and the snow made it into one of the bumpiest rides I´ve ever been on. It was extremely hard to keep the snowmobile in an upright position, especially with the slow going - it´s easier to get stuck when you´re driving slowly.

There was a lot of waiting inbetween the short intervals of driving. Here´s a couple of pictures (when visibility was still OK´ish):



Driving across the glacier in sunlight took less than an hour - driving back took almost 4.

Everyone came through it safely and with no injuries - and extremely tired and relieved! Here´s most of us taking a short break on the other side.


And here´s what the weather was like while speeding back to Longyearbyen.


William and I agree that it was exhausting, but quite exciting too. And we hope we´ll never experience anything like it again.