Glowacz's close-up

Expedition Baffin Island, May 18: Stefan Glowacz’s blog on his adventurous journey to a wall to which nobody has ever been.

Sunday, May 18

71 degrees North, 34 minutes, 10.7 seconds – 073 degrees West, 26 minutes, 08.0 seconds. Distance covered: 15.5 kilometers.
As if punished for such stupidity, we have to trek again today. Not until later in the day does the fog lift. My God, what dimensions it has! In the evening we plot the distance covered on the map. As a mater of fact, we were very happy with ourselves today. But looking at the map together, we can hardly fathom how imperceptible the day’s work comes across on the remaining distance. We have forebodings, and are already thinking of rationing our provisions. Overnight it starts to snow and … a wind blows in.

Saturday, May 17

71 degrees North, 41 minutes, 54.5 seconds – 073 degrees West, 27 minutes, 55.2 seconds. Distance covered: 14 kilometers.
We circumnavigate Cape Cargenholm and hope for some wind at the entrance to Paterson Inlet. A bit of rough ice, and there’s actually a light breeze blowing with somewhat stronger gusts. We get out our kites, 11 meters square in size, and chaos takes over. We don’t all start at the same time, travel different ways and after five hours, there are three groups, hopelessly scattered. It’s a good thing that both of our weapon carriers, Robert and Mariusz, are stuck in the rough ice together; Holger and I have bear spray in our backpacks, at least. Klaus only has his cameras. He has difficulties in getting his chute up; the wind is getting weaker; the polar bear tracks more frequent, and the paw imprints bigger. Fog rises up. At the last minute we come together from all directions, in front of us the white out, which swallows up the morning hours of the following day. Yet another depressing day.

Friday, May 16

71 degrees North, 46 minutes, 46.3 seconds – 073 degrees West, 38 minutes, 30.8 seconds. Distance covered: 18 kilometers.
The motto of the day is ‘The discovery of slowness.’ We divide the day into stages: two hours trekking, break, two hours trekking, break, two hours trekking. End of the shift. We’re trekking and trekking and can’t believe that the kilometers pass by so slowly. There are well over 300 to go until we get to Clyde River, a sheer overwhelming notion. Today I try the following tactics. I choose an iceberg in the distance for us to aim towards. Then I try not to look at it for as long as I can. For hours I trek behind Holgers pulka and keep staring at the same rivet on his back. When my curiosity becomes unbearable, I look up and realize to my horror that the iceberg, at least visually, is just as far away as it was before. We set up camp at the entrance to a ten-kilometer-long fjord. At least today we’ve reached the other side of the Buchan Gulf. A small, a very small, consolation.

Thursday, May 15

71 degrees North, 48 minutes, 20.3 seconds – 074 degrees West, 0.6 minutes, 34.1 seconds. Distance covered: 9.8 kilometers.
‘Take the long way home,’ the name of our route, is actually only supposed to be a reference to what lies ahead, but not supposed to immediately become certitude. What’s awaiting us over the next 20 days will become clear in the first two hours of the trek. Our pulkas weigh between 75 and 100 kilos. Of course Mariusz has the heaviest one, but he didn’t want it any other way. Of course we start off too fast. Of course the first of us already has blisters on his feet after a few kilometers. And of course we can’t believe that we’ve only covered such a short distance.

Midnight. The sun is just rising on the other side of the bastion. We set up our first camp. Hair, caps, rucksacks are all covered with a thick layer of frost and, a few hours later, also our polar bear warning fence. The frost weighs the nylon ties down to the floor. To set off the alarm, the bear would have to crawl towards us like a seal. We spend the night in a fittingly anxious way. We dream of a huge horde of polar bears tearing down our camp. Holger and I are permanently on the alert.

Monday, May 12 - Wednesday, May 14

The last few days on the wall were very eventful, which is why I’ll provide comprehensive descriptions. Right now there’s a great deal of hard work going on in front of the tent, because today we’re off to Clyde River. Spring has also now sprung on Baffin Island. Even though we can wear our parkas open from time to time, the conditions on the ice are becoming disadvantageous from day to day. Huge lakes are already forming. They’re treacherous because we can’t judge the depth of water. We’re going to have to travel mainly at night and hope for good kite winds in the late afternoon.
‘Our’ wall was only one goal of many on our route; now the expedition continues and is just beginning to get exciting. On the rocks we know what we have to do, but as far as life in the Artic wilderness goes, we’re novices and have to trust in our instincts and experiences of the expeditions we’ve already done.
I don’t want to keep anyone in suspense. Here are the details of our ‘dream route’ on the bastion. We climbed a total of 21 pitches. The wall was 700 meters high and the degree of difficulty was A4/10-. The jewel already has a name, ‘Take the long way home.’ And we’re heading off for this now.