Svalbard Coast-to-Coast and Bottom-to-Top - April 2018 - Trip Report

The best photos are courtesy of Tom Harding, Ben James and Leanne Dyke.

See Ben James' excellent write-up here.

Longyearbyen’s an odd place.

This was our dominating thought as we sat in a swanky hipster bar, sipping our beers, on the eve we completed our unsupported 250km coast-to-coast crossing of Svalbard.

The contrast was unreal. Just the evening before we’d nearly lost a tent in a storm, and yet today we were in a bar that would be well thought of on any British high street.

Longyearbyen is an anomaly in the Artic Circle. Initially gaining fame as the base for the ‘race to the North Pole’ expeditions in the 20th century it developed into a bustling minor town. These days many of the mines have closed but a thriving and high-end tourist market has emerged; with visitors from all over the world attracted to Svalbard for his expedition history, mining relics and pristine wilderness.

We’d finished our expedition a couple of days early and were regretting it. According to various sources Longyearbyen is one of the world’s most expensive locations and the extra food and hostel nights were cutting a big hole in our budget. We had debated staying in the field for a couple of extra nights to save the cash but after 12 days of hard work the prospect of a warm bed and proper food was too hard to turn down.

Our expedition had begun in glorious sunshine just under two weeks ago. We’d been transported to the east coast by snow mobile and, after waiting for our drivers to leave so that we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves as we tried to work out how to use these ski and pulk things, we’d set out with our spirits and heads high.

This initial enthusiasm was short lived. I’d left my camera on one of the snowmobiles and three of the four of us were experiencing problems with our skins detaching from the skis. After a few repairs, and a generous shuttle back by one of the snow mobile drivers to return the camera, we were back on our way.

The first thing you notice when skiing with a pulk is that it’s really not fun to be going uphill. Even the most innocuous of slopes place huge strain on you as your battle with your pulk and gravity. In retrospect we’d probably not chosen the most sensible route, having selected a coast-to-coast route that also incorporated Svalbard’s highest mountain, Newtontoppen.

Our first camp was also not a success. I’d wrapped the thread for the polar bear wire poorly and it soon became a huge tangled mess. It took 3 of us about an hour to unravel the fine line – not fun in -10o. We did however at least learn from this mistake and the trip wire went up pretty seamlessly for the rest of the expedition!

The next day the weather deteriorated significantly and we spent most of the day navigating in a white out. Although we used compass bearings to keep moving (with regular checks against a GPS) progress was still slow. It was only on this day that we realised how lucky we’d been on the first day; it would have been incredibly intimidating to been dropped off by the snow mobiles in a white-out (especially given that 3 of us hadn’t really skied much before).

Although beautiful the unchanging nature of the landscape blended with the repetitiveness of our menu as one day rolled into another. Wake up, ski through white landscape, eat protein, sleep, repeat.

The above isn’t really a fair representation. There was a lot more protein in it than the list makes it seem. Ben had organised our food for us and it soon became apparent he has a secret fetish for protein bars, soups, snacks, shakes and just about anything else that can easily be ruined by protein.

After several days we’d climbed to around 1100m. We set up our high camp on a gorgeous saddle overlooking the plateau below. In the distance we could see our objective, Newtontoppen’s summit, teasing us.

Wonderfully skiing free of the pulks we set out the following morning for Newtontoppen. Our summit was made in fine weather; which was good as it’s still exceedingly cold at 1700m in the Arctic! After the climb we turned around for the long ski back to camp, blissful in the knowledge that the journey was (mostly!) downhill now back to Longyearbyen.

The next morning we took a ‘short-cut’ and climbed a small mountain to be rewarded with stunning views from the ridgeline overlooking the vast expanse of nothingness that is the Lomonosovfonna glacier. I say ‘short-cut’ as whilst I was able to ski directly down the other side, Ben and Leanne elected to ski around instead. Tom, in frustration, gave up on skiing altogether and simply pushed his pulk down the steep slope I was skiing. As we met up again on the plateau the weather closed in and visibility was reduced to a few metres. Progress slowed as we were forced to walk on compass bearings, with regular GPS checks, for the majority of the day (incidentally I have a *slight* tendency to curve left if anyone reading this finds themselves in the same situation with me!).

After some misinformation or mistranslation in a bar in Longyearbyen we’d elected to take a short-cut and drop into a gorge for our descent to Adventelva, rather than skiing round the mountain. It was Ben’s birthday so a bit of adventure seemed on the cards but the day was long, tiring and slow as we had to climb in and out of the gorge several times when snow, narrowness or caves blocked our path.

Finally we back on the flat, our two day ‘home straight’ to Longyearbyen. Svalbard’s ‘motorway’ was  a stark contrast to the peacefulness of the interior glaciers; snow mobiles roared past us regularly, clogging the arctic air with fumes and noise.

We’d actually intended to do this last leg over three days, camping a few km from Svalbard on the final night (mainly to save money). However snow cover was rapidly reducing and with snow melt channels rising we decided it was best to err on the side of caution and finish a day early – no-one wanted to have to swim the final leg! As it was there was still a lot of wading through streams, our pulks floating behind us, until we were able to reach an actual road. By this point the snow cover was almost complete absent – we removed our skis and walked the last 5km or so into Longyearbyen, our odd juxtaposition of a town, for a well-earned beer.