Blomstrandhalvøyea (The Flower Peninsula)

August 2:nd

[Tents] In this camp, we weren't the first for the year, so all tents were already in place. Very comfortable to be able to go to sleep almost when it felt like it and not having to spend half the night dragging tents and equipment from the beach and putting it all in order first.

August 3:rd

[Canyon] The next day, started out for some trekking. The walking was comparatively easy, as the ground was flat and not covered by large rocks, but more with gravel. Both groups (I again chose to go "short" tour) walked together the first hours. By this canyon, the ones wanting the "longer" trek followed it up, the up the ridge to the mountain top.
[Seaside cliffs] [Gravel and rock plain]

We others, three in all, walked down it, crossed the creek and up to the plain again and more or less followed the coast line.

The plain is actually not solid rock and gravel down to the bedrock. In fact it is just a layer, a very thick layer, of gravel on top of ice. This can be seen at the seaside cliffs in some places.

This time I found that the 16 km or so, between 1100 and 1845, really wasn't such a strain on my knees: It was only the last hour or so it felt uncomfortable.
[Whale skeleton] Along the coast, we found the remains of earlier whaling activity.

August 4:th

A walk on a glacier

[Glacier walk] [Glacier walk] [Glacier view from just below the clouds] I'd never walked on a glacier before, and neither had several of the others, so it was a walk it was going to be, and not any climbing.

We started out by tying ourselves together, not such much to avoid falling down in cracks as to keep us walking in a straight line, in the footsteps of our guide Stina.

Since it was about 5 km walking to the glacier, I'd chosen to walk in my leather boots instead of my rubber ones. But I needn't've worried, as the surface of the glacier wasn't very wet, except for where rivulets ran, and those one need not step in.
[Walking down the glacier slope] [Ice formations] On the way down, I lost one set of spikes tied to the bottom of my boots, because the nylon strap broke, but it wasn't hard to manage anyway.

We didn't go to the top, as the clouds were kind of low, and we wouldn't have seen the ice fields going on for tens of kilometers anyway, but we did get to see other ice formations close up.

[A cruise ship] In the eveneing, cruise ship arrived in the bay and stayed close to the glacier, hoping to be able to show the tourists parts of it falling into the water.

August 5:th

During the night, an English sailboat with three persons aboard had arrived. This was their second summer they'd been to Svalbard.

On the walk this day, I didn't bring my camera, as we'd be climbing (or mostly walking, really) hills, and I had almost no film left anyway. We went around one mountain, and climbed to the top of anther, Nordvågsfjället at 470 m.

The other group crossed the glacier and climbed to the top of 1025 m altitude. In all, the were gone 12.5 h, and didn't return until 2310. I think supper was welcome then.

Conclusion

August 6-7:th

I got terribly seasick on the ship during our return to Longyearbyen. At least it felt like I was terribly sick, because I ususally don't get seasick.

Follow the advice: Do get some seasickness pills before starting on a trip like this. [Unloading the baggage]

We arrived early in the morning, and the plane left early, on time, so I was back in Stockholm in time for lunch.

Svalbard is one of the places I think I'd like to go back to.

My vacation on Svalbard
Last modified 1995 Dec 22 by Urban Fredriksson
griffon@canit.se