Guide for Arctic Adventure in Greenland 1988
Graduated from US Navy Pilot training in 1992
Military Pilot in the Royal Danish Airforce (Gulfstream III and C-130 Hercules-J)
Instructor and head of Arctic survival training for the Airforce from 1994 – 2014
Head of Air coordination element, Arctic Command
Dash-8-200 Captain in Air Greenland 2013 – present
Expedition leader, Greenlandic Icecap 1998 – present
Many years ago I started working in Greenland as a pilot for the Royal Danish Airforce and it gave me the opportunity to specialise in arctic survival, igniting my passion for this very cold and hostile environment.
With time, I started ice climbing and ice caving, which led to several expeditions and I now work as an expedition organiser and guide for professional groups who need to work on the icecap, in my spare time.
To understand why professional teams require help in this, let me explain a few things about the Icecap of Greenland; it is 2400 km from north to south and 800 km wide with a maximum height of 3000 m. It has a volume of 2.900.000 cubic kilometers of ice. The temperatures varies from +5 in the summer to -66 degrees centigrade in the winter and a yearly average temperature of -28 degrees. The storms are very frequent and outside help can be delayed for many days. So why even go there?
The ice contains many answers to scientist regarding the history of our planet and where we are heading. The ice sheet is up to several million years old and ice core samples provide answers about the climate over time. Nobody knows exactly how the ice sheet moves and what effect climate change has on its melting; right now the melt rate exceeds 269 Gigatons a year and is accelerating. I was asked to do an expedition this fall for Professor in glaceologi Alun Hubbard and a tv crew who wanted to go deeper in the ice than any had ever done before.
After months of planning, getting all the permissions and importantly all the financing in place, we were ready to go. The challenge of packing for this trip was, everything should fit inside a trusted old helicopter S-61N. Anyone that has worked with a tv crew knows they do not pack lightly, and I needed to find place for all the camping gear and most importantly the climbing gear, which itself takes up a lot of room when you need more the 800 meters of rope and caving gear for four people plus rescue gear. We got off the airfield and flew for about 30 minutes to our preplanned position and after a few minutes search we found our ice moulin.
A very experienced helicopter crew found a perfect spot only 50 meters from the ice moulin. A few hours later the camp was up and running and we were ready to go climbing the next day. With everything rigged up, it was time to go over the edge of the hole and plan how to get safely to the bottom and back out. The problem with these moulins is they move all the time, up to a meter per day here. We had no idea how deep it was, we only knew that this area had a special kind of moulin that reaches a depth of nearly 200 meters vertically. To our (Alun and I) relief and to our tv crews horror, this was a big one. A climb like this, you have to do in steps, so you don’t get hit by snow breaking of falling icicles, these will kill you when they fall from such great heights.
When we entered the moulin, it was something out of this world, one side completely flush ice all the way to the bottom and the other side filled with huge clusters of icicles and a waterfall that was still running – this made the climb a little more challenging. Water mist in the air freezes on the ropes and makes it much harder to climb out again. But for us, it was also an indication something was wrong, this time of the year everything is normally frozen solid and there should not be running water at all. After finding a good route we were ready for the final push to the bottom.
It was a very long descent. What we thought was the halfway point turned out to be the beginning of the moulin. After 30 minutes of abseiling, I was now hovering over something that looked liked a lake; it was hard enough to stand on top of, but way too dangerous to remove the safety rope. It was a gigantic cavern measuring 50 meters across and 175 meters from the surface of the ice, nobody has done science by hand so deep before in the icecap. We could not stay there for very long, rumbling sounds and small pieces of ice continuously fell, reminding us that it was not the safest place on earth. After finishing all the measurements, it was time to start a very long ascent up the rope, climbing by ascenders which is hard work. After 1 hour and 40 minutes climbing, we were back in the sunlight.
What did we learn about the ice on this trip? The ice might actually contain a water table (the frozen lake) like on land, and due to global warming the line where it starts is moving towards the centre of the ice, speeding up the melting of the ice sheet as the water lubricates the bottom of the ice sheet, perhaps even lifting it up a bit. These are theories that need to be verified and more work has to be done in the spring, where we are going back with more sensors to install inside the moulin.
Of concern, the hole grew out of nothing to this gigantic moulin in less than three months. We were there in the summer and the hole was just forming; by the end of September it reached its maximum. There are many things to learn from the ice sheet and we are only beginning to understand its function and behaviour in relation to the climate.
For this expedition, I received the Oktopus Moonlite with great expectations. The work environment on the Icecap of Greenland is one of the most extreme on the planet, with temperatures well below minus 40 degrees and many snowstorms. I have used quite a few watches during my expeditions, most had problems with the very low temperatures and the vibration/shock of the ice climbing tool hammering in the hard ice. This diving watch has a big advantage being watertight, a watch in this environment has a high risk of the bearings getting dry due to extremely dry weather, and inducing accelerated wear to the watch mechanism, no such problem with the LW. The Oktopus survived the trip and performed flawlessly. I liked the easy to read dial, a must in low light and very cold temperatures, you don’t want to expose your wrist for too long in bad weather to avoid frostbite. A great watch for the Icecap of Greenland.
