December in the björndalen cabin in Nowhere - one month of blizzards and darkness

December came closer and I could not imagine to fly home.

I fell basically trapped in longyearbyen, this amazing island.

So i decided to move to our Student cabin 15 km outside the town in björndalen and stay there.

 

Thanks to my Snowscooter, i was able to bring all my stuff and enough food to the cabin and get supplies fromthe town, when i needed them.

 

Now, i would say that this month was one of my most awesome experiences until now.

I remember most of the time as one huge Dark and cold blizzard. Most of the time the cabin was shaking when i woke up and i could rarely see anything outside the cabin.

 

my typical day was firing the stove, cook some tea and food, read books and dream inside the day/night thinking about everything and nothing. it sounds incredibly boring, but this was the time, were the time stopped running, all stress and hurry didn't exist anymore and I could relax like never before. Every day or night (it didn't really matter) with some Moonlight or northern lights or even starb light was used for short skiing trips inside the valley, to the shore or just for sitting outside and watching the sky.

 

The first week I also had a compagnion, tundrak an awesome greenland dog, who loved to go out in every weather. Some more visitors came over Christmas, so that we had a nice celebration, even with a christmas tree and awesome food. For new, year i wanted to go to the town, but the shaking cabin due to a huge Blizzard in the morning changed my mind.

 

 

Some impressions about the clear sky time:

Polar night in Longyearbyen

in November it started, the sunlight disappeared completely and were replaced by moon- and northern lights.

Although it was dark cold and stormy, the time became calm and relaxing and trips out in the nature more adventurous. And the northern lights kept me more awake during the night than the permanent sunlight did.

 

 

Northern lights above Sarkofagen

Northern lights and lightpollution seen from björndalen.

even so, we couldn't see longyearbyen itself, its orange light was visible from miles

Our last trial to get to Colesbay by ski: A Blizzard in björndalen and 2 km/h made it impossible and we stayed in the warm and cosy student cabin instead

Scooter trips, were finally possible

Longyearbyen at the Polar night

Tempelfjorden 3

 

tempelfjorden - again

 

One week off from our studies at UNIS.

So i needed to use the time and go out.

luckily i found 6 more people to join and we started a trip to Tempelfjorden again.

it doesn't matter how often i go there, i think this is always an amazing hike for a shorter time period.

an it was an amaing trip again.

 

The first snow, was covering the tundra, so we tried to bring a Pulka - stupid idea how we thought after the first few meters...

... Until we reached Adventelva, the ice on the river allowed us to pull all the heavy stuff behind us.

The moon never set

And Sassendalen was a huge desert, like in my memories

crossing the frozen river is not a problem this time

And the first time, we tried the way along the coast to Tunabreen and found some interesting ice sculptures

Tempelfjorden in awesome clear and sunny weather

Finally, Tunabreen

And a nice sunset in the end of the Polar day

 

ice caving - the world inside the glacier

 

the stories about amazing ice caves from the "old" students fascinated me all the time.

So I went on the glaciers behind our barracks and searched for every kind of hole which disappears inside the glacier and might be an entry to such a cave.

 

I found 2 on Larsbreen and 3 on Longyearbreen...and with each ice cave another fascinating world inside the glaciers.

Soon, the ice caves became famous again, and the groups who wanted to see them became large

headlamps and helmets became rare, and a new hobby for UNIS students were found :)

here the entry of the moraine cave on Longyearbreen

 

Sometimes the caves ended as deep holes with water on the bottom

Sometimes we needed to climb inside

And sometimes we needed to squeeze

but every cave was unique

even so, some of them didn't look like caves

And some were more like a crevass

 

Mountaineering behind the student barracks

just behind our barrack in Nybyen, we have the most adventorous backyard you could imagine.

mountains and glaciers with an amazing view.

 

Nordenskiöldfjellet is the tallest mountain around and the way goes over one of the two ridges from another mountain...

....Plateaumountain, and it is full of curious reindeers

our "housemountain" is Sarkofagen, with an amzing view over longyearbyen, and always worth a small evening hike

Sometimes, our hiking groups get pretty large

View from Nordenskiöltoppen towards Björndalen

Trollsteinen is another famous mountain right behind our barracks.

here you can see were its name comes from

larsbreen is one of the glaciers next to us, and always nice for skiing

Excursion to the russian settlements on Svalbard

 

Our excursions for the Arctic environmentla pollution course brought us to the main point pollution sources up here: Pyramiden and Barentsburg

 

 

Lenin statue in Pyramiden, and abandoned russian settlement...

... which seems to fall apart

the main problem is still a pollution with PCB

But we also found other sources. the whole vegetable storage halls were filled by leaquing barrels with strange black stuff.

our environmental pollution group

the trip to barentsburg, a still operating russian mining settlement brought us on a tourist ship along Esmarkbreen...

...where we saw some bearded seals

in Barentsburg a nice green cover of plant welcomes us ... probably most invasious

the mining railway in Barentsburg

field work at kapp linee

Our first field trip for Arctic hydrology went to Kapp linee.

A nice stay in an awesome hotel in nowhere and a lot of hiking for measurments and lectures out in the field.

 

polar circel ride to kapp linee

Zodiac ride over lineevatnet

with a beautiful background scenery

And finally a bit hiking

Until we reached the glacier for our group project about the melting history of it

Grumant 2

Back from Tempelfjorden, my father left and the first weekend was used for another trip to Grumant

First possibility to show the new students in my semester one of my favourite places around Longyearbyen. 

first challenge: crossing Longyearelva

On the top of Plateaubeget, awesome weather

Reindeers on an old snow field

and a compass plant

The way down to Björndalen was a bit more fun

Finally: Grumant

exploring the buildings

meeting the locals

and the way back

Kjersti tried different ways to cross rivers with short hiking shoes: jumping, climbing and finally Riley as a ferry