Exped Report 3 - Reaching the East Coast

Greenland certainly threw all it had at us on our final push to reach the East coast. We set ourselves the target of covering the final 55km in one go, which at the time seemed an ambitious aim (little did we know that on the return journey we would be routinely covering such distances in a dash to make our plane!) But the harsh conditions resulted in a two day battle with driving snow, 25knot headwinds, and with the added bonus of having to wade through thigh-deep snow drifts, enabling us to cover a meagre 2km an hour (on a good leg). Exhausted, our GPS signalled our arrival at our designated point on the west coast late on May 15th.  Although due to total white-out conditions we could have been anywhere and this pinpoint looked exactly the same as the flat white ice-cap that we had been experiencing for the previous 15 days. A few questions were asked to Felicity as to where exactly she had originally got the coordinate for this depot point and whether we had actually reached the coast (?!), but we celebrated with a few whoops and cheers anyhow and set up our tent. It was only in the perfect, clear conditions of the next morning that the stunning natural beauty of our surroundings was unveiled and our arrival on the east coast confirmed….. just us and the glorious mountain peaks and vast glacier-filled fjords reaching out to an iceberg strewn sea.  Absolutely breathtaking. We'd made it.

Our first day on the east coast passed by in a hazy blur of exhaustion and contentment. We slept, we ate… we slept some more… we ate some more… (left over ration bags!)… slept some more… gazed at the view… slept… and for the first time didn't have to de-camp and re-pitch the tent. Lovely. 

Our second day on the east coast brought the excited prospect of the arrival of our helicopter delivering our new depot of supplies… we were about to see other people! Due to arrive at 11am, we were all kitted up and waiting excitedly outside our tent, ready to leap into action every time we heard the faint whir of an engine overhead. By 3pm, our acute state of readiness had somewhat diminished and we decided to make use of our time by treating our bodies to their first wash in 3 weeks. Timed to perfection, no sooner had we whipped off our thermals and emptied the first thermos of warm water, when distinct chopper sounds were heard overhead. What subsequently followed inside the Foxy den was a mad panic by 4 naked Foxes, limbs everywhere, attempting to re-clothe, just in time to see our helicopter fly straight overhead and land over by another tent that had appeared on the horizon the previous day. Unbelievable. Luckily however, the pilot was greeted by 3 rather shocked bearded men and concluded that (unless deluded), these were not the ‘Foxes' and so returned to land near to our tent. Phew.

 Our supplies arrived, hand-delivered by none other than Ben Saunders and Tony Haile, who were in Greenland as part of their training for their forthcoming Antarctic trip. We unloaded our fuel, ration bags and the long-awaited cheese… all 11kg of it!!! (cheese was an important protein component of our diets for the return trip). That evening we set about portioning the cheese up (one portion for the ration bags… one for us… one portion for the ration bags… two for us….). Safe to say, our tent was somewhat ‘fragrant' that evening and we ate more cheese than I thought humanly possible. We also entertained our first house guests when Ben & Tony ‘popped over' and later that evening we went for another record  - “how many people can you fit in a 2man tent” when we all went over to visit their tent. An awesome evening filled with laughter and story-sharing. 

The next day, waved off by Ben and Tony, we Foxes set off to the start position for our return kiting crossing and to wait for the wind that would never arrive….

Jo