Midnight sun state of mind
Unpublished travel writing
I am stood on the summit of a mountain that needs a name, overlooking a pristine white valley in East Greenland. This is the eighth mountain we’ve climbed this week; with our supply of spouses, offspring and pets names exhausted, we resort to Scrabble names. “Mt. Zo!” shouts Tim–our expedition leader and team Scrabble champion–with a grin. We clip into our ski’s and descend the wide slopes back to the valley.
A dozen more un-named mountains lie scattered around us; each marked by a red circle on our satellite map. This area has been named ‘Camp Icefield’ by Paul Walker of Tangent Expeditions. As far as we know we are the first people to set foot here.
Life on the Greenland icecap has a raw exhilaration. The landscape shimmers around us as we drag our Pulks (Nordic sledges) containing our food and equipment across an expanse of white. It’s late afternoon, but there is no hurry to set up camp for the night: the night will not come.
In Greenland, the sun does not set from May to July. Instead, it sits on the horizon; bathing the landscape in a dreamlike palette of pinks, yellows and purples. Days seem to have no beginning and no end. The traditional concept of time starts to blur at the edges.
Perpetual daylight creates strange 24hr days that we fill with a surreal flow of activities–sunbathing; playing Scrabble; sleeping; reading Jack Reacher novels, climbing; scanning the horizon for polar bears; digging toilets; taking snow baths.
I am dragging my Pulk through a sea of creaking ice. This is a land of spectacular solitude; vast in size and frightening in its simplicity. The rest of the group follow at a distance behind me; ready to enact a rescue should I fall into a crevasse. A lone bird flies overhead–the only sign of life we have seen all week.
A glance behind reveals black clouds following us up the valley; cartoon-like against the white landscape. As we hurry to erect our tents there is an ominous ‘Craack’ as a tent pole has snaps. I exchange glances with Alastair, my tent-mate, as we repair it. We both know that if another pole snaps we will be sleeping in a snow hole. We climb into our tents and wait for the Piteraq (storm) to hit. In Greenland these storms can be violent and last for days. Thankfully our Piteraq exhausts itself while we sleep and we emerge into bright sunshine the following morning (or afternoon, or evening).
On the return flight - gazing at the Icebergs floating below - I realise that there will be an entry for our ascents of ‘Mt. Zo’ ‘Mt. Qi’ and ‘Mt. Xi’ in the records of the Royal Geographic Society in London: Surely testament to the mind-bending qualities of the ‘midnight sun’.
