Expedition conducted from March 19 to April 2, 2010
Guide: Michael Charavin
Click to enlarge photots at 70 degrees north latitude and 22 degrees west longitude, guarding the entrance of Scoresbysund, the largest fjord in the world, the Liverpool Land includes territory that stretches nearly 100 miles along the east coast of Groeland for a width of about forty miles .
Unlike the vast ice cap that covers most of Greenland, the second largest in the world after Antarctica, the Liverpool Land is a real gem of a character very alpine area concentrated on his modest about all what can be offered to travelers passionate about the Arctic. Granite peaks and sharp plastered in winter caps and valley glaciers, deep fjords and cashed vêlants glaciers, sea ice, pack and hummocks and icebergs drifting, all is enchantment here that constantly renewed.
From Constable Point airport unlikely consists of a small ice-covered runway surrounded by three tin sheds and a sober assemblage of Portakabin, we seem just landed in the middle of nowhere and rather cool reception (- 20 degrees) ... However, this former mining research base now serves as a relay helicopter to the village of "Ittoqquortoormiit" hamlet "Inuit" located 40 km to the south and last human gathering on the east coast. Farther north, 1500 km of coastline await you where you will find no trace of human life permanently.
Storming Liverpool Land
A perfectly clear sky, rocked by the light of a generous crescent moon presaged a cold night, very cold ... ... ... -35 degrees!
This morning a huge sun comes slowly caress our tents, we quickly providing a pleasant feeling of softness. After crossing the "Hurry Fjord, it is time date to complete our journey through the valley and attack Seedal first jumps moraine that must lead us to the foot of "Bjerning Pederses Gletscher, its lower slopes supported, his pass to cross, a kind of door entrance of Liverpool Land. And 50 kg in tow RAIDar which succeed very quickly plunge us into physical reality of the "Arctic High Road."
We enter this time in the heart of the matter. The glacier is there ahead of its slope, supported at the start and rounding off going over the mileage. The landscape becomes very quickly downhill immense, immaculate in a freshly fallen snow. We now need to track, difficult task indeed, but the soul alert both places appear extraodinaires. The feeling of loneliness suddenly you win. We then took to the first conquerors of territory available to you, free of any human trace. We do believe, moreover, neither trace nor anyone for most of our trip to these places.
Emmitoufflés in our multiple layers, balaclava, hat, mask and sunglasses, walking is also interior conducive to introspection. The slope softens the cervix but still seems flee before us as and our advance. Imperceptibly, yet the slope is reversed, the descent begins, we trace our path carefully avoiding too pronounced reliefs likely to hide his traps cracked. At the junction of two glaciers we set up our fourth camp.
Coup de thaw, clouds and a few centimeters of fresh snow at the key, the camp wakes up in cotton. 300 m in altitude ahead again to win the next pass, which is reaching out. And yet he will win the fight in the 300 meters high, to haul our sleds in the deep snow. The sun is déjà plus très loin, qui s’infiltre entre les nuages, tissant de ses rais de magiques mais éphémères toiles lumineuses.
Nous cotoyons les sommets les plus haut du massif (1'430 m), puissantes cimes telles des cathédrales. De leur sommet courent d’incroyables arêtes ciselées par une suite d’innombrables aiguilles dressant leurs aspérités vers le ciel tels des minarets alignés en rang.
La route se poursuit, il nous faut gagner le pied du glacier, éviter son immense front par une moraine latérale.
Nous franchissons à son pied a fault line, a sort of bergschrund between ice and the coast, we enter the sea ... ... .... Here we are sailors, sailing with our frail craft. We anchored for our fifth camp.
Sea Cruise
This morning, while my head emerges from the tent, time seems to stand still. The physical setting bathed in morning light m'abassourdi. The feeling is indescribable, surreal places .... A huge ice front as a waterfront, a pristine ice, Padded, bathed in a light mist illuminated by the sun still shaving, it's breathtaking ...! I'm speechless, filled me with the magic of the place ... ..
Cape to the east to reach the sea. The snow still very deep limits our speed to less than 2 knots. The sea, however, is "oil", frozen, smooth. After a first headland, the wind has done its work, the ice hardens, the speed increases. We leave the island to the east of Rathbone and the day ended already in the middle of nowhere, we stop our boats for this Second camp during the "sea".
Our "cruise" continues until around the two islands "Parker" well detached from the coast.
The broad scope is to tip and the sea state would always ressent.Comme, circumvention of a cape, she becomes agitated, torn between the forces of currents and winds. Under these multiple constraints ice breaks, twists, agglomerate ... it's chaos. Our progress becomes a game rather funny looking our way through countless " hummocks.
Under the soft light of a setting sun, meter by meter we move into the strange ....
The Monolith ...
Surgi on our horizon, the object grows imperceptibly, guiding our way toward him as a force of attraction must. Soon his foot, in silence, I stop, stunned, questioning face of this mass so imposing Resound ... then the call of trumpets, the alternation of deep drums, the sounds of revelation ... Remember .... The work borrowed from Richard Strauss ... "2001 Space Odyssey."
Back to our poor condition! Installed there at the foot of the monolith, away from our mess tent, we must resume our daily and derisory "flame war" modest struggle, matches in hand, trying to dominate our MSR stoves a bit recalcitrant.
Northern Lights
Tonight the sky is, again, totally starry sharing its space with a benevolent moon. At a bend gaze to a summit, a huge thrill through me from head to foot. Begins to twirl above our immense and strange draperies, first a shy, pale green, moving into gentle undulations until, suddenly, they flare up into a magnificent fireworks display. In a succession of colors, the strange luminescent ballet shrinking soon to flare a bit later.
Cemetery glacierezed!
We go slowly "Vjele fjord. First a few scattered icebergs isolated, as and when our advance, they are always more numerous finally in a real space.
with the currents, they seem to come here to seek shelter before getting caught in the fjord étoitesse, like fish caught in their trap.
In winter, ice had closed in on them and it was then that has created this incredible universe prison. We louvoyons through the multitude of temples glaciated, architectures often surprising, always impressive.
The fjord narrows and soon we cross the gates of the penitentiary, leaving behind us, in their slow agony and their destiny, these majestic masses.
Gates of Hell can arise when the wind and snow storm! Heaven's Gate today, in this tender and too perfect light! The limit is so thin ... ... dust, we return to dust! Water, they return to water ... ... ....
We took our high road, leaving behind us the sea, to climb back through the moraine on a glacier last we have yet to recover. 
The pente s’est à nouveau sérieusement accentuée nous forçant à tracer très laborieusement, pas après pas, notre minuscule sillon. Puis encore une fois, la pente s’est adoucie, mais encore une fois, un col pouvant en cacher un autre, son franchissement semble se refuser à nous…. Ah ces distances trompeuses !
Enfin atteint, le paysage s’ouvre à nous vers le nord du massif, avec en point de mire un magnifique sommet parcouru sur son flanc par un splendide et interminable couloir, courant de son point culminant ensoleillé jusque dans ses profondeurs ombragées. A faire rêver le premier amateur de ski de pente raide venu !
The Ursus maritimus!
We did not cross in Spitzbergen, we had almost forgotten, the polar bear. So true it is that reason leads us to believe that he must drive farther offshore, taking advantage of a fractured ice where seals emerges from the depths to bask on the ice.
And then suddenly, there before our spatulas, a trace, an incredible track emerged right at the top, the heart of the massif, playing an impressive pass cracked, and to run down the slope toward the bottom of the fjord, there to the sea No doubt it can only be a bear, certainly young to judge the size of the print, but where there are clear marks of his claws. Moreover, this track is relatively cool, maybe even very cool ... .... A look at the map leads me to the near certainty that, given the physical setting, its route had to cross on our few days earlier, further south. Just a matter of timing ... but you have to face it, we were not totally alone in the region.
constant stress of these regions, could we rely on the scent of Nina, our dog Polar on the gun handy? Vigilance, as is education!
Last day, last stage under a huge sun rays caressing the blue. At my side line at a good pace, panting and biting her nose regularly in the snow for drinking, Nina, our dog Greenlandic pulling our legs 4x4 integral which, for once, pulls my pulka while I slip on my skis in a found levity to our final destination. I savor these moments of sharing privileged with her in the silent complicity as she throws me a regular opposite corner.
