17/12/2012

Easter - part V

After a night's rest in Longyearbyen recovering from the adventures of Easter part I-IV, Katja, Amanda and I headed out again towards Tellbreen. We knew some other friends had headed in that direction the day before, on skis. We went on snow mobiles.

Long story short: all nine of us spent the night in the lower part of an englacial conduit in Tellbreen, i.e. in an ice cave.

As I said, this was in the lower part of the conduit, meaning that we had ice above us and mainly debris and frozen ponds under us. Also, it was too low to stand upright.

And again, any questions, don't hesitate to submit a comment below.





Melting water form icicles freshly picked off the wall!

Meeee!



The next morning we ran into Doug Benn, professor at UNIS, and knower of all that is to be known about glaciers. He told us that this particular ice cave had not been very stable lately. Whoopsie daisy....

15/12/2012

Easter - part IV

Heeeey! Remember Easter part I, II and III? No? Well, it's all about my easter 2012 adventures on Svalbard, and to be honest, they were quite interesting. Now I am going to my arse into gear (can you say that in English, or is that just a Norwegian expression?) and post pics from rest of the easter holiday during the next somthing days/weeks. I don't think I can be bothered to write too much about the general happenings in the pics, that's what stopped me getting the posts done the last time.

If there is anything in the photos that you are curious about, post a comment, and I will answer. Enjoy!

Easter 2012 - part IV:
The strangest sunset, and Eskerfossen.
 A little bit of background: Snowscootered from Svea and all the way to the east coast. Met complete whiteout and increasing winds at east coast, turned around, drove through tricky moraine, and headed back to Longyearbyen. Made a couple of stops on the way back:

We were met by the strangest sunset I have ever seen on our way back through Sassendalen. To begin with I thought something was on fire, because everything else had the usual bluish tint. One of the you-kind-of-had-to-be-there-experiences.



 Stopped at the Esker waterfall. Frozen at this time of year. Unfortunately it also had a big pile of drifted snow in front of it during our visit...








 Next time: Easter - part V: Sleeping in a Glacier
Stay tuned!

05/12/2012

It's time to get down

Aeh feck. You know when you've mentally written a brilliant blogpost in your head but by the time you reach a computer (or in my case can be bothered to open Blogger) you've forgotten and lost the flow of the text and now your words just kinda stumble over each other. Every time. Every fucking time.
But the general gist of it was as follows:

The temperature outside the last week or so has kept itself at a steady -12 to -16 degrees centigrade lately. I don't mind the cold since I then finally got to pop on the down jacket I bought on Svalbard this spring. I bought it rather late in the season so this week has been the first proper oppurtunity to test it out.

It's a Klättermusen Iving waterproof down jacket. It's way too expedition for my usage, but us UNIS students got it for less than half the price it goes for on the mainland since they've put a lovely little UNIS-logo on the arm.
It only came in unisex sizes, so I got the smallest one (size small) and still runs a little big. Now I'm 175cm tall (that's 5'9'' for you non-metric feckers), so that's a whole lot of jacket!

 (Note the remote control for the camera in my right hand there...)


I guess we can do a little review kind of thing while we're at it. Mind you I have only used it around town so far, and the wind the last week has been non-existent. But my general impression is that it is a superb jacket. It's kept me nice and warm when waiting for the bus, though as I said, it's a wee bit big on me, and hence I get a little too much air around the lower part of my upper body. More clothes underneath and that won't be a problem.

The down filling seems a little thinner under the arms, which I guess could be nice if you're moving about in it a lot and need a little ventilation.
It's a little on the heavy side weighing in at 1170 grams. Not a problem while wearing it, but if put in a backpack I guess you would notice it. But, then again, it is meant to be an expedition jacket, not a Sunday stroll-jacket.

My favourite part is the pockets! Two large ones to put hands and other things in, two still rather big ones on the chest. I also very much like the system for tightening the wrist areas and lower jacket edge. Simple enough so you can tighten and release even if wearing big-arse mittens. And the hood has a wire across the entrie edge.

Okay, that ended up being more writing than I intended, but I have decided that I shall not be afraid of writing in the posts, as long as I have some pics as well.

If you want to read more about the Klättermusen Iving jacket, take a look here.

02/12/2012

Procrastination

It's exam time for the eternal student, and being the queen of procrastination that I am I have just finished wathing an episode of Doctor Who (still mourning the loss of Christopher Eccleston (ninth Dr) after I finished watching his season last week, but being nicely comforted by David Tennant (tenth Dr). Both yum in their own way), and googling all the outdoor gear I want but don't need. Need to learn to use the gear I already have first.
    Let's add some pics of the ninth and tenth Doctor to have something to look at shall we (there's something about big ears...):



Okay, from geeky thing to another: I bought this ingenious little thing on eBay not long ago, and I've been using it intensively ever since for revising for my exams. It's a pencil lengthener!


One end is for standard size pencils, the other for slightly larger pencils. I stuck a rubber on the big-pencil-end instead since I recently also bought 144 pieces of rubber to put on the end of pencils. Imagine all the money I'll save on not throwing away half used pencils! The lengthener cost about a pound or something from Hong Kong via eBay.co.uk.

Got any tips for smart little gadgets that make everyday life so much easier? Or a favourite Doctor?