Expedition's log

TransGreenland 2007

In April and May 2007, 3 Poles will get involved in one of the last great adventures, the Greenlandic icecap crossing, the largest ice desert on the planet after Antarctica:
- an unsupported and unassisted ski expedition,
- in 5 weeks over more than 700 kilometers.

They succeed ! 

On Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 3 pm, a helicopter Bell 212 land on the icecap some kilometres away from the sea, in the South of Isortoq. Two bearded men, the face craggy by the cold and the wind and the eyes ringed with fatigue went aboard: Olivier and Guillaume won their incredible bet.
A long time inviolate route, a 700 km expedition realized just at the end of the winter in extreme conditions and in opposite direction of the dominant winds, total solitude, effort, envy to push away its limits, friendship, passion of the polar regions and their violence, it's all that TransGreenland 2007. 

"We started from the west coast of Greenland, in front of the American continent; we are now on the east coast in front of the European continent. When I try to imagine what we realized, I have the belief to have crossed on the other side of the world… of our world.
It was more difficult than all that I imagined and that I was able to achieve to this day. Colder, windier, longer, farther of everything. 37 days in complete autonomy during which it was necessary every day (or almost) to move on and on; 37 days during which I suffered one thousand times, doubted even more; 37 days during which it was necessary to sink towards the unknown, always farther in this big white desert...
And finally, the east coast, the other side of the world. The happiness is as high as our fears, as the immense disappointment which we imagined if we had not reached our objective.
Some years ago, I dreamed that I realized this crossing. The dream became reality. Thank you for your support and your messages." Guillaume

"The east coast, the arrival! A magic and unique moment, the ultimate reward! This intangible feel to hang, to be in weightlessness. With the fatigue, I associated without difference the happiness of success, the exhaustion caused by effort and isolation and the incapacity to take the exact measure of what I had just realized.
In the last days, the successive wounds (tendinitis, spasms, frostbites) although always existing, had become minor. We moved forward because we had to but also and especially because we had already fight so much, that moving forward and suffering was our everyday life. In these last kilometres, motivation was our single engine.
These 37 days will remain for ever engraved in my memory.
Thanks to all that supported us during this expedition." Olivier

Final straight

Isortoq is now less than 100 km away: for almost a week, Guillaume and Olivier have been doubling their effort to try and finish their adventure in style. If they manage to keep their current pace of 30km a day, TransGroenland 2007 will end on time.

Suprises however keep coming up: the sweet slope that was supposed to take them effortlessly to Isotorq turns out to be covered with the same snowdrifts they encountered at the begining of their journey. These 15-20 cm high snow heaps prevent their pulkas from sliding.
The spirit does resist but their bodies are aching with tendinitis and other little polar injuries.

This newsletter will be the last message sent from Paris; the next one will be sent to you live from Kulusuk, a lovely village on the coast of Greenland and the editors in chief behind the keyboard will be none other than our A-team: Olivier and Guillaume themselves!

Guillaume and Olivier finally reached the summit of their crossing (2 550 m) after enduring a strong meteorological depression: last week end saw very strong winds (+80 kph) paired with heavy snowfalls. The temperatures, which had raised slightly these last days, felt again near-35°C.

In this difficult context, their progression has slow down. For over a week, the daily rhythm was in excess of 20 km per day but this has decreased again with this storm. To set up a tent under the squalls of wind is not small matter: on Friday evening, it took them 2 hours to set up their tent, a flagstaff having broken under the wind pressure. A long session of do-it-yourself under the tent followed to fix the broken piece. In this context, it is easy to make mistake: Olivier did not notice that his glove had a hole. At night, under the tent, he saw the hole and the frozen finger. He contacted immediately the doctors of Ifremmont (their medical support) to take the appropriate treatment to heal quickly. The climate begins to cause injuries …

The end of the journey is close: a helicopter is booked for May 10th for Isortoq. Another 10 days of race against the clock to catch up the delay due the harsh meteorological conditions. The final 10 days will be enduring as the weather reports are not encouraging and the physical condition of our two heroes has weakened . Good luck Guillaume and Olivier You have the support of all of us!

Zoom on the communications

Olivier and Guillaume give news every 2 days by telephone satellite. To avoid any repeat of the Iceland episode in 2004 (to read the narrative: click here), they brought with them not one but two telephones Irridium, a beacon, a GPS …

They contact Marielle, logistic support of TransGreenland but also the wife of Olivier in life. They indicate to her their GPS position, their progress and their physical and moral conditions. In return, she gives them the last weather reports. Nothing very personal in these conversations of 2mn. They have to save their phone battery.

Once every 10 days, they call their respective wives but it is a short call, rarely more than 10mn. However, these minutes are precious as they put some balm in the heart both side of the Atlantic ocean. It gives everybody the energy to wait for the reunion…
10 days from today...

252 km covered - height : ~2 000 m

Small troubles sprout everywhere; they each suffer alternately from tendonitis in the Achilles' heel, which is the typical walker’s injury. Loneliness is harder and harder to bear: even if they share the tent at night, discussions are rare during the day and a feeling of depression hits them frequently.

Once the highest point of their expedition is reached it will become much simpler: they will gradually get away from the epicenter of the cold and a sweet slope will take them to the coast where the journey will end.

Lesson in polar gastronomy

We get asked regularly about the diet of our adventurers on the 3poles.fr website. How do we eat in Greenland?

Guillaume and Olivier left Paris with 35 bags each containing their daily rations: cereal, dried frozen milk, rice pudding and cake for breakfast; Chinese noodles and chocolate bars for lunch; soup, dried frozen dishes, babybel and compote for dinner. The daily ration represents approximately 6 000 kilo Calories.

Lipids are the main lacking element as they are very scarcely present in the various forms of powder food. To mitigate this they use dried fruits and Pemmican: Amerindians used to prepare this mixture to survive their rigorous winters. Literally meaning "home made fat ", it consists of dried meat - usually game or bison - crushed to powder and mixed with an equal amount of melted fat.

The hardest in this regime has to be the lack of variety in food and beverages. The same 5 menus over and over for more than a month of crossing. On the way back from their previous expedition, Guillaume and Olivier both felt nauseous simply talking about the Chinese noodles but sometimes you have to settle for the less than perfect… The water, which comes from melted snow, has a strong enough taste: the taste of the mess tin (also used for cooking) and oil. Drinking is anything but pleasant in spite of the tea and the other additives supposed to cover the taste of motor oil.

The meteorological conditions remain icy (-30 to -40°C) but Olivier and Guillaume are now hardened to the polar cold. Their progress has become more regular. On average, they have traveled 15 km a day over last week.
By departing the coast, they leave a ground covered with a film of snow and snowdrifts formed by the wind which had slowed down their headway.

They have now entered the desert of ice. The harder ground and the absence of haste facilitate their headway. The pulkas slide better but they are always heavy, about 90 kg each.
The weight is difficult to distribute fairly. They take turns, every two days, to drag the heaviest. The one who drags along the lightest pulka paves the way and imposes a steady pace. The other tries to keep up with the pace. With the depletion of their food and oil supplies reducing the weight of their pulka and hence allowing them to move faster everyday, they have set higher progress objectives.

Their only misfortune this week had to do with their stove which stopped working. A real drama because without a stove, Olivier and Guillaume could not process ice into drinking water or eat a meal. They managed to fix it after working on it nervously for two nights.

The atmosphere and the health are thus high and good. Olivier and Guillaume are getting closer to Isortok….. but still about 450 km away.

Olivier and Guillaume have gone for a week now; they are moving very slowly: 1.7 km only the first day; 1.4 km the next day. The slope explains their pace; it is necessary to climb 700m at first before reaching the icecap.

The first day on the plateau on Friday saw them progress by 5-6 km and the next day by 7 km. It is slow. Snowdrifts formed by the wind make the ground fickle, which slows them down. The pulkas loaded with foods and equipment are heavy and weigh over 100 kg each with the ventral harnesses wrenching the two men’s guts.

It is extremely cold with temperatures reaching minus 40 ° and the wind is not helping either. They spend their time trying to warm themselves up and breaks are kept to a few minutes, which makes their days exhausting.

Under the tent the temperature reaches minus 30°. They have to periodically wake up during the night to warm themselves up. Moving is not easy in their sleeping bags full of satellite telephones and all kinds of electronic devices …. Under these temperatures, it is necessary to use one’s body as a shelter to protect the batteries from freezing.

In spite of these testing conditions the morale is very good; they dreamed about it and now here they are. Suffering and fatigue are a part of the game.

The departure... 

Olivier and Guillaume are getting prepared in Ilulissat: gathering oil supplies, finalizing necessary authorizations and paperwork with local authorities, completing a final rehearsal of monitoring and communication procedures... Ilulissat (4000 inhabitants) is the country’s third largest city and a true city by Greenland standards. The Parisians are quickly running empty of things to do there and having to spend just a week in this small fishing harbour town feels like an eternity, especially when “city” sightseeing is not the purpose of the trip. They were joined on Monday by the France Television crew in difficult conditions: a lot of snow, wind and very bad visibility... But the team is now complete and can not wait to go.

The beginning of the adventure was initially planned on Tuesday but had to be postponed to the next day due to stormy weather preventing the helicopter from taking off.

The sky clears out, the helicopter has taken off today at 4PM (Ilulissat time) carrying Guillaume and Olivier more motivated than ever, and the journalists. It is a 50 minute flight to reach TransGreenland’s point of departure at the bottom of the 7km Eqip Sermia glacier.

Everyone is eagerly looking forward to reaching the first base camp. 

Monday, March 19, 2007 A welded and experienced team TransGreenland will be achieved by two enthusiasts of polar areas with a solid experience of unsupported ski expeditions in the arctic regions. They together have led expeditions in the Disko Bay on Greenland’s west coast in 2005, on the Icelandic plateau the previous year and to Spitzberg, in the Svalbard Archipelago, in 2002. Married, 32 years old, Guillaume Hintzy has also participated to a dog sled expedition in Baffin Island, in the Canadian Arctic, in 2001. He shares his time between polar expeditions and high altitude mountaineering. In addition to various summits in the French and Swiss Alps, he has fulfilled the ascent of Mera Peak (6480 m) in Nepal in 2003, Mustagh Ata (7546 m) in China in 2005 and Kilimanjaro (5895 m) in Tanzania last autumn.         Olivier Le Piouff, 40 years old, has a daughter and shares his life with Marie and her two children. They wait for a new baby who will be born next June. Olivier has also achieved a ski expedition in Finland in 2003.   Timeline of the TransGreenland 2007 expedition  The expedition should spread over 5 to 6 weeks. A minimum of 30 days will be necessary to cross the icecap. We have also foreseen 5 extra days for safety reasons, depending on weather conditions and progression speed. Our team will take off, the 29th of March, from Paris to Copenhagen in Denmark. The day after, it will take a plane to Kangerlussuaq, the international airport and national hub for Greenland’s west coast, then a second flight to Ilulissat. On the 31st of March and 1st of April, our team will dedicate to the final preparations, the equipment last checking and an ultimate repetition of safety and communication procedures with the assistance team in Paris. The 2nd of April, Guillaume Hintzy and Olivier Le Piouff will be transferred by helicopter to the bottom of the Eqip Sermia glacier, former departure point of the French Polar Expeditions of Paul-Emile Victor. From the next day, they will start the great icecap crossing that will end one month later near Isortoq, a tiny village on Greenland’s east coast.  Sunday, February 18, 2007 History of the Greenlandic icecap crossings Till the end of the 19th century, the inner Greenland was totally unknown. In 1888, Fridtjof Nansen achieved, in 40 days, the first crossing of Greenland, over approximately 500 km, south of the 65th parallel. Four years later, the explorer who dedicated his entire life to the North Pole, the American Robert Peary, repeated Nansen’s exploit. In 1909 Peary claimed the conquest of the Pole with dog sleds. If Peary was certainly the first man to reach 88° north, his success on the pole is unreliable. The polar explorer Knud Rasmussen fulfilled the crossing in 1912, then Paul-Emile Victor and his team (Robert Gessain, Michel Perez and Eigil Knuth) is the first French man to cross the inlandsis in 1936 with dog sleds. During the last decades, some big names of the polar exploration or mountaineering tried this mythical crossing. In 1988, Jean-Louis Etienne, the first solo man to reach the North Pole with skis, prepared in Greenland the crossing of Antarctica with dog sleds which he led one year later with Will Steger. In 1993, Reinhold Messner, the first man who climbed the fourteen 8 000m summits and who reached the summit of mount Everest without oxygen, and his brother Hubert attempted the crossing but were stopped by bad meteorological conditions. In 1993 also, the polar legend Marek Kaminski, the first man who reached North Pole and South Pole unsupported, succeed the crossing. Then Laurence de la Ferrière, who established several feminine world records in high altitude climbing and without oxygen and who has been the first French female to reach solo the South Pole, fulfilled the crossing in 1995 together with Alain Hubert. The same year, Antoine de Choudens, member of the High Mountain Military Group (Groupe Militaire de Haute Montagne), also achieved the crossing; little known by the public, he is nevertheless the first man in the world to reached the "3 Poles" unsupported: North Pole in 1996, Everest (without oxygen) in 1997 and South Pole in 1999. Finally, Mike Horn, who since realized a world tour following the Arctic Circle and then reached the North Pole together with Borge Ousland, achieved the crossing in 2002, after an aborted attempt in 2001.  Saturday, January 20, 2007 Witness with 3 Poles to protect the Polar Regions For several years, we have been enthusiast with Polar Regions and we saw them evolving over the last years. Beyond the sport challenge and the tremendous human adventure, we wish that TransGreenland 2007 will be the opportunity to share our passion of these polar immensities and help to protect the planet and the polar areas. First fresh water reserve of the north hemisphere, Greenland is particularly affected by the global warming. During our previous expedition in 2005 on Greenland west coast, we noticed an important decrease of the coastal ice floe and an acceleration of the melting of the polar glaciers. The most striking example is that of the fjord situated in the South of Ilulissat of which glacier, who produces the most important volume of iceberg in the Arctic, retreated more than 11 kilometers since the beginning of the 60s. An international study on the Arctic climate (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment), published in November, 2004, revealed that this part of the globe warmed up twice as fast as the rest of the planet during the last ten years. This study pointed out that the arctic regions know "some of the fastest and most severe climate changes on Earth" and that the melting of ice in this zone had contributed to increase the sea level by 7,6 centimeters over the last twenty years. The far North is a fragile ecosystem and is essential to the ecological balance of our planet. The seas which surround Greenland notably participate in the formation of the big sea streams, in the renewal of oceanic waters and in the reproduction of the big marine mammals. Although Greenland has few inhabitants, its waters and its coastal glaciers are particularly affected by the effects of human pollution generated by industrial nations. Persistent organic pollutants (POP), which include the highly toxic dioxins and the PCB as well as various pesticides as the DDT and the dieldrine, are transported on long distances in the atmosphere and set down in the cold regions. The Inuit populations who live in the Arctic, beside the transformation of their environment (change in the ways of life, impoverishment of the fishing and hunting zones,…), appear among the most contaminated peoples in the world because they depend on marine alimentation rich in fats - fishes and seals - in which these pollutants accumulate. Finally, as all the animal species living in the Arctic, the polar bear is the other symbolic victim of these chemicals and the fast transformations of the arctic climate. With the reduction of the ice floe surface, its natural habitat, the polar bear is forced to go back always more northward and can be henceforth considered as one of the threatened animal species.  Wednesday, December 27, 2006 A mythical polar expedition With North Pole and South Pole, Greenland crossing is one of the great ski expeditions and is one of the most difficult polar expeditions. The route which we chose represents more than 700 kilometers and 5 weeks in total isolation. We will progress with Scandinavian ski pulling a pulka (sled) of approximately 100 kg. The expedition will be achieved without any assistance (no motorized equipment, dog or kite) and in total autonomy (no resupply). In a totally inhospitable ice desert, our team will have to cross glaciers full of crevices in order to reach the icecap, then will have to face extreme temperatures (-10° to -45°c) and violent winds that can reach sometimes more than 300 km/h. The route Each year, 6 to 8 expeditions from different countries attempt the icecap crossing by following the Arctic Circle. We chose a route much more in the North, rarely taken, which was followed in 1936 by Paul-Emile Victor with dog sleds. The departure will be made at the bottom of Eqip Sermia glacier that we will climb up to 800 meters in order to reach the border of the icecap. Then we will progress during the first two weeks up to an altitude of more than 2 500 meters. Finally, a sweet descent will bring us to the small village of Isortok, situated in the heart of the Ammassalik district.