Norway in Review: Jim's Final Post

At the start of 2013, we started looking at vacation options for the summer. We were looking at either Europe or Iceland. I was particularly interested in crossing the Arctic Circle, and there are cruises from Iceland to Greenland. There is even one that takes you to the town of Qaanaaq, which is over 77° north!

On February 18, I got an email announcing the Norway Field Course. I was immediately interested, because it included a stop in Longyearbyen, which is almost a full degree north of Qaanaaq, although its name is not a palindrome. We worked out all the details, and somehow made it happen.

When we arrived in Oslo, a rainstorm greeted us, and we needed to learn which of our credit cards we could and couldn’t use.  We met up with the class and enjoyed $10 hotdogs; this would be the first of many expensive dinners.

We were given a checklist of glacier related formations to check off during our journey, we figured out blog duties, and we were off to Svalbard!

Svalbard was definitely the highlight of the trip, and I hope that I can get back some day! I also have becoming interested in Tromsø, and I would love to visit that city as well. I wish we had better weather in Svalbard, but taking a zodiac out on the Arctic Ocean when it’s choppy and rainy was a great way to feel like we were on an exciting adventure.  I stayed up quite late the first night and enjoyed the endless sunlight! I think I could get used to living there, well except for the prices.

Once we left Longyearbyen, we headed to Stavanger. We took a fjord cruise through Lysefjord to see Preikestolen. The weather was not the most cooperative, but that meant that there were less people on the sightseeing deck! We also got some great photos of Preikestolen in the dense fog!

We hiked to Preikestolen the next day, with thousands of other people. We got to see glacial potholes on the trip, and we focused on the geology of the area.

We headed to Bergen next, where we learned about the cultural geography. We were led around town by a professor at the University of Bergen, and he had a lot of good answers about my questions on glacial isostatic adjustment. We took a short hike up one of Bergen’s seven mountains, and learned a lot about the city. We visited the Hanseatic Museum, and learned about what life was like in Bergen during the Hanseatic period.

We ventured into Norway’s interior, and into the land of glaciers and Stave churches!

We visited with family of our professor, and we enjoyed trout with a dessert of redcurrants and cream.  We also had an opportunity to learn about the refugee center in Vang.

Some of us hiked Besseggen, which was not an easy hike, but it was a lot of fun.  I’d have to rank it as my second favorite hike of the trip, with the first being the glacier hike in Longyearbyen, because I think glaciers are amazing.

After Besseggen, I was a little tired, so I’m glad the next day consisted of visiting Stave Churches, and having dinner with some people from the University in Oslo.

On the final day, we visited some museums. The Viking Ship Museum was pretty cool, I can’t believe how well preserved some of the boats are! The Norwegian Folk Museum was really incredible, and we spent the rest of our day there.  We learned about the Sami people and their culture, we visited a stave church inside the museum, and we learned what life was like in Oslo in the recent decades.

It was quite a trip, with a lot of incredible stuff packed in! I wish we had more time above the Arctic Circle and, if I go back, I will definitely find a way to visit Tromsø and visit their botanic garden. The area around Vang was amazing and gave us tons of opportunities to check off items from our list of glacier related formations.

The trip provided a lot of great memories, great photos, and amazing experiences!

--

Jim

Alt for Norge, Zoe's final reflection

Learning about a new country, culture, people, or landscape is always an immensely complicated and difficult project. You can't really understand everything unless you were born and raised there, and even then there are still new discoveries around every corner. Some places are easier to get a sense of than others, however, and Norway is one of those places. I shouldn't say "easier" really, in many ways it's even more of an enigma than most. But Norway's remarkable geography along with its tolerant yet thriving government (not to mention the happy and welcoming folk who call the country home) have made this unique place infinitely more accessible to foreigners. The enigma, for me at least, is just how this has all come together so neatly and effectively. The people are happy (even on Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, a place that seems more likely to inspire heavy depression than a booming tourism industry, as is the reality), the administration welcomes refugees from impoverished and war-torn areas around the world, and protecting the environment is a major force in the country's continued development and governance.

Traveling around the country we saw an extreme array of environments, practically everything short of a desert. Whether it be plentiful (yet admittedly sometimes unwelcome) precipitation or protective fjords reaching far inland, Norway always has something to offer its guests. Because that's truly what we all are, just guests to this breathtaking land. No one could hope to tame it or change it in any way, for the processes at work here are much more than we can fathom. Immense glaciers leisurely carved the dramatic landscapes through which we traversed long before the Vikings' infamous reign. It seems to me that this is one surviving instance in our rapidly changing world where we are the ones being influenced by the environment and not the other way around.

Our time in Svalbard was so unlike anything I've done before and so amazing in many ways that I think that was my favorite aspect of the course. But to compare Svalbard and mainland Norway is like comparing present day Norway and Ice Age Norway: they're two physically and temporally separated entities of the same body. Overall, this experience was much more than a simple tourist checklist of a country as international travel so often is. It was an opportunity for learning based on practical knowledge and individualized understanding, and that is what I think has impacted me the most. My understanding of glacial processes has expanded greatly, much more than I have ever gotten from years of casual learning about the topic in a classroom. I am so glad I met all the wonderful people that I did in Norway and that I got to have this fantastic experience.

Enig og tro til Dovre faller!

--Zoe

Christine's Final Norway Blog Post

Now that I’ve been home for a few days, and am mostly recovered from jetlag, it’s time for my final post on this blog.  Though I'm still going to blame jetlag for the lack of a creative title. :-P

The premise of this course was to see the impact of glaciers over time.  We started by hiking on active glaciers in the arctic, then traveled back to the mainland and forward in time.  We saw fjords (from sea level and then above via Preikestolen), traveled up the coast to Bergen (a city with quite a history) and then into the mountains in Norway’s interior where we saw the landscapes shaped by glaciers ages ago.  This “time travel” approach clearly demonstrated how the earth has changed over time. 

Our trip to Svalbard was the highlight of this class for me.  Most people never get the chance to visit the Arctic, and I wish we had spent more time there.  I would’ve enjoyed meeting more of Longyearbyen’s residents and learning about life and nature above the Arctic Circle.  Hiking across two glaciers was a class highlight as well. :)  If I ever make it back to Longyearbyen I’ll be sure to visit the Svalbard Museum.  A guide told us he normally finds museums boring, but really enjoys this one.

Our personal tour of Bergen, led by Professor Arnfinn Seim from the University of Bergen, was great!  He was very knowledgeable about the history of Bergen and its people, as well as local hiking trails and the geography of the area.  Since Bergen is on the coast, it is one of the first places to be impacted by a change in sea level.    

I also enjoyed the time we spent in rural Norway.  We stayed in cabins at Bøflaten Camping just outside of Vang, and spent time with Dr. Fielding’s relatives.  They provided a delicious homemade meal, a fun evening, and insight into life in rural Norway. 

My favorite part of Oslo was the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History.  This open-air museum had a variety of “real life” exhibits including the stave church from Gol, which had been moved in the 1880s, a working farm with farm houses and lofts dating back to the 1600s, and an old town complete with summer cottages, workshops, and an apartment building showing life at various points over 130 years.

Though somewhat off-topic for the class, I found it very interesting to see how Norway handles public land, and how Norwegians treat their land.  In Norway, land is available for all to use/traverse.  It seems that nothing is 100% off-limits, and there are just a few basic rules.  These rules are outlined in the Outdoor Recreation Act.  I noticed very little litter, even in popular tourist areas, and an overwhelming majority of properties were neatly organized and well maintained.  I don’t remember seeing any run down homes with 5 inoperable vehicles parked on the lawn. 

While hiking in Svalbard, I asked one of our guides if Norwegians were concerned about destroying the tundra by walking on it, since plants that grow in the tundra have such short growing seasons.  Her response was logical, and along the lines of ‘if we want to study the tundra, we have to walk on it, but everyone treats the land with respect and tries to preserve nature’.  While this is a logical approach, it was somewhat surprising to me.  Hiking culture in the US encourages you to “stay on the trail”, in an effort to cause less damage to ecosystems.  We didn’t see a single “stay on the trail” sign in Norway.  I wonder if the difference in these two approaches simply lies in the fact that Norway has a lower population density… Maybe I’ll research that for a project in the future. :)

So long, Norway, and thanks for the beautiful landscapes and $10 beers!

Reflections

Reflecting back on our trip to Norway, I am surprised with how many different things we learned on such a wide variety of topics. Though I expected to learn about the geology of the country, I was happy with how much we learned about so many other topics. Whether it was meeting local people and seeing their homes, both in the city and the country, traveling by different modes of transport, taking a guided historical tour of Bergen with a local professor, talking with PhD students about their studies, tasting local foods, visiting stave churches and hearing their history, or just exploring the landscape on foot with the descriptions and pointed questions of our professor and TA, almost every moment was a learning experience.

My experience in Norway is not one I will soon forget. The beauty of the country will certainly stay with me, and I have the photographs to prove it. It is not often you get the chance to spend so much time in just one country while traveling, and the understanding I have now of Norway surpasses many other places I have visited.

Being an International Studies student, my knowledge of geology is certainly limited, so it was great exposure for me to learn about the glacial formations and landscapes as I was seeing them firsthand. It is just never quite the same to see these things in a book.
In starting my research for my project, I have really been enjoying that firsthand knowledge. It makes the research I am doing so much more impactful, and gives me such a better understanding of the what and the why behind the numbers and graphs.

HiHi Norway: Lanna's final blog

It’s no secret that Earth’s powerful processes operate on a significantly different time-scale from the one humans are used to: tectonic plates move, trees add rings, rocks weather, and evolution occurs. Most of the time, however, it IS practically a secret to humans how exactly these processes occur and what their outcomes have been. We’ve spent centuries trying to figure out the earth’s secrets, but that’s not nearly enough time for us to fully understand the landscapes that have had eons to form and re-form.

That being said, we HAVE learned a little about how to “read” the landscapes left behind by Earth’s ancient history, and perhaps no landscape allows us to discover a more dramatic and readable story than the one carved by glaciers.

Land bridges appeared and were crossed, plants flourished and died, Vikings sailed and plundered, sheep grazed and wandered, cities were conceived and built, and DU students hiked and pondered—these silent and magnificent features were witness to it all. From moraines to cirques, hanging valleys to U-shaped ones, and patterned ground to crevasses in my favorite place we traveled, Svalbard, the landscapes we saw in Norway were a firsthand testament to the raw power and impact of just one of earth’s amazing processes. Just as the ocean can easily make a person feel like a small paper boat (or a bruise-able and unbalanced Svalbard zodiac rider, if a more impactful reminder is necessary), a glaciated landscape stands as a calm and serene reminder of our place in geologic time; our role in the world as the result of just another earthly process.

I hope life will one day return me to a place as awe-inspiring as Norway; a place that can teach me so much about history, life, and the ways of the world. Even if it doesn’t, though, I won’t have to be reminded to heed some of Norway’s most poignant messages: appreciate the earth for both its strength and its vulnerability, recognize the importance of working with the environment instead of against it, allow the earth’s landscapes to inspire and motivate, and—most of all—never try to operate vans that drive like soggy cereal boxes in towns with small roads and trash cans.

Takk for alt, Norway. Give my best to the governor.

Our last day in Norway

Friday was a travel day, we visited three Stave churches.  We were able to tour the Reinli Stave Church.  Jake and Jim were able to play the organ.  The tour was very in depth, and we learned a lot about the church.  The tour guide sang us a lovely song, and showed us the original church key from the 9th century that is still functional!

We traveled through the Oslo and we were greeted by the big city traffic.  We dropped off our bags and headed to a Norwegian professor's house. We had three courses of meat, including elk, cow, and traditional sausage.  Dessert was ice cream with handpicked (by us) red currents.  Jake was extremely happy about this.  We got to meet a few students and other professors from the university, and we had some good discussions with them.

We woke up and took a ferry to the Viking Ship Museum where they had three intact Viking ships.  There were also a lot of artifacts from recovered Viking burial sites.  We were able to learn about the craftsmanship of the Viking Ships.  It was amazing how well they were preserved.  We were able to trace the Viking expansion as it related to climate change during the medieval warming period.

We had a quick lunch, which included smoothies and quiche.  We then headed the the Folke Museum.  There was so much to see in the Folke Museum that you could easily spend the entire day there.  The highlights were:

• The Stave Church
• The apartment building that showed life in Oslo for the past 130 years.
• An herb garden
• An old farmstead, complete with pigs, horses, cows, and chickens.
• Summer Cottages
• Suburban Homes

We finished off the night with the most upscale meal of the trip.  Jim and Christine ate a Whale Steak, which tasted like beef with a slight seafood taste.  We had elk heart appetizers and mussels.

We are happy to be returning to the US, where prices are a little more reasonable.

--

J^3 - Jim, Jake, and Jewell

Beautiful Besseggen

Today we woke up extra early are drove the van to ferry terminal.  We rode the ferry across the Gjende Fjord to the trailhead for the Besseggen trail.

The trail started out with a steep climb.  Once it leveled out, we were able to look across the landscape and identify features such as circles, hanging valleys, and tarns.

We continued on the trail over a small peak, and descended to the famous Besseggen ridge.  We stopped for lunch shortly before the ridge wand discussed the surrounding landscapes.

The ridge itself was not as narrow as we have believed, but it had steep drop offs on either side into lakes.

The next part of the trail was the scramble up the mountain, with steep drop offs on either side. We ascended much  of the mountain by scrambling.  The rocks luckily provided many good hand holds and made it relatively easy to continue on the trail.

We reached the peak around 2:00pm and enjoyed the panoramic views.  From there the trail leveled out and became very rocky.  The slow decent down became steeper and met the van at exactly 4:00pm.

The trail provided views of many of the landforms we have been discussing.  It provided 360 degree views of the beautiful scenery.

We were all very tired after the high, and we look forward to our trip to Oslo.

--
Jake & Jim

Meanwhile, a smaller group of us spent the day with some easy-on-the-knees-and-ankles learning.  After dropping the Besseggen hikers off at their boat, we returned to check out some of the scenery we just drove through.  Evidence of glaciers was everywhere!  We were very entertained by the balanced rock that was aptly named "Rock On Top Of Another Rock" on the tourism map.  We had some close encounters with grazing sheep, found a rune stone from approximately 300 AD and a viking burial ground, visited 3 stave churches, and drove over a few mountains in our sturdy rental van (photo to come).  One such mountain road took us back above treeline and provided views of amazing landscapes.  On our way back to pick up the Besseggen hikers we found a place that makes cheese and then uses the leftover whey for their beer!  A delicious discovery!  We made it back to the dock just as the first Besseggen hikers completed the trail.  Great timing!

--
Christine & Lanna

Grimacing on Grindane

Today we started out the day spending time in Vang.  We toured the refugee center, which houses 140 people from various counties around the world who are trying to receive Norwegian citizenship.  We also stopped at the Øye stave church and visited the church Dr. Fielding's family attends.  

After heading back to camp for lunch, we headed to the Grindane trailhead.  The trailhead itself began far above treeline, and our hike started out by descending into a meadow/floodplain with several tarns.  According to some sources, the word "tarn" is derived from the Old Norse word "tjörn" meaning pond.  As we ascended, the terrain became more rocky and we passed many grazing sheep.  The last hour or so, up to the summit was simply scrambling over lichen covered boulders.  From the top we could see several glacier-formed valleys, 360 degree panoramas, and a local weather station!

It was a great day for hiking, just a little windy.  Hopefully that wind dies down soon because some of us are going on another long hike tomorrow!  A few of us are nursing injuries, but overall we're having a wonderful time.  Stay tuned!

--

Christine and Zoe

The church in Vang.

Hey, look at that tarn!

The van is so far away...

Sheep family!

Bragging about Bergen

Today we spent our first full day in Norway’s second largest city, Bergen on the west coast of Norway. Bergen is a wonderful little town that rose to prominence due to its successful fish industry. We were guided around town by a geography professor from the University of Bergen. He gave us an excellent introduction to this fine town by leading us on a walking tour of the remains of the old wooden wharf down by the harbor. Bryggen, which is Norwegian for “the wharf,” contains the oldest buildings in Bergen. Bergen traditionally experienced a major fire about once in a century, destroying almost all of its predominately wooden structures. Bryggen is a historically important area for the town and was thus preserved; it is also protected as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. This area was actually built and used by the Germans during the Hanseatic trading period, but is now part of the city of Bergen. Our guide showed us the traditional stone buildings in the Bryggen area that were used to protect valuables and are some of the oldest structures remaining in Bergen due to the fires.

We also had a chance to see the university and talk with a couple of graduate students studying glaciers. These students were studying the previous behavior of glaciers using two very different methods, and in two different parts of the world. The first student was studying a small, nearby glacier that he said was rapidly disappearing. In order to trace the path and behavior of this glacier, he was studying the small lakes it had left behind in its path, and in particular the sediment in these lakes. The second student was looking at glaciers in the Himalayas, and was using old American spy photographs to look at what the glaciers looked like in the earlier parts of the 20^th century. Using the past behavior of these glaciers is also an interesting and important way to predict how they might behave in the future, something of critical importance in Norway where almost 100 percent of the energy comes from hydroelectric power. We also talked with these students about climate change, and the rising sea levels worldwide. An interesting perspective on this issue is held by Norwegians and Scandinavians as a whole, since their land is also rising as the heavy ice melts and the weight on the land is lessened.

The last thing we did was ride the funicular, a steep, cog style railway to a beautiful viewpoint high above Bergen. The rail cars are on a steel cable attached to the cars in a large loop, so as one car goes up, the other can come down-- they are each other’s counterweight. From the top we were able to hike to a freshwater lake that used to provide some of Bergen’s drinking water.

On the whole, it was a very informative day. It is always so valuable to see a city with a local, and to see it with a professor is perhaps the best possible way. We learned a great deal both about the city’s rich history and about its geography.

Just a heads up for all you folks at home who've been eagerly reading along, we're headed to the Jotunheimen National Park in south central Norway next. And we probably won't have access to the internet there as we'll be busy getting a bit closer to our Viking heritage.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxZoe and Kristin

The old wooden wharf Bryggen in the center of Bergen. Now it is mainly a tourist section.

A view from outside of Bryggen

At the top of the funicular ride there was a spectacular view of Bergen and the geography

Putting the "fun" in funicular

Hiking Preikestolen

Today the clouds broke, for once, and we took a ferry from Stavanger to Tau for a hike to Preikestolen (aka Pulpit Rock).  We were scheduled to take a bus from the ferry to the trailhead, but the bus left without us.  A taxi was sitting in the parking lot, so we hired him and off we went.  The rock is a 25m x 25m square that sits perched nearly 2000' above the fjord below.  The hike climbed up from the forest below to a cliff trail leading to the top.  Parts of the trail involved climbing up a waterfall, which was tricky after a few days of rain.  For those weary of heights the last bit of the hike would have been challenging, however the views from the top are well worth overcoming your fear of heights.

The rock was carved out of the mountain over 10,000 year ago, the formation is quite unusual with cliffs dropping straight down from three sides.  A perfect place to hold a lecture, we learned about potholes, rock hardness, and striations on the rock that show the directional flow of the glacier.  We also learned that the glacier covered the area with 4000 meters of ice, a distance more that double the height of Preikestolen.

The day ended with a pizza party on the roof of our hotel (photos to come!).  Tomorrow we head to Bergen for our next adventure.

--
<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 Jewell, Jim, Christine

View of Lysefjord from Preikestolen

Another day, another dollar.

Look at that rock!

Fjord Cruise in the Rain

After a long day of travel (starting at 2:30AM), we arrived in Stavanger yesterday afternoon. The sun shone brightly, making us realize just how much we’ve missed having shadows in our lives. Stavanger is on the southwest coast of Norway, and is a beautiful and charming city. We arrived early enough in the day to explore the city on foot, and different members of our group explored the city’s Old Town, its farmer’s market, its shopping, its harbor, and its secondhand thrift shop. We were happy to have seen these things when we did, because the rain we’re becoming accustomed to started up again around dinner time. We ate dinner at a restaurant that is associated with the local fish market, giving us a new appreciation for the benefits of living on a coast.

We decided to move our planned hiking excursion to tomorrow since the forecast predicted a 100% chance of heavy rain all day today. Instead, we went on a ferry tour through Lysefjorden, a fjord west of Stavanger that leads to Pulpit Rock, an iconic geological feature that is 604 meters above the water. The plan was to see Pulpit Rock from the water today and then hike to it tomorrow. The predictions were correct, and our boat ride was cold, rainy, and foggy, giving us just a brief glance at Pulpit Rock. However, we were still able to see many of the beautiful and interesting features of the fjord including roche moutonnee islands, waterfalls, and other evidence of glacial erosion including scratches on sides of the fjord and smooth rocks. The water was relatively shallow near the mouth of the fjord due to the presence of an underwater terminal moraine. As we made our way deeper into the fjord, however, the water depth increased where the glacier once carved out the land.

Another interesting feature we noticed was the presence of numerous salmon aquaculture farms. Although the farms can provide an alternative to fish caught in the wild, alleviating the pressure on wild populations, they are controversial due to the negative environmental impacts they can have.

The ferry tour included several interesting stories about the fjord’s features, including a legendary troll’s heart, a cave that once served as a refuge for outlaws, and goats that have come to rely on the ferry’s bread brought to their cliff side daily.

Tomorrow, we hope to see Pulpit Rock from a higher and hopefully sunnier vantage point!

---

Jake, Lanna, and Kristin

When the (weather) Odds Are Not in Your Favor...

Today we had our first significant experience with the unpredictable weather above the Arctic Circle. Although we planned to see glaciers from the water today, high winds and rough seas prevented us from reaching the glaciated shore in our small zodiac.

Before setting out on the waves, however, we had a laugh as we suited up for our oceanic experience. Although our guides assured us that our zodiac was “unsinkable” (similar to a boat called the Titanic…), we were not only required to wear inflatable life jackets, but were fitted with a full-body water resistant “survival suit”, large rubber boots, strap-on goggles, huge oven-mitt like mittens, and hats as well (all of which we put on over our already bulging multiple layers). The guides stressed the importance of not underestimating the factors of wind chill and salt water spray, which we determined were more important than our ability to move our limbs (in spite of the fact that we were then expected to walk down a slick and wet narrow dock with no railings and then climb into our small zodiac bobbing in the harbor). As we set out on the water, wind, snow, and ocean spray pelted us, and we quickly came to value our fashionable outfits.

At first, the waters were fairly calm, but soon the glassy surface gave way to the unrelenting Arctic sea. Although we couldn’t go far enough to reach the glaciated coast, we were able to reach some seabird cliffs. Stained white with guano, the cliffs are home to the native bird populations here. One bird that our guide Ivan pointed out-the fulmar-is a type of albatross that can live to be as old as 70. Once it leaves the relative safety of the coast for the first time, it will spend up to 8 years out in the harsh Arctic sea. It survives in part by using osmosis to convert salt water into fresh water.

Before the weather pushed us back to the harbor, we also got to see an abandoned Russian mining town. Only four structures were visible, and as we sat rocking in our boat, Ivan told us the history of the area. In the early 20^th century, a group of Russians settled there to mine coal, but abandoned it at the start of World War II. During the war, a German destroyer used the town as target practice, destroying it. After the war, the remains of the town were bulldozed, and it was rebuilt. However, this area of the coast is not conducive to living, as there is nothing to block the destructive waves. The inhabitants eventually realized they were fighting a losing battle against the sea, and the town and its mine were once again abandoned, this time for good, around the 1960s.

We made it back to shore, spines slightly compressed and tailbones slightly bruised from the relentless pounding of our unsinkable zodiac against cement-like waves, covered in a fine layer of salt. The Arctic Ocean, apparently, wanted to make sure we remembered just how powerful it could be.

----

Lanna, Kristin, and Jewell

Ready to go!

We survived!

Getting Our Feet Wet

We started out our Norwegian adventure with a bang today in the Svalbard islands. After landing in broad daylight around 3AM in the airport that makes National Geographic’s list of “most extreme” airports in the world, we settled in for a few hours of sleep before our full day of “boots-on” introduction to glaciers. Our day started with a hike to get to our first glacier (Larsbreen). Immediately, we started to see the evidence of glaciation our textbook had prepared us for. Glacial flour, hanging valleys, moraines, and patterned ground were some of the first features that greeted and introduced us to the ancient world of glaciers. Our hiking route after we reached the edge of our first glacier included a trek across it and back, a climb to the summit of a neighboring mountain (we summited a mountain above the arctic circle!), and then another trek on our second glacier of the day (Longyearbreen) before a hike back out to the road.

Although predictions told us that there was only a ten percent chance of rain for our first day, it not only rained but snowed constantly for essentially the entire day. One of our armed tour guides (carrying guns for protection is necessary due to the presence of polar bears), Yann, assured us that while rain is relatively unusual for this time of year in Svalbard, the constant and accumulating snow was actually very good weather for the area. Throughout the day, Yann also gave us a broad introduction to Svalbard. One of the things we found most interesting is that while the governor says the number one goal of Svalbard should be to have the most pristine wilderness in Europe, the government also promotes coal, tourism, and research as the three main focuses for industry in the area. While the ‘number one goal’ and the top three industries do not necessarily align seamlessly, Yann fully expects that there will always be coal mining in Svalbard.

As we continued through our hike, we saw even more features to cross off our “glacier bingo” checklist, including waterfalls, U-shaped valleys, and crevasses. It was very exciting and eye-opening to be able to see these amazing geological features in person, and to walk on top of one of the powerful forces of nature that created them.

We are including several pictures and a GPS track of our hiking route from the first day of our Norwegian adventure. We can’t wait to see what the rest of our class will bring!

--

Lanna, Zoe, & Christine

GPS Track of our glacier hike:

• Google Earth KML: Glacier Hike GPS
• Google Maps online link: http://goo.gl/maps/3rZdu 

Arriving at 3am at the Longyearbyen airport:

Photos from our hike:

Looking down into the clouds.

We didn't hike this part of the mountain ;-)

View of part of Longyearbyen.

The group with our guides!