View from a snow covered Mountain

On Thursday we had some time to go exploring on our own. Even though it had been snowing on and off for the past two days, there were eight of us that decided to climb a snow covered mountain. So off we went and here are some pictures from the way up the mountain.

 In total it took us around three hours to climb up and get down (getting down was the hardest) from the mountain. The view was so breathtaking on the mountain, if it was not so cold I would have stayed until it was dark.

I made it to the top of the mountain!

Here is the view from the top, I was not lying when I said it was breathtaking.

My trip to Greenland was absolutely AMAZING and I enjoyed every minute, despite it being so cold. I hope that someday I come back to Greenland. It has now inspired me to go to Alaska at some point to see the marvels there. Greenland is such a beautiful place and the people are so fantastic, it is truly one of the hidden treasures of the world.

Vi Ses!!

Ice Crawl Tasha Style

When talking about what we were supposed to be doing on our trip to Greenland I always made a point of saying how we were going to walk on the ice sheet. Well... that is not exactly true, since one can not simply walk on a smooth non snowy ice surface, instead we were crawling or scooting along until we would get to sections of the ice that had a little bit of grip due to snow that had fallen that morning. It is a good thing the ice sheet is uninhabited because we must have looked crazy making our way around the ice sheet. And then all semblance of cultured college students slid away as we realized that though it is hard to walk, it is easy to slide. The ice sheet, which can be described as rolling ice is perfect for sledding - without the sled.

Here I am, about to slide down an ice hill. I have to admit, having grown up with few chances to sled, the whole experience was AMAZING despite the cold.

In the picture to the right you can see what I mean when I talk about the rolling ice. Also if you see the patches of snow those are the areas in which you can walk, the parts that are blue have no snow. It is these areas that you can imagine me crawling around in for fear of falling! =D

After a couple hours, we had to leave the ice sheet so that we could get back to camp while there was still light. I was reluctant to leave and was one of the last people to come off of the ice sheet.
The experience on the ice sheet was, like most of my trip to Greenland, quite hard to describe through words or pictures. Where we were, one is surrounded on all four sides by ice as far as the eye can see. The only color visible is the blue of the ice and sky. It looks so picturesque that it seems fake until you touch it for yourself, validating that the ice is very real and not just a dream. It is magical when you are standing on this ice sheet, which is one of only two in the world. Truly another Greenlandic marvel!

Nature's form of night time entertainment!

Looking up into the night sky one typically sees stars, if one is far enough away from the lights of a big city. In Florida if you are close enough to one of the theme parks you can typically see a light show put on by humans. Kangerlussuaq is one of the few places were, solar storms and clouds permitting, you are able to see a light show put on by nature, the Aurora Borealis. 

The Aurora occurs when charged particles of the solar wind hit the world. This occurs typically due to a solar storm at the sun approximately 2 days (time the particles take to travel to the earth) before you see the aurora. Additionally there may be an aurora but if it is too cloudy, you will not see it. Much of the time we were in Greenland it was too cloudy to see the Aurora, but the Tuesday night that we were there it appeared shortly after our dinner. We all bundled up (I think I was wearing about 6 layers or so), took cups of hot tea and found comfortable spots outside to watch the twirling lights dance across the sky. The price of being cold was, to me, worth it to see this marvel of nature before my eyes.

With such marvels of nature in the far north, it is no wonder to me why Santa Claus is based on the top of the world instead of the tropics.