Whiteout and Wet Fingers
I woke up, blinking, to an unexpected noise. It sounded for all the world like it was raining. I lurched upright in my sleeping bag, unzipped the inner, then the outer tent, and poked my head out to see what was going on. Our tent was half-buried in snow, and a furious wind was busy trying to bury the remaining half. Almost as if it was annoyed that I'd interrupted its work, the wind paused momentarily, then spat a handful of snow in my face. Oddly, the snow was wet and sticky, very un-Arctic considering the stuff you usually encounter up here is fine and dry, almost like sand. I surveyed the scene – it was a complete whiteout; I couldn't see further than the ski poles pinning down the far side of the tent.
I popped my head back in. Tony was rubbing his eyes with two fists. "Jolly good!" he shouted up at me, beaming a manic smile. I lit the stove and we made breakfast before heading out to do battle with the storm.
This has been by far the worst weather I've seen in the Arctic. At best, it could be described as foul. At worst, it felt like it was trying to kill us. "Let go of that tent, lads," the crazy wind mocked, as it flung sleet into our eyes, "and I'll take it off you faster than you can run. You'll never see it again". "Leave that ski pole lying on the ground, and I'll bury it before you realise where it's gone".
The horizontal snow pelted the right side of our heads and legs and arms as we skied blindly into the gloom, caking us with ice. With near-zero visibility, we trusted chest-mounted compasses, themselves plastered with snow, to steer us clear of the crevasses (somewhere to the left) and the cliffs (a little off to the right). Our tracks vanished behind us as quickly as we made them. With skis off, we plunged knee-deep into fast-drifting snow.
Surrounded by the whiteout, we lost all reference points – there is no shadow, no sun, no contrast. The only way you can tell you're going uphill is that it gets harder. Downhill, you fall over more often. Normally I relish being in the lead, but today it was a relief every time I handed over to Tony. Instead of claustrophobically scanning through steamed-up goggles for a nonexistent horizon, I could latch on to the red of his rucksack. It was a joy and a relief just to see something.
And because the temperature is above freezing point, we're soaked. Right down to our underwear. Our cameras are steamed up, there are puddles on the tent floor and our fingertips are wrinkled like we've spent too long in the bath. This doesn't feel like a polar expedition; it's more like a Scottish winter's day on steroids. It's miserable, but in a way I'm glad it's happening. As I said to Tony as we clambered into our sopping tent, it's great to have mental reference points like these to fall back on.
— Filed under Greenland