In a little over a month, the first of our Greenland Crossing teams will be leaving the frozen fjords of East Greenland behind with a course set for Kangerlussuaq and the West Coast - a major polar-style ski and sledge-hauling expedition of around 550km.  We put a huge emphasis on thorough preparation for such a big trip and so, each February, the Pirhuk team can be found on the edge of the Hardangervidda Plateau, a wild, sparsely populated region of fjell (rolling hills), glaciers and frozen lakes in SW Norway.  Many notable expeditions have tested themselves against the area's infamously fierce weather systems, from Amundsen (who claims it's the only place that almost killed him) to Rune Gjeldnes and Borge Ousland.  The tiny settlement of Finse, lying at 1222m above sea level, is home to Pirhuk guide Ronny Finsaas and an excellent starting point for our trips (and also the location of many of our expedition kiting courses).  This year, Alex (guiding the first crossing) joined Matt and 8 others for what turned out to be a great, at times, challenging trip.

The 2 expedition teams present undertook a circular route that reached (but didn't go into!) the Tuva hut - a journey of a little under 100 km.  

  Back in spring 2007, Pirhuk helped set up an expedition by the Dutch team of Paul Kamphuis and Jan Fokke Oosterhof. Their plan was to attempt an unguided E-W crossing of Greenland as part of their preparation for an Antarctic trip.  After a sustained period of bad weather, the team made the hard decision to return to the East Coast.  They are about to release a film on their experience.  

Here's the trailer:

Amelia Russell and Dan Darley contacted Pirhuk over a year ago looking for some specific arctic polar training.  Together with Matt Spenceley, they started out in Finse, Norway and then headed for the sea ice of East Greenland.

Their main focus is now on their big trip, for which they'll be leaving in February '10: an unsupported ski journey from Canada to the Geographic North Pole.  We wish them the very best of luck.

Progress can be followed on their website.

 Chamonix-based IFMGA  guide Neil McNab's outfit, McNab Snowboarding, run a programme of dedicated freeride courses as well as 'backcountry' trips to some of the most exciting destinations around the world.

In '08, Pirhuk put together the details for Neil and a team to head out to a glaciated island on the East Coast of Greenland.

In August 2008, Patrick Peters (from Luxembourg) and Pirhuk guide Matt Spenceley made a coast-to-coast, kite-assisted crossing of the Greenland Icecap.  Starting in Nagtivit fjord on the east coast and finishing in Eqi Sermia 17.5 days later, they encountered variable winds and some testing conditions - rough ice, crevasses and meltwater - in the coastal regions.

Patrick has just completed a book covering......

Every autumn, before heading out onto Greenland’s Inland Ice the following spring, the Pirhuk icecap crossing teams get together to train and run through the details of the coming months.  This year we reckoned on the Lakes, N. England to offer some good training and beautiful scenery.  The storms and subsequent flooding that have hit the region in the past 2 weeks even made the news in Switzerland so it was with a bit of trepidation that we set off.  The drive to Borrowdale ended up going fairly smoothly, with one long diversion in place to by-pass a bridge damaged by the high water.  The floods must have been fearsome to experience.

We've set up a new news service in the form of a blog as an easy place for you to check out general Greenland expedition news as well as more specific stuff like late availability on expeditions and special projects that we've got in the pipeline.  We hope you'll find it useful!

The Pirhuk team