Greenland exploration - Summit Camp to Nuuk
Greenland Exploration
Greenland is one of the least visited, best preserved, and most breathtakingly beautiful places in the world. Geologically part of North America, Greenland is the world’s largest island and most northerly land. It traces its exploratory and colonial lineage to Europe and today is an independent country that is a component of the Kingdom of Denmark. It was named “Greenland” by explorer Erik the Red who reportedly believed that the name would attract settlers.
Eighty percent of the land mass of Greenland is covered by the Greenland ice sheet, the second largest body of ice in the world after the Antarctic ice sheet. The Greenland ice sheet measures 1,500 miles along its roughly north-south length and has a maximum width of 680 miles. At 678,000 square miles, it is larger than the land areas of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden combined and is roughly equal to the combined areas of France, Germany, Spain, and Poland. Rising to over 10,000 feet above sea level at its highest point, the ice sheet is nearly two miles deep at its thickest.
Greenland is ringed by fjords that were (and continue to be) carved by glaciers flowing to the surrounding seas from the ice sheet’s interior. A number of towns dot coastal Greenland, each set amid stunning scenery of glacially-weathered mountains and coastline. This includes Greenland’s capital and largest city, Nuuk, which lies on Greenland’s southwest coast.
The Greenland Exploration Bush Trip traverses some of the most spectacular and memorable parts of Greenland. Starting at Summit Camp, a research station located at the Greenland ice sheet’s high point, the route heads to the west coast, overflying the ice sheet. The journey then turns south to explore the towns, islands, fjords, mountains, and other sights of this spectacular part of the world.
<z>Flight instructions:
No landmarks are visible over the Greenland ice sheet. Use the GPS heading at the beginning or turn on "Route and Waypoints" in the navigation aids options.
You can interrupt the flight at any time. The journey will resume from the most recent waypoint.
After each landing, taxi to one of the parking areas and set the aircraft to cold and dark.
Pay close attention to fuel level. Not all airports provide fuel.
Use ATC if you wish.
Total Legs: 6 Total Distance: 973 Total Time(125kts): 7 hours 47 minutes
Leg 1
Summit Camp to Upernavik Airport
Leg Distance: 315.34 Approximate time at 125kts: 151 minutes.
Summit Camp(SU01) to Ice Sheet View 1(POI1)
Distance: 107.78NM Bearing: 305° 52 minutes
After lifting off from the SU01 airfield at Summit Camp, set a course for Ice Sheet View 1 and gain altitude, enjoying the incredible views of this vast, high-latitude wilderness.
Summit Camp was established in 1989 to support the Greenland Ice Sheet Project Two. This was a multi-year initiative to drill and recover ice cores to build a comprehensive understanding of past climate variations, as ice acts as record keeper of atmospheric conditions. The camp is located at an elevation of 10,551 feet above sea level, near the summit of the Greenland ice sheet.
Summit Camp is one of many research stations established over the past decades in Greenland to study a wide array of subjects, from biology to black holes. Most were built on or near Greenland’s coast, with a small handful having been established in the interior of the ice sheet. One of the most infamous of the interior camps was “Camp Century,” a long-abandoned facility that was located on the northwest aspect of the ice sheet. The camp was built in the 1950s as part of “Project Iceworm,” an American top-secret Cold War program to explore using Greenland as a base for intercontinental nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. Camp Century consisted of a network of more than 20 covered trenches dug into the ice sheet and was powered by a nuclear reactor. The project was abandoned in 1967 due to the ice shifting, which eventually destroyed the camp.
The inexorably shifting ice that destroyed Camp Century is a testament to the “living” nature of the Greenland ice sheet. It is a dynamic system, built through snowfall and driven in motion by gravity. The entire sheet is continuously in a state of change, slowly flowing outward to Greenland’s surrounding seas in distinct “streams” of ice from the highest points of the formation, like the one atop which Summit Camp is built. Not even bitter cold like the record-setting -93.3-degree Fahrenheit (-69,6° Celsius) temperature, recorded in December of 1991 at an automated weather station near Summit Camp, can keep the ice of this region locked in place.
Summit Camp is located in Northeast Greenland National Park, which covers the entire northeastern quadrant of the island. The park, established to protect the unique environment found in this part of Greenland, is the largest national park in the world at 375,000 square miles. The official permanent population of this massive national park is zero, although upwards of fifty people may be present throughout the park at any one time, distributed throughout research stations like Summit Camp.
Ice Sheet View 1(POI1) to Ice Sheet View 2(POI2)
Distance: 103.91NM Bearing: 302° 50 minutes
From Ice Sheet View 1, continue on course toward Ice Sheet View 2 and Greenland’s west coast at Upernavik Airport. With each mile farther to the west, the altitude of the Greenland ice sheet decreases. While the surface over which this route traverses remains uninhabited and untouched due to severity of the environment, Greenland’s coasts, notably its southwestern coast, have seen exploration and development.
Evidence indicates that humans have been present in Greenland for thousands of years, although in very small numbers. This includes archeological remnants at Frigg Fjord, located at the northern extremity of Greenland. The remnants found at Frigg Fjord, which is less than 500 miles from the North Pole, is the northernmost human settlement in history. Most exploration and development in Greenland has occurred far to the south of Frigg Fjord, and today there are 72 distinct population centers in the country, of which the most numerous are settlements with fewer than 100 people.
Signs of Greenland’s west coast will slowly emerge after overflying Ice Sheet View 2. Sight the southern extent of the Upernavik Archipelago and then pass over a series of islands, including the northern extremity of Nutaarmiut Island. The Upernavik Archipelago is the location of the first known inhabitants of Greenland, Inuit people, who arrived roughly 4,000 years ago.
Ice Sheet View 2(POI2) to Upernavik Airport(BGUK)
Distance: 103.65NM Bearing: 300° 50 minutes
Continue flying over the northern end of Nutaarmiut Island and then pass just to the south of Aappilattoq Island. The landforms here are representative of those throughout all coastal Greenland. Having formed through the processes of glacial weathering and erosion, these coastal forms include numerous small bays, inlets, fjords, moraines, and large swaths of bare, polished rock. Flying past the margin of the Greenland ice sheet over these forms provides a great perspective of the large-scale processes that shaped the surface of much of the planet during the most recent ice age, the Pleistocene epoch.
Pass over Atilissuaq Island and then sight the town of Upernavik. Upernavik is renowned archaeologically as being the northern limit where Norse artifacts have been discovered in Greenland. Gain a visual on Upernavik Airport, which lies just to the northeast of town, and bring this first leg of the journey to a close by landing.