Cabin Trip

Hi everyone it’s Kendal here.

Since my last post,‎ we have been busy exploring the surrounding area with a five day field trip to Pyramiden and a day trip to the Russian settlement of Barentsburg. I have also squeezed in time to kayak across the fjord. 

The most exciting adventure on Svalbard has been our cabin trip to Foxdalen, a valley and glacier approximately 15km outside of Longyearbyen. Jamie, Susanne and I set off  on Friday afternoon when we finished lectures. As you can see from the photo below our bags probably weighed the same as us so we decided to taxi our way to the end of the road. This meant we only had a 6km hike to the cabin.

After our short but exhausting hike, we were extremely glad to catch the first glimpse of our accommodation that came in the form of a little red hut with a typically beautiful wooden décor inside and of course a log-burning stove.

Photo taken by Susanne

The first job as soon as we arrived was to light the fire and then wrap up warm in our sleeping bags to watch the sunset before having an early night. The next day we went on a hike where we encountered lots of reindeer and each collected reindeer antlers, we saw a solar halo and experimented with our photography skills below some ice.

Photo taken by Susanne

We also had spare time to practice our yoga poses at the top of the mountain!

Photo taken by Jamie

On Saturady afternoon Olesia and Ilya arrived at the cabin. We had a quick dinner and decided to go for a short evening hike to see the sunset.  After an energetic light saber fight ‎we settled in for the night and treated ourselves to mulled wine and smores.‎

Photo taken by Susanne

After a good nights sleep we awoke to a light layer of snow on the ground.  We set off on our journey back to Longyearbyen at midday, thankfully with much lighter bags having used all the water, food and firewood.

Definitely looking forward to our next adventure!

Photo taken by Susanne

Hi everyone, it's Daniel again!

In the last post Jamie told you about our Field work in Pyramiden so I'm going to take the opportunity while Jamie and Kendal are away at a cabin to tell you about the last couple of weeks.

We were all so tired after Pyramiden that we didn't go on any hikes that weekend. The next week we began Sediment Transport (a refreshing reminder of H2 Marine Geology for those at SAMS) with guest lecturer Jim Bogen and our first lectures for AT-210 Arctic Environmental Pollution. The first lectures were mostly introducing us to the topic and outlining the variety of toxic chemicals that are found around the world and defining contaminants and pollutants. With the sediment transport though we got another field excursion and our first lab work! This meant going on a tour of Longyearbyen and  taking water samples from the main rivers and the dam that supplies the town with water. In the lab we followed a procedure allowing us to find the mass of dissolved particles and the percentage of that which was organic (using some pretty impressive mass balances which were mounted on steel pillars).  It meant an early morning (0815) on Friday morning to combust our samples but then that gave us the afternoon free. 

The next week we had a reading week for hydrology but in pollution however we were learning about fuel transport, storage and spills which involved three (yes, three!) field excursions. This meant a tour of the fuel storage facilities at the airport the next day and of Longyearbyen's fuel storage the day after. On the Friday our excursion was a boat trip to and a tour around the Russian town of Barentsburg! I think (and I suspect that Jamie and Kendal will agree) that the highlight of the day was on the way to the town when we saw a fin whale! 

(Courtesy of Jamie - his camera skills were much better than mine!) We then stopped to have lunch in front of a glacier while the crew grilled a range of meets on the main deck. Moral questions were raised when we were offered whale meat for lunch (morals aside, don't try it, Kendal and I agreed it was tasteless). This continued to be one of the most relaxed field excursions we've been on to date as after touring the massive (and rather unsafe) storage facilities (for fuel that they didn't use in the town - conspiracy theorists love that one) we ended up in a hotel trying the local brew of beer. (Jamie - the suspicious Russian Fuel Storage in Barentsburg) (Jamie Rodgers - some students enjoying crisps and a beer)

That weekend Jamie and Kendal and our friend Susanne went for a hike up to Trollstein with our guest lecturer for pollution Anna Waitkus on the Saturday which was much more interesting that my detour to the shop across the plateau beneath Nordenskiöldtoppen with some friendly Arctic Biology Students. (Jamie doing some delayed photography for selfies again - from left to right; Kendal Hunter, Jamie Rodgers, Anna Waitkus and Susanne Lindholm)

This week past though we were given our Hydrology report assignments (my group has a short literature review, think I got the best assignment!) and lectures on Permafrost with Hydrology and Mercury in Polar Regions by guest lecturer Michelle Nerentorp for Pollution. This meant studying the lectures each day as we competed in a quiz each morning with the overall winner getting a bag of sweets but everyone else in the class got a Kvikk Lunsj (very much like a Kit Kat back home). While the rest of us left class on Friday for the UNIS Oktoberfest celebrations Jamie, Kendal and Susanne had been very organised and arranged with the Longyearbyen Hunting Society to use a cabin in Foxdallen for the weekend and I’m sure Kendal with have some fantastic pictures and stories to tell about that.

Finally, we all had plans to view the super lunar eclipse tomorrow morning  but at the moment it is snowing as so I am afraid that it is unlikely that we will see anything.

That’s all from me, hopefully Kendal will write another post soon all about our hikes this week and their trip to Foxdallen! 

P.s. She might even have some pictures of the night sky recently, hint hint!