Martina Schäfer

 
     
 

Svalbard 2011

Here will be a short trip report with pictures about the fieldwork in Svalbard in spring 2011. There is some more information and a report about the fieldseason last fall in the 2010 section.


Differently from last year, I'll write the tripreport mainly in english, since I think that the fieldseason will be busier and I'm also hoping that there will be more english speaking persons at the station! But, I'll try from times to times to put some short comments (in colour) also in other languages for those who don't speak or read english so well. And feel free to send me questions ... and just enjoy the pictures :-).
Im Gegensatz zum letzten Jahr werde ich diese webseite dieses Jahr aus Zeitgründen im wesentlichen auf englisch verfassen. Ich denke, es wird mehr Arbeit geben und hoffentlich sind auch mehr englisch sprechende Leute dort. Dennoch werde ich von Zeit zu Zeit ein paar kürzere deutsche Kommentare schreiben für alle die, die nicht so gut englisch können. Also immer nach der lila Farbe ausschau halten oder sonst eine email schreiben ... oder einfach die Bilder anschauen :-).
Contrairement à l'année dernière je vais écrire cette page cette fois-ci essentiellement en anglais. Je crois il y aura plus de boulot et j'espère aussi plus d'anglophones! De temps en temps je mettrai des commentaires courtes en francais pour ceux qui ne sont pas trop à l'aise avec l'anglais. Il faudra juste chercher la couleur jaune! Sinon, n'hésitez pas à m'écrire des mels ou simplement de profiter des photos!
Tämä sivu on englantialainen, mutta kirjoitan pari kertaa suomea myös! Katso vihreä sanoa.
Some usefull links:
SvalGlac project: Svalbard Science or project website
Polish research team: University of Silesia in Katowice
Polar station: Hornsund Research station in southern Svalbard
Arctic Centre: Arctic Centre

The team:
    Tomek Budzik, M.Sc., University of Silesia: meterologist
    Mariusz Grabiec, Ph.D., University of Silesia: RES, snow studies
    Darek Ignatiuk, M.Sc., University of Silesia
    Antoine Kies, Prof., University of Luxembourg: radioisotopes
    Michal Laska, M.Sc., University of Silesia: snow studies
    Bartek Luks, M.Sc., Institute of Geophysics, PAS: snow studies
    Piotr Modzel, M.Sc., Eng., University of Wroclaw: drilling
    Francisco Navarro, Prof., Technical University of Madrid: RES, modeler
    Darek Puczko, M.Sc., Institute of Geophyscis, PAS: RES, snow studies
    Martina Schäfer, Ph.D., University of Lapland, Rovaniemi: glacier dynamics, modeling
    Wlodek Sielski, M.Sc., Institute of Geophysics, PAS: logistics
    Evgeny Vasilienko, Ph.D., Eng, Technical University of Madrid: RES
    .... and of course the winter crew !!! ....

7.4.2011 travel day 1 - Skibotn (Norway)

Today I have made it until Skibotn, not far from Tromso in Norway. Nuccio was so nice to drive me and all my stuff in the morning to the busstation and then it was 8 long hours to get to Kilpisjärvi close to the border with Norway. Karolina and Sébastian were in the same bus for the first half on a skiing trip, so it was not that boring :-). From Kilpisjärvi I had to take a taxi for the last 50km down to Skibotn, where I slept in the Troll-Kafé. It was a nice place to spend the rest of the afternoon and I had a walk up on the hill to get some view and another one along the beach.
Despite what one might think when looking at a map, it's not an easy task to travel from Rovaniemi to Tromso in spring time. Organiszing this trip was thus (beside the actual science part) one of the main issues when planing the whole expedition. In spring time there is no public transport through Finland directly to Tromso. All possibilities with train and bus through Sweden would require 2 overnight stays. Flying would be very expensive (especially in the case of a flight change on the way home because of weather delays), require anyway also an overnight stay and additionally a complete new checkin including the luggage somewhere... The only "easy" connection would be via Riga ... but something in me revolted against flying from Rovaniemi via Riga to Svalbard! So I ended finally up going via Kilpisjärvi having one taxi trip in the middle: finally the less expensivest, but also most natural itinerary ... and hopefully not too difficult to manage with all the luggage (but we'll see that tomorrow)!
The other difficult thing to organize for the trip was the rifle for polar bear protection. The legislation in Svalbard does not allow anymore that anyone can just rent a rifle in a shop and "informal" shooting trainings at the Polar Station are also not possible anymore. I needed so either an official gunpermit or a special permit from the governor of Svalbard and a possibility to get some shooting experience. Since it is impossible in Finland to get just a permit for handling a gun without owning one, there was only the second possibility left. I obtained the permit from the governor fairly easily, but the shooting training was not such an easy task: even if I know several people which are hunters and members of hunting clubs, legislation in Finland does not allow anymore to just get trained from this persons or within a hunting club without owning a gun and taking for example the complete course for a mouse hunting licence! Ilona (thanks again!) managed finally thanks to her connections with hunting clubs to put me in touch with the local shooting club where she then found a person not only willing, but also having the legal right to, to make me a special polar-bear-shooting course. So we went twice out in the training area of this shooting club and Erkki (thanks a lot also for this!!) gave me a personal course on how to safely handle a rifle and shoot a polar bear in case it should be necessary. With this I should now be able on Saturday to get my rifle in Longyearbyen (I cross my fingers!!!) hoping that I won't have to use it!
Dieses Jahr ist die Anreise nicht so einfach, da es keine direkte Busverbindung gibt. Aus allen möglichen und unmöglichen Verbindungen war die beste dann noch, mit dem Bus nach Kilpisjärvi zu fahren, von dort mit dem Taxi nach Skibotn, dort eine Nacht zu verbringen und dann wieder mit dem Bus weiter nach Tromso.

8.4.2010 travel day 2 - Longyearbyen

Like on my recent trip in China there are no busstops here, but one can just stop the bus wherever it suits; so I could just walk outside the house and wait for the bus to Tromso. In Tromso I could catch the flybussen to the airport and checkin me and all my luggage. A little late we left to Longyearbyen. Unfortunately there was no view since it was cloudy. Arrived in Svalbard I just had the time to take the bus to the guesthouse, register there, empty one of my bags and walk as quick as possible back down to the university to pick up the new time-lapse camera before 4. With the hostelbus I got then easily back. Everything is white here, but it was a nice sunny day and not that cold (even not -10). We had purchased this new camera (see 2010 for our adventures with the old one) in the US and shipped it directly here to Svalbard to save the VAT... Monica Sund, a colleague (many thanks to her!!!), had taken care of receiving this camera and testing it. Fortunately!!! Since we had have some failures after one week and needed spare parts from the US. Since Monica was away since 2 weeks now, it was now the big surp e to open the box and to see if on the memory card was one black picture every hour since she had left ... and there was! What a relief! Now I just have to programme it more precisely to what we want it to do and cross my fingers that there won't be any new failures...
Tämä kertaa matkustion myös busilla Tromsoon, mutta koska ei ole busi Kilpisjärvilta -> Skibotenin matkustin taksille Kilpisjärvilta -> Skibotenin ja nukuin Skibotenin. Nyt olen vielä Huippuvuorilla ja hakin uusi kamera ylipistosta. Viikonloppua tarvitsen hakea kivääri (jääkarhu) ja työskennellä kameran kanssa!

9/10.4.2010 week-end with last preparations in Longyearbyen

I think I'm already getting bored from waiting.... Yesterday, Saturday, I went to town (it's half an hour walk since the guesthouse is at the very end of the street) to do some shopping and to rent the rifle. I also spent quite some time with the camera to do some tests and figure out all the different options. The good thing is that the connection to the computer and so on are working, but unfortunately some pictures are not taken and I don't really understand why.
Sunday was quite eventless and actually boring. In the morning we had to give all our luggage (besides 7kg per person) to 3 persons from the station which had come by snowmobile for a week-end trip and to pick our equipment up. They drove today back to the station this morning. So the camera was gone also and I could not continue my work with it as foreseen. The reason for this luggage transport is a misunderstanding/miscommunication with the pilots which have told us only Friday evening that they couldn't take any luggage besides us. This is because of supplementary fuel for the measurements planed using the helicopter in Hornsund just after dropping us at the station. So now we are here with pretty much nothing and hoping really hard that the weather tomorrow will be good enough for flying, otherwise we have to spend more time here waiting with little distraction (and loosing of course fieldwork days and, in my case, loosing more camera working days). Currently it's a snowstorm outside, not very promising! The weatherforecast for the coming week is anyway not so great, I fear my patience for weather-waiting-days will be tryed once more this time... We are also very few persons this year, so probably we are going to have few, but full working days this season.
The only "event" today was thus a first meeting with Bartek and Michal to make a bit a plan of the upcoming days (and to inform me about all changes in the planing which I had not yet been aware of). The internet is also working only sometimes, mainly actually in the staircase, so that's not really a source of entertainement...
Depuis vendredi je suis maintenant arrivée à Longyearbyen (longue voyage en bus, taxi, bus et avion en 1.5jours), j'ai recuperé la nouvelle caméra qu'on avait fait livrer à l'université ici et j'ai aussi pu louer ma carabine. Apart un peu de travail avec la camera pour la tester et résoudre les dernière problèmes rien ne s'est passé et maintenant on espère pouvoir prendre l'hélico demain pour aller à la station polognais.

11.4.2010 flight to Hornsund --- cloudy, windy, snowfall in LYR, rain in Hornsund, around 0°C

Quick comment beforehand to answer multiple questions that I got: No, we did not go by boat to Hornsund this time. It is still quite winterly here and the sea is (partly) frozen. Thus it's quite impossible to use a boat!
We should have left this morning at 9, but the weather was really bad, so we were sitting there on standby. At 11 finally there was the decision that we would fly (by helicopter) around the coastline implying not to do the foreseen GPR (=radar) measurments afterwards. These measurements require good weather and a helicopter. Because of the cost of a helicopter flight from Longyearbyen to Hornsund, this flight can only be done when the helicopter is coming anyway to Hornsund. This again then implies much more complex logistics since it makes people waiting for a flight waiting for much better weather than they would need for their transport; but also restricts their luggage to nothing because of the weight of the fuel. Since the pilots would not have time for the measurement-flight tomorrow and after tomorrow we took the decision to fly the people in today and pushing the measurement flight back to the flight home.
The weather was really rather bad, so we could not really enjoy the flight, but after 1hour we reached the station. There was the second bad surprise - relativising the decision against the measurment flight of this morning: The pilots told us that they would refuse to take our GPR-measurment-construction under their helicopter and the measurement could not have done anyway.
The rest of the day went over with getting installed in the station, searching some equipment in the storage, shuffling out and unfreezing snowmobiles and that kind of things.
In the evening there was at least a message coming from Paco (who had left the station with the helicopter and spent the flight negociating with the pilots) that there was some hope to finally get the agreement of the pilots to give it another try with the GPR. For me it would be very important to do this measurement which allows to get information about the bedrock elevation/ice-thickness since no modelling can't be done at all without this data.
Inzwischen sind wir in Hornsund. Nach zweieinhalb Tagen in Longyearbyen (Abholen der Kamera an der Uni + Ausleihen des Gewehrs + Tests mit der Kamera) flogen wir am Montag wie geplant mit dem Hubschrauber nach Hornsund. Was nicht geplant war, war dass das Wetter zu schlecht war um anschliessend noch einen Messflug zu machen. Ausserdem gab es ein Missverständnis mit den Piloten, welche uns sagten, dass sie selbst bei gutem Wetter sich geweigert hätten unseren Messaparat unten an den Hubschrauber zu hängen.

12.4.2011 around the station --- cloudy, clear gray sky at the end of the day, around 0°C

Not a lot was happening today. Probably we don't have enough manpower to start with the me concerning measurments before a couple of days. The weather is not horrible bad, but still bad enough to slow us down. There is not a lot of view and for certain measurements it is just too warm. The drill for a deep drill (to the bedrock) at Werenskioldbreen was assembled and tested and other small works done.
Quite late in the afternoon I went with Mariusz and Tomec to take one of the automatic weather stations from Hansbreen home (for updating and the yearly check). It was also my first snowmobile driving lesson :-). I feel I will get some new muscles in my arms (and hands!).
I think the biggest challenge this year for me will be to find my place as only foreigner (and women) in this group dynamic of polish students/PostDocs... (There is also a researcher from Luxembourg and another one from Russia, but not quite the same age as us :-)).
Nyt olen puolalainen tukimuskeskusessa Hornsund-lähdilla. Sää ei ole kovin hyvä, ja se on liian lämmin, siksi päivät ovat hyvin hiljaisia​​. Menin moottorikelkalla ensimmäistä kertaa jäätikköllä tänä iltana (Hansbreen jäätikkö).

13.4.2011 in the station --- cloudy, snowfall, a bit colder

I have my kitchen/cleaning/radio/phone duty day today. Finally a good choice to pick this day since the weather is not quite inviting outside (so far). In the afternoon the others could anyway start with the deep drilling (that means drilling some small wholes down to the bedrock to put there sensors) on Werenskioldbreen what was ongoing then through the night and the next day.
Entre temps on est arrivé en hélico à la station, par contre la météo n'est pas très favorable on n'a pas encore pu faire grand chose. La manip avec l'hélio quand aurait du faire à la même occassion que le vol pour arriver à la station a aussi du être repoussée.
Das Wetter hat sich dieses Jahr gegen uns verschworen, so dass es nur sehr langsam vorangeht. Heute hatte ich auch meinen Stations-dienst-tag, so dass ich sowieso nicht 'rauskonnte. Am Nachmittag wurde das Wetter aber etwas besser, so dass die andern immerhin ein paar Sachen machen konnten.

14.4.2011 in the station --- quite good, even though not the blue sky and sun predicted by the forecast, little below 0°C

For reasons that I will not detail here, I stayed in the station besides a leiserwalk to the church cross. Fortunately this is possible this year since I have my own rifle and I'm free to move around alone around the station. The others continued with the deep drilling, did some GPR measurments (by snowmobile) on Hansbreen.

15.4.2011 in the station --- snowfall and strong wind (near to gale), again a few degrees below 0

Today it's white outside: snowfall and strong wind. Looks like another day in the station with work on the tripods and batteries for the cameras (cameras because there is the new one that I've bought and and old one which we will move from Hansbreen to Paierlbreen).
Sää ei ole kovin hyvä vielä. Olimme työtä jalustat ja kaapelit kameroille.

16.4.2011 in the station --- unbeleavable: blue sky and sun in the afternoon

I was going today with Mariusz, Evgeny and Tomec to do their radar measurements on the Amundsenisen icefield. It was a good occasion for me to get familiarized with the terrain up there and overall a gorges day to spend in this landscape. Finally the sun and blue sky were with us! Unfortunately my snowmobile did not work anymore after 15km, so I had to do the rest as passenger on another snowmobile.
The rest was continuing the deep drilling on Werenskioldbreen and digging snowpits for snow-studies on Hansbreen. A lot of them finnished fairly late in the night (or better early in the morning).
La météo ne s'est toujours pas vraiment arrangée et j'ai essentiellement passé du temps sur les préparations avec les caméras. Ceci-dit, aujourd'hui il a fait enfin super beau (ciel bleu et du soleil) et on est monté au plateau de l'Amundsenisen avec un paysage extraordinaire pour faire des mesures radar en motoneige.

17.4.2011 Sunday in the station --- in the morning bright sunshine, later the usual gray sky

Traditionally on Sundays people do not work in the Polish Station, so most people were sleeping very long and then spending the day with smaller works. I was walking a bit a long the beach in the morning, the weather was just too nice to be inside and it's really nice at the beach with all the seaice and the waves.
In the afternoon we finnished then the second tripod for the cameras (the first is still out - hopefully - from last fall). It was not an easy task to build a new tripod for the camera which is still waiting at Hansbreen to be picked up and to prepare the pieces necessary to attach the new camera and solar panel to the old tripod which is in Paierlbreen. We hope that we did not make any mistake in our thinkings....
In the evening was another party. In fact, there were severals since I'm here, but several times I missed them since I had not known about ... I'm not quite yet very good in guessing polish communications...
Nach einem Ausflug (naja, GPR Messungen mit dem Snowmobil) hoch auf das Amundsenisenplateau gestern, ist heute Sonntag und traditionel wird da nicht oder nur in der Station gearbeitet. So ist das Stativ und der Kabelsalat für die Kamera nun endlich fertig und nach einem letzten Test draussen vor meinem Fenster wollen wir jetzt dann bald los und sie hinausbringen.

18.4.2011 afternoon: currently in the station, perhaps later departure for Paierlbreen --- gray and from times to times light snowfall

Today is one of these "standby days" with ever changing plans. So finally nobody left so far the station.
Probably the helicopter GPR measurements will take place tomorrow morning weather allowing: the last chance for Mariusz to be there before leaving and also the last chance for Evgeny not having to change is flight from Longyearbyen, even if they will leave now 1.5days later as foreseen from the station. This helicopter flight had been a long discussion topic and Paco had spend several days in Longyearbyen in organizing it before flying home to Spain. Always when one issue was solved, another came up. Finally we will be using another smaller helicopter and some reduced and modified equipment. But this helicopter is currently rented to the mining compagny in SveaGrua and so we had not only to wait for good weather, but also for a moment where the mining people did not really need it. Hopefully this will now be tomorrow morning! Mariusz and Evgeny are busy preparing for it.
I myself (with Michal and Bartek) finished the last preparations and packing for the Paierlbreen trip. We had to improvise some harness and rodsystem for a pulka. My snowmobile is also not yet fixed. Depending on the weather we may leave already tonight or tomorrow morning early since the weatherforecast for Wednesday morning is already bad again. But first we have now to pack somehow all our mountaineering equipment and camera equipment in the pulka and on the snowmobiles.
Others are planing to do some work on Hansbreen once it clears up and again others want to go back to Werenskioldbreen to advance on the deep drilling.

evening:

After multiple discussions and changes in plan about which route to take (over the risky, very crevassed glacier or through the bay on sea-ice which is much longer and where we still had the incertitude on the sea-ice conditions), how to pack the pulka and sledge and when to leave; we decided not to leave (snowfall outside) but to get up at 5 and to look out of the window.
Lauantaina aurinko paistaa ja olin Amundsenisen jäätiköllä. Oli oikein hyvää reisu! Nyt kamera on valmis ja kaikki on pakattu kelkalla ... odotamme kaunis ilman.

19.4.2011 reconnaissance trip on the sea-ice route --- gray, but ok in the morning, strong wind with blowing snow later on

At 5 Michal and me got up and realized that our two team-mates were either sleeping or still out at the glacier. So we went back to bed and got up again at 7: same picutre, nobody available. We decide to start alone. During breakfast we realize that Michal's snowmobile is also gone and that no sledges are here either. So we can't go today since we can't afford waiting because of the bad weather arriving in the evening. After long discussion we decide to leave without heavy equipment for a reconnaissance trip and manage to find 2 snowmobiles. The winter-crew Michal joins us to show us the way up on Flatryggen. At some point we had nearly given up because of too much stones. On top we realize that it would probably not be possible to do this crossing with the snowmobile sledges (too steep), so we would have to carry/put the equipment into the pulka already here. Before going on, we go up on Sofienkammen (first by scooter, then by foot) to have a view in the bay. We are very optimistic here since the inner part of the bay looks good frozen and in the outer part there seams to be a good way to walk/ski on shore.
We go back down to the coast in Sofiebogen. The winter-Michal leaves us and Michal me continue - less optimistic now since the slope is very steep and frozen with free sliding possibilities in the ocean. If we go here, we would have to put the whole equipment on our backpacks, no way to use a pulka! Soon we get to the small cabin on Gnalodden and start then walking into Burgerbukta. Also here from times to times the slope is too steep to use a pulka and in the very end we discover a "crevasse" between the frozen part of the bay and the land and don't know how to judge this. Finally we are not optimistic about this route anymore: heavy logistics (carrying all for 15km), risk of sliding and falling in the ocean and risk of sea-ice breaking. On the way back we get caught by the storm and the trip home is not pleasant at all. The first snowmobile part is quite difficult now, since the wind has blown all snow away and there is blank ice. But the crossing of Flatryggen works well. A bit frozen and overall without real plan what to do with the camera we make it home. Should we give the idea of putting it out up for this season? Should we try to get there through the upper part of Paierlbreen which is heavyly crevassed?
Due to the weather the GPR flight scheduled for this morning did not take place. Mariusz had to leave thus without participating in the measurement and Evgeny has to extend his stay by a week. This year all seams to go wrong.... :-(.
Depuis cette excursion au soleil s'est le retour à la grisaille avec peu d'activité. Hier on a quand-même profité avec Michal d'une demie journée de temps sec et vent calme pour faire une reconnaissance du chemin par où on voulait atteindre l'endroit de l'installation de la caméra. Mauvaise nouvelle, il semble qu'on n'arrivera pas d'y aller en sécurité et avec tout l'équipement. Au retour on s'est fait prendre en plus par la tempête, c'était moins rigolo.

20.4.2011 big surprise in the evening: the helicopter GPR flight could be done -- in the morning the end of snow/wind, then blue sky and sun in the afternoon, only few degrees below zero (way too warm this year)

Quick comment in the evening: Unexpectedly the helicopter GPR flight could be done this evening, nobody beleaved in it anymore. But it's done!
Now, in more details: in the morning there was the end of yesterday's bad weather. But already around noon we had blue sky and sunshine. We were told that airlift was already on Easterholidays and so no flights possible for around a week. So everybody prepared to leave to the field after lunch, but just before going (around 3) we got a phonecall, that the helicopter would come *now*. Quick big moment of panic and hurry to set the cross with the devices up... then long hours of waiting and several phone calls. Finally we had to call to pilots personally and to ask them to leave and later they got lost on their way and could not find the Polish Polar Station! At 7 finally they arrived. Luckily the weather was still quite ok. In another big moment of hectic we put the coordinates of the flightroute on a hand GPS since the pilots had not put them in their own... At half past 7 we finally left: Evgeny surveying the measurement and me with the hand GPS guiding the pilot from point to point. Fortunately everything went well and we could fly along the planed route even if the visibility was not very good anymore in the second half. After 1h16 we were back at the station.
Evgeny is quite happy with the data, even if there is some noise in the signal because the pilots had used metal in the rope to connect our construction to the helicopter. Unfortunately the down-looking-camera did not work, but knowing that the rest worked we will not complain too much about this!
In the same time some people were on Hansbreen repairing weather stations and other doing a sediment drill in a lake close to the station.
In der Zwischenzeit hatten wir doch 2 "erfolgreiche Tage": Gestern sind wir schliesslich ohne Material mit Snowmobile und Skien los, um versuchen zu dem Kameraplatz zu gelangen. Leider ist der geplante Zugang nicht möglich, da zu wenig des Ozeans noch gefroren ist. So ist es im Moment offen, ob oder wie wir noch dort hin gelangen werden können. Heute gab dann am Abend eine unerwartete Überraschung: der Radarflug mit dem Hubschrauber konnte doch noch erfolgreich durchgeführt werden!

21.4.2011 again a day in the station --- in the morning fairly good, later then gray and finally windy and snowy, little below 0°C

The day went over once more with doing just little things which finally fill the day: filling the snow/water bassin with snow, getting the snow out of the blocked door of the hangar and trying to make plans for the rest of the stay expecting very little good weather.
Tiistaina yrittimme hiihtää kameran paikka, mutta se ei ole mahdollista tänä vuonna, on liian vähän jää merilla. Eilen teimme tutka mittaukset helikopterilla.

22. and 23.4.2011 setting up the camera -- Friday morning gray and snow, then slowly getting better, blue sky and sun in the night until Saturday afternoon, then again gray and snow, fresh in the wind, but otherwise quite warm

Friday morning we prepared all the equipment for installing the camera and doing other measurements on Paierlbreen. From the late afternoon on we waited then for the promised good weather and delayed our departure finally until halft past 9 in the evening: but there it was the blue sky! It was not too cold, but a bit windy. On Kvitungisen we had the a small incident when Darek met a crevasse with his snowmobile, but then we could easily reach on the route imagined from the helicopter photos the starting point for the skiing excursion to the tripod place. 3 of us continued by ski, first crossing a heavily crevassed area and then in the slopes of Luciakammen with all equipment in our backpacks. In a bit more than one hour we reached the tripod place and it was still there! Then we installed the camera on the tripod, luckily everything fitted more or less, but it was not easy with cold fingers in the wind. We hope that our construction will resist to the wind since it is not optimal, but the only way we could imagine to fix the new housing on the old tripod which could not be moved since it was frozen in the ground. We had decided not to take the second camera and tripod since it would have been impossible to install the tripod into frozen ground and we would have needed 4 more persons to carry everything there. Then we went back to the snowmobiles and joined the 3 others who had been make snow cores and drilling in the meanwhile. Unfortunately the snow-radar did again not work. After another small snowmobile incident on Hansbreen we finally reached the station just in time for breakfast.
Since the weather was too nice, we did not go to sleep but spend the time outside and constructing a whirlpool and spend the rest of the afternoon then in the warm water when the weather had again turned to gray and snowfall.
Depuis mon dernier message en francais il y a eu 2 journée avec du succes: L'hélico a pu venir pour faire les mesures radar pour l'épaisseur de glace et on a du pu installer la nouvelle camera au terminus de Paierlbreen en y allant du haut entre les crevasses en ski. Le samedi aprés cette expédition a été celebré avec un bain chaud dehors ... voir les photos! Le reste du temps était rempli avec des préparations et beaucoup d'attente pour trouver le bon creneau météo!

24.4.2011 Easter Sunday -- gray, some drizzle, around or even above O°C

Before breakfast we went all together to the cross for church and enjoyed then the heavy breakfast/lunch. Some visitors had brought as 50eggs by snowmobile from Longyearbyen (without breaking a single one :-)), so we had real Eastereggs and cake. The rest of the day was then very calm, outside gray and some drizzle.
Heute ist Ostern mit Spaziergang zum Kirchenkreuz und schliesslich polnischem Frühstück (siehe Photos) und dann Ruhetag (anbetracht des Wetters kein Fehler :-().
Freitag und Samstag waren schliesslich sehr erfolgreich gewesen: wir konnten die neue Kamera draussen auf dem alten Stativ am Terminus von Paierlbreen anbringen. Nun bleibt nur zu hoffen, dass sie weiterhin gut richtig funktioniert... Gefeiert wurde dies am Nachmittag mit einem warmen Bad draussen (siehe Bilder).

25.4.2011 Easter Monday -- gray, rainy, above O°C

A perfect day for doing nothing since it's raining outside and much too warm to do any work in the snow or use snowmobiles. There are now some polar bear tracks outside in the snow, so one was here, but nobody had seen it.
In the evening we celebrated Bartek's birthday since it was the last quiet evening before our departure and the birthday in the station.
Nyt kamera on ulkona, menimme kamerapaikka jäätiköällä. Sitten oli pieni juhla ... katso kuvat :-). Pääsiästa oli lämmin ja saata vettä. Maanantaina oli Bartegin syntymääpäivääjuhla.

26.4.2011 The sun is back, but it's still too warm

This morning we woke up with blue sky and sun, but it was a couple of degres over zero and thus too warm to use snowmobiles. In the morning I walked with Antoine to Ariebreen since he wanted to take his equipment out of the river, but there was still too much snow. So we only spend 2hours observing the birds flying in groups of hundrets over our heads. Then I programmed another camera for Darek for the Werenskioldglacier and packed my stuff.
Around midnight we were supposed to leave for work in the "cold" night to Werenskiold, but the trip ended for me very quickly since the scooter broke once more and no other was available. Frustrated I went to bed.
Pâques à été assez calme (mais avec beaucoup de bouffe :-)) comme il faisait chaud dehors et il pleuvait! On a celebré l'anniversaire de Bartek lundi soir. Mardi je suis allée à pied avec Antoine voir ses mesures à Ariebreen et on a observé un spectacle de milliers de petits oiseaux. Mardi soir on aurait du aller faire des mesures sur Werenskioldbreen mais comme mon motoneige est encore tombé en panne, j'ai du rentrer à la station et me coucher.

27.4.2011 Back to Longyearbyen -- first sunny, then cloudy, around 0°C

Everything was ready at 11 for departure, but no helicopter. During waiting the sun disappeared and everthing got cloud covered. Not knowing when the helicopter would come, there was not a lot to do and most of us fall a sleep somewhere.... At 2 finally they showed up ... having forgotten to call us about the delay. The flight home was as unspectacular as the other one, since we had to fly around the coast with hardly any view. We could just see that it had been melting a lot recently. In Longyearbyen we met Jon Ove and his team on the way to Austfonna and went to our different hotels to meet again later all (inclusive the second half of the Austfonna group) for dinner.
Viel ist seit dem veregneten Ostern nicht mehr passiert, da das Wetter zwar wieder besser, aber immernoch zu warm war. Ich hatte eine andere Kamera programmiert, Vögel mit Antoine beobachted und gepackt. Dienstag abend hätten wir eigentlich auf dem Werenskioldgletscher arbeiten sollen, aber da mein Snowmobile wie immer kaputt war, musste ich umkehren und schlafen gehen.
Heute sind wir wieder wegen dem Wetter ohne viel Sicht der Küste entlang zurück nach Longyearbyen geflogen.

28.4.2011 Longyearbyen -- mix of sun and cloud, a couple of degrees below 0°C

I took benefit from still having the rifle and went hiking today up to Longyearbreen and the small summit overlooking Longyearbyen. Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of view since everytime when I was at a lookout point it good very cloudy. But it was nice anyway and I observed two reindeer from very far.
Eilen tulimme takaisin Longyearbyeniin ja tänään minä olen vaeltanut Longyearbreen (jäätikö) ja vuori lähellä.

29.4.2011 Longyearbyen -- quite sunny and spring weather

Another day in Longyearbyen, today mostly with blue sky and sunshine. It felt like spring! I was just meeting Monica at the university today and doing then some shopping as a good tourist :-).
Comme prévu on est rentré mercredi à Longyearbyen, hier j'ai fait une randonné dans les alentours de Longyearbyen et aujourd'hui c'était journée "touriste" dans la "ville".

30.4.2011 Tromso -- mix of sun and clouds, around 5°C

I had to get up at 2 to catch the bus and then the flight to Tromso. Unfortunately I couldn't see the Hornsund area from the plane since it was cloud covered. At 6 in the morning Ilona picked me up at the airport and now we will take a couple of days to visit Tromso and ski in Kilpisjärvi and drive slowly home.
Nach 2 Tagen in Longyearbyen (einen Wandern, einen in der "Stadt") bin ich nun in Tromso angekommen, wo ich mich mit Ilona getroffen habe und wir ein paar Tage in Tromso und Kilpisjärvi verbringen werden und dann gemeinsam heimfahren werden.
Nyt olen takaisin Tromsossa ja olen lomalla täälä ja Kilpisjärvilla Ilonan kanssa. Sitten menemme takaisin Rovaniemelle autolla.
Maintenant je suis de retour à Tromso ou j'ai retrouvé Ilona. On passera qq jours ensemble ici et ensuite à Kilpisjärvi pour skier avant de prendre la route et rentrer à Rovaniemi.

3.5.2011 home

Now I'm back home, it's the end of this trip report. I hope you enjoyed joining me.
Nun bin ich zu Hause, das ist das Ende dieses Berichts, Ich hoffe, das Lesen hat euch gefallen.
Nyt olen takaisin kotona ja kertomus on loppu!
Maintenant je suis de retour à la fin et c'est la fin de ce petit récit de voyage. J'espère que cela vous a plu.