Greenland part 3

Picking up from part 2 We reached the summit in perfect conditions, blue skies and barely a breath of wind. View is just breathtaking, a perfect panorama of this part of Greenland, mountains and glaciers as far as the eye can see, and a hint of the icecap in the distance.

Guy, Oli, Steph and I skied from the summit down the SW ridge, making what we believe is only the 2nd full descent of GBF, with Steph making the 1st female descent.
The ridge, although not to steep (45˚ max.), gave very variable snow in an exposed position (cliffs to the left, big seracs on W face to the right), alternating ice and hard-pack, with crust, and a few turns in perfect deep soft snow...

A long slide down the glacier gave us time to spy future lines on the way back to BC.

May 6

Still adjusting to the 24 hour daylight (sun still shining at 10pm currently). Although it is constantly light there are large daily temperature changes (~ -30 at night to +5 during the day). After a late start today we turned back at the bottom of the S face of pk 2793 as it was way too hot and the snow was getting dangerously soft.

Approaching Pk 2793:




May 7

An early start today (6.30am wake-up). Back over to Pk 2793 and up the S face/SW ridge. 500m of booting in crusty snow saw us on the summit (unclimbed possibly?).
An hour of waiting for the snow to soften and we skied back down the line of ascent, first in crust on the ridge, then better spring on the face itself. (500m @ 45-50˚)


Summit ridge:




On the South Face: