High above Longyearbyen: Climbing Sarkofagen on Svalbard

For my last full day on Svalbard, I had booked a 5-hour glacier landscape hike with Svalbard Wildlife Expeditions. But I actually wasn’t supposed to go, as I was the only one who had booked the tour and therefore it should have been cancelled, but since I had already had two other tours cancelled, they decided to go with just one participant, which was really nice of them! And I’m really glad that it worked out that way, as it was a really beautiful hike!

I went with a guide called Katia from Germany, who brought her adorable dog along as well. Katia has studied geology, so she knew a lot about the glaciers and the landscape surrounding them, so I learned a lot about Svalbard’s geology that day!

For the first part of the tour, we hiked on Larsbreen, which is the glacier that I hiked on earlier to the icecave, and around Sarkofagen Mountain, where she was telling me about the moraine landscape and she found a stone that is 15 million years old – and she said that it was young, haha! Mindblown! I still have the stone and I’m definitely keeping it as a souvenir!

We then started climbing up Sarkofagen, which is about 500 meters high. It was quite tough at times, especially trying to get up the steep parts with the enormous snowshoes, but it was definitely worth it, when we finally reached the top! We had quite low visibility because of the snow, but the view of the nearby mountains was still beautiful and the accomplishment of climbing all the way to the top felt great! We then both signed a book that was at the top of the mountain to prove that we had been there and done the hike to the top.

Afterwards, we sat down to have some biscuits and a warm drink, before heading back down the mountain.

We went back down on the other side of the mountain to Longyearbreen, another glacier just outside Longyearbyen. Unfortunately, the snow was really thick (like 6 meters thick or something), so we couldn’t see the actual ice from the glacier, but we were still walking on top of it, which was cool.

When we were about 200 meters from the town, we passed an old railway bridge that had been used to transport coal from one mine to another before the Second World War. All the buildings on Svalbard that were built before 1946 are protected, but the bridge had collapsed because of the extreme weather.

In all, we hiked for 7 km., which took about 5 hours, and I could really feel it in my legs afterwards, but it was great! It’s such an enriching experience to hike in the vast wilderness of Svalbard, surrounded by hundreds of singing birds! At the top of Sarkofagen, the birds were singing like crazy, really loudly and beautifully!

I had a great time on the hike and would do it again in a heartbeat – but probably to another mountain next time!

This was my last adventure on Svalbard, before heading to Tromsø, where the next adventure started! Right now, I’m sitting on a ferry on the way to Lofoten Islands, which I absolutely can’t wait to explore! I’m hoping for loads of hiking, camping, fresh air and wild animals!