On October 4th, Charlotte and I had half a day to explore something before having to travel back to Nuuk. Our time in Ilulissat was quickly coming to an end, but the two of us are too adventurous to not spend every minute we have on exploring. We had hiked all the marked trails in Ilulissat already, apart from one – the short 1 km red trail.
We wanted to do them all, but since we weren’t flying until 2 PM, we decided to leave early at 8 AM and do both the red trail and half of the blue trail, as there was a landmark on that one that we had missed when we last did it.
That morning, I woke up at 7.30 AM, and immediately looked out of the window and shrieked. It was snowing and the ground was COVERED in a beautiful blanket of white!! Excitedly, I shouted to Charlotte, who turned 21 on that very day. What a perfect birthday morning!
Ready to hike at 8 AM, we set off from the hostel and walked to the beginning of the trail, where all the other trails also start. We saw the cute Greenlandic dogs again, playing and rolling around in the snow!
The red trail is only 1 km long and is supposed to take an hour round-trip, but because of the large amount of snow that had fallen in the night, we expected to spend longer than that. It was actually quite hard to walk in the snow, especially in some areas where it was slippery as the ground underneath us was literally a layer of ice – and that had all happened over night! Charlotte and I both managed to fall on our butts, but most of the time, when the trail got difficult, we simply sat on our butts and slid down! It was so much fun!
The first part of the hike was really beautiful, although it was snowing so the visibility wasn’t so good. But we could still see out to the icefjord, which had filled up with ice and snow since the day before.
Following the red dots was difficult because of the snow, but we managed to find our way and brushed off the snow as we discovered the dots, so other hikers wouldn’t have the same problem. It was actually quite an experience being the first people to betread the new snow.
Before we knew it, the red trail was over and joined onto the blue one. Despite already having trekked the entire blue trail earlier, we wanted to do the first part of it again, ending up at our starting point, instead of just going back along the red trail. But following the blue dots and cairns proved to be an even bigger challenge. We even got lost at one point when the sky was completely grey and we couldn’t see further than 20-30 meters. No icebergs in sight.
But because we had hiked that trail before, we roughly knew the way. We ended up on the other side of the trail, close to the starting point, but instead of just going back, we decided to walk out to Sermermiut to see if we could locate Kællingeklippen. Luckily, the weather had cleared up and we could now see all of the icebergs in the icefjord. It’s amazing how quickly the weather changes in Ilulissat!
We followed the wooden path all the way out to Sermermiut and from there climbed a little hill – and there it was, right in front of us! The cliff, Kællingeklippen, which we hadn’t been able to locate during our previous attempt. I’m so glad that we decided to go there, as it was really beautiful. According to an old legend, this was the place where the elderly would come to commit suicide in times of hardship. A beautiful and peaceful place with a brutal history.
Since we also had to think about getting to the airport in time, we had to head back to the hostel after seeing the cliff. At 12 AM, 4 hours after we left the hostel, we were back and ready to head to the airport.
A magical time in Ilulissat was over. We had been on five hikes, a boat trip to the icefjord, seen two amazing sunsets, seen seven humpback whales, experienced the northern lights and even seen it all covered in snow. I felt like the luckiest person on the globe as I was leaving this beautiful cold Paradise. Someday, I hope to be back to all its magic.
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