A winter climb up Qaqqartivakajik in Tasiilaq

It was Augusta’s and Eleanor’s second day with me here in Tasiilaq, and we had decided to climb a mountain. I’d already climbed all three mountains in proximity to the town before the snow fell, and I figured Qaqqartivakajik (‘Sømandsfjeldet’, ‘the Seaman’s Mountain’) would be the easiest to climb in snow, so we chose that one.

We woke up early and left the apartment so we were at the trailhead just before 9 AM. Finding the trailhead wasn’t easy as the gravel road I’d followed when I first climbed the mountain had disappeared beneath the snow. But we soon found a sled trail to follow that took us from the road and onto the mountain, and then we just climbed up from there, searching for trail markings as we went along. Eventually, we found some trail martkings so we tried to follow them for the rest of our climb up.

It was nowhere near as slippery to climb up as I had feared, but in some areas the snow was so thick that it took a lot of energy to walk through it. Occasionally, we had to hold onto rocks with our hands to haul ourselves up, but in general, it was a much easier climb than I’d imagined.

We took several breaks on our way up to enjoy the beautiful views over Tasiilaq, the surrounding mountains and the ocean that we’d sailed the day before. Last time I climbed this mountain, it was cloudy and drizzling, so the views were quite different now, and so much better!

We finally reached the first of two summits at 630 meters above sea level at 11.45 AM, just under three hours after we’d begun the climb. It had taken an hour longer than expected and since the sun would set at 3.30 PM, we weren’t sure whether or not we would be able to climb the second summit at 730 meters above sea level and make it all the way down before dusk.

Reaching the second summit requires climbing quite a way down the mountain and then up again. In most other countries, I feel sure it would be classified as a separate mountain. I didn’t reach the second summit the last time I climbed the mountain as it started raining, so I really wanted to do it, but we also wanted to be safe, and since it’s a steeper and higher climb and we were under time pressure, we decided not to. I guess I’ll just have to come back to Tasiilaq one day to complete it!

To get down, we decided to sit on our butts and slide! That’s usually so much fun but there were so many rocks that poked out and they cut Eleanor’s and Augusta’s pants – especially Eleanor’s had seen better days. Mine got a little scratch on the butt too, but I was lucky. So instead, we tried walking down or “crabbing” – walking on all four with the butt in the air! Thankfully, we soon got down from the summit and then walking upright got easier, and before we knew it, we were down!

We got down at 2.20 PM, completing the climb to the first summit and back in 5 hours and 20 minutes. We went to get fries at the café straight after the hike, and we deserved every one of them!