#3: Mountain camp

In the 12 days of ski touring I’ve had in Svalbard this year I’ve seen the sun for half a day. Does it even exist? In the morning we made our way along the beautiful valley of Adventleva which winds its way southeast up into the mountains. Packed full of features such as canyons, cornices and cliffs it was a joy to be amongst them. We have a very homogenous team again, lots of chatting during the breaks, anecdotes, dad jokes, advice. Most breaks Heath picks out his least preferred goodies from his food bag - pieces of caramelised ginger - and tosses them my way to catch in my mouth. So far I have a 50% catch rate. Today we skied in a fair bit of whiteout and inadvertently took a short but steep deviation into a high valley, the true route looking even steeper. Once we realised our error I decided to stop early and make camp on a convenient flat section overlooking the valley with ridged mountains behind. The early stop was a chance to dry out sodden items after the rain we’ve endured the past couple of days. We also took day packs and skied the last of the valley to the base of Hettebreen (Hette glacier). Ida, Kris, Chey and Heath built a big toilet surrounded by a wall of snow blocks before climbing into their respective tents. Tomorrow we will begin the return journey to Longyearbyen. Eric