#1: Svalbard Training

Today we headed out on the large bus with seven of us on board to the edge of Longyearbyen where we began our ski trip, in the slushy snow. Over the last few days temperatures have skyrocketed above freezing and all of the roads around town turned to slush and puddles. We skied up Adventdalen for a couple of hours to Jansondalen and are now camped under a drizzly sky. The hills around us growing bare by the day. Ugh! This is not the dry and cold polar travel I crave! With us are local guide Kris, who I engaged for this trip in case a delayed North Pole season went ahead and I wasn’t here, and Ida, a Norwegian student studying the Arctic Nature Guides course at the local university. Great people. Warmth and rain will persist another couple of days before the next freeze. Bring it on! Eric