Ilulissat, Greenland - It rained all night through sunrise with winds at 50 knots. There was no way we would ever get into the Zodiacs - so we thought... Everything changed within a couple hours. It was a spiritual moment. It is indescribable. I will only try to describe the scale by saying it was the Ice version of the Grand Canyon.
I have been fortunate enough to be able to return to the Arctic recently after an eye opening experience there last year. This time, Western Greenland. This time, this side, a very different ice and more populated, less wild. Spectacular nonetheless. The ice was bigger, whiter, less diversity in color, powerful, almost like the Grand Canyon at one point. I was humbled by the mass of the ice and it is still hard to get my head around the idea that this is all created in nature and some of this you wonder how it ever came to be. In all of this however, there is another side...I have not come to any conclusions of my own on global warming, but you can not argue that the ice is melting and wonder what we are coming to or how this ends or how we can change it. If you have not seen the movie Chasing Ice, I highly recommend it. It gives you a front row seat into what’s happening to the ice, a clear time lapse of the erosion of the ice and glaciers.
Travel resources:
Digital Photo Destinations - John Paul Caponigro & Seth Resnick
Quark Expeditions