Fjord Travels on a Glacier

This afternoon we took the opportunity to do a bit of reconnaissance and see one of the glaciers that we’ll be working on – Midtre Lovénbreen (breen is Norwegian for glacier). ML is one of the most-studied glaciers in Svalbard and even all of Europe because of its small size, simple geometry, and proximity to Ny-Ålesund, and Gareth has been here a few times before.

Fjord rides a bike

The trip out of town starts on bikes, which we take a couple km to the end of the road before dismounting and hiking across some lightly vegetated tundra and the moraine. The moraine is made up of material that has been spit out of the end of the glacier in the past and is made up of everything from sand and silt to jumbles of pointy rocks – not the nicest thing to hike on.

Getting onto the glacier surface is fairly easy at the snount – just watch out for the streams of meltwater and the quicksand next to the ice. As you can see, the edge of a glacier is a dirty place scatter with mud, dirt and rocks.

Fjord deftly hops onto the dirty snout of Midtre Lovénbreen

It isn’t until you get higher up the glacier that the ice stays cleaner and there are even still bits of snow left from this past winter. Fjord seems to have found a clean patch to get a drink.

A clean, snowy part of Midtre Lovénbreen

Midtre Lovénbreen is a fairly safe glacier – the surface is not too steep, crampons aren’t necessary,a and there are few crevasses. What we do have to look out for are large meltwater streams which cut canyons into the glacier, complete with their own little waterfalls. Don’t fall in! Eventually, the tops of these canyons close back up with snow and ice and turn into tunnels which carry water through the interior of the glacier.