In late summer 2010, I, 43 years by age, did my up to then most adventurous, most exciting, most experience rich solo hiking trip. This hiking trip took me geographically to Disko Island and less geographically to myself.
Geographically, this tour aimed at crossing the Disko Island from northwest to southeast starting in the abandoned coal mine ghost town of Qullissat via the small settlement of Kangerluk in the west to Qeqertarssuaq the island’s main town in the south.
Someone might asked me for why I chose this trip. I have been to Disko Island two years before and I was fascinated by the nature and its remoteness but most of all it was for the imaginations of what is the reality behind the maps of Disko Island. I studied them over and over again imagining of how the abandoned mining village of Qullissat, of how Rensdyrdalen, Isaks Varde, and all the other locations and landmarks along the magically dotted line marked as winter route on the maps would look like in reality.
There was very little information in the internet that would give any kind of substance that would point fantasies and imaginations into a defined directions. There was some information provided as research reports on the Kuanerssuit glacier which has been “galloping” in recent years extending its reach by some 15km in only a few years. There were also some remarkable differences regarding the sizes of the glaciers on the route as indicated in the maps and as provided by satellite imagery on Google Earth. Some glaciers as the one mentioned before were much bigger as before some unchanged and others simply not existing any more like the one in Blomsterdalen. In the end it was curiosity paired with more or less easy accessibility.
For my myself, this trip was to become another hike in my personal twenty year history of solo hikes each one incrementally harder, tougher, more extreme, and more dangerous than the ones before.