On my hike downhill the glacier continued to show signs of collapsing, crevasses became less and melt water creeks more abundant. At several places there were little cone shaped mud “volcanoes” of seemingly artesian nature. It seemed that reddish muddy water was pressed upwards through the glacier ice and when reaching the surface its mud content, which is supposedly was basalt sediment, sedimented and caused a kind of mud volcano to grow on top of the glacier.
These volcanoes were up to 3 meters in height and particularly abundant in those places where the glacier seemed to have collapsed which leads to the idea that the collapsing roof of the glacier is pressing on a reservoir of water under the ice causing this artesian phenomenon.
Moving on, I passed the “exit” to Blomsterdalen. The sledge route on the Saga maps goes that way. I decided, however, to move on straight ahead as my original (but later changed) plan was to go down till the end of the glacier, staying on its south side, walking down the fjord and then later turning southwards through Blaesedalen towards Qeqertarssuaq.
Progress was very good. Meanwhile, the melt water creeks grew bigger. Some of them were up to two meters wide and perhaps one meter deep with quite strong current. They seemed to be very well suitable for canyoning provided that you know what is awaiting when going down. Some of the melt water rivers suddenly just vanish in crevasses and continue at the glacier’s bottom. Probably not something somebody likes to experience.
At that time I started to get problems with my crampons. The straps attaching them to the hiking boots got loose and at some incident one crampon slipped away just when passing a mid size melt water creek.
I fell and suddenly was lying in the melt water creek. My trousers got completely wet and my backpack was dipping into the water as well. I hoped that no water got in but was later disappointed. My sleeping bag got slightly wet. When falling down I got scratches to my hand when trying to get a grip on the ice. I was bleeding from my hands and in these cold and wet conditions the bleeding continued for quite some time. I actually left a trace of blood stains in the ice behind.
The problems with the crampons continued and I had to readjust and tighten the straps of the crampons repeatedly. Nonetheless, progress was again good.