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Cramped.
Claustrophobic. Impressive.
Text and
photo: Morten Antonsen, LA9GY/JW9GY
These are the first three words that come to my mind when you crawl
your way under tons of ice. Nadja Guettler (picture below) from
Germany feels the fear, but also the excitement as she has two thousand
year old ice above her body and 100 million year old solid rock
below. This can't possibly end well. Or will it?
Larsbreen glacier, way up north in Spitzbergen, Svalbard, is the
place. With an ice roof thickness varying from 10 to 60 meters,
the ice grotto invites to visits from February through May. Ice
melting and falling ice makes it inaccessible the remaning months.
After an exhausting mountain climb we find the sticks indicating
our goal. We dig through the snow drifts down to the cave. For those
who do not have the mental or physical qualities it takes to enter,
a more accessible moraine grotto is found nearby. That one is impressive
as well.
But the danger is never far away. Pär Nyström from Svalbard Wildlifte
Services has always his rifle ready. You never know if a hungry
polar bear is waiting as you peek your head out of the grotto....?
(Published in Adresseavisen April 1st. 2000)
More
pictures from my work in the newspaper Adresseavisen in Norway
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