Arrival in Kangerlussuaq and awaiting put-in

Early morning pick up of our luggage on Thursday morning

Monday morning the last crew members arrived to Kangerlussuaq by Air Greenland. The put-in team of 11 persons is now complete. Lars, our Field Operations Manager, had arrived 5 days earlier and our two U.S. participants, Bruce and Sarah, had arrived with the 109th on Saturday.

We were taken to our rooms in the KISS building, and we began to collect our field clothes in our warehouse and sort out the cargo we needed on the put-in. All cargo was put on pallets for LC-130 transport and weighed.

Put-in was scheduled to Tuesday morning; but this is Greenland and since the 109th had technical issues with two out of three planes, it was decided to postpone put-in to Wednesday.
In the evening we had an excellent dinner at the lakeside restaurant “Roklubben” some 5 km from Kangerlussuaq.

Tuesdaý 2nd of May
Tuesday became waiting day. Some went for a walk, some relaxed and some worked on raising the radio antenna on the roof of KISS. There was also time to do some extra shopping in the store. Tuesday afternoon we were told that the put-in at NEEM was postponed until Thursday due to a forecast of bad weather in the area on Wednesday.

Wednesday 3rd of May
Wednesday was spent making several adjustments to our cargo as there were some doubts on how much payload the plane could carry on the put-in flight. The issues were resolved, and everything we needed was packed. By satellite phone we learned that the U.S. traverse, GRIT, from Thule had arrived to NEEM on their way to Summit. This was very helpful indeed, as the put-in flight could now be supported with weather observations from ground personnel. Late afternoon a briefing on the put-in was held in KISS. Put-in is scheduled to 9.30 on Thursday.

Weather: Monday beautiful sunshine on snow covered Kangerlussuaq, but with temperatures mush above freezing, snow was melting at a rapid pace.
Tuesday and Wednesday were more chilly with clouds and wind and slight snow.

FL, J.P. Steffensen

Finishing our cargo pallet in the warehouse