June 9 — In Ilulissat, Greenland
Stuck in heaven
A low pressure system centered just south of Iceland was throwing a wrench in my plans. It was creating a lot of clouds from the center of Greenland all the way to Iceland. It was like a big stop sign for me.
I’m an instrument rated pilot, and with a 100-gallon ferry tank in the back seat I have plenty of range, but my plane can’t handle ice. That means I need to stay clear of clouds when I’m flying at an altitude at or above the freezing level. The part of Greenland’s ice cap I had to cross rises to 9,000 feet, always above the freezing level. So I needed a high level of confidence I could stay below any clouds, or fly in clear skies, or fly above the clouds and descend in clear air on the other side. I kept looking at Windy.com, and the forecasts kept changing, but they never looked good enough. With no airports en route at which to land if things weren’t copacetic, I wasn’t going to launch without a lot of confidence I’d reach Kulusuk (on the east coast of Greenland) or Reykjavik.
But there are worse places to be than Ilulissat. The late-night cruise of the ice fjord is the highlight, but the hiking is extraordinary, too. Danny and I set out in the morning on the yellow trail, so-called because of the yellow circles painted on the rocks at frequent intervals so you can’t really lose your way as you scramble along the shoreline of the bay and the fjord. It was so muddy that one of Danny’s shoes came off, but fortunately he was able to keep his sock out of the mud while I retrieved the shoe. Here’s a photo from the hike.
In the afternoon/evening, we took a cruise one hour north to a small settlement to witness what life is like in rural Greenland. Isolated, beautifully isolated.
Danny had a Thursday flight to catch from Reykjavik to New York, so we decided he would fly commercial to Reykjavik on Wednesday. That took the pressure off of me to get him there, and it also allowed me to substitute his weight (and the weight of his baggage) with more fuel, which gave me more options to turn around or divert if necessary. I figured I probably wouldn’t get to Reykjavik until Thursday, if then.
Flight tracking apps showed that Mike, the ferry pilot, was still in Kangerlussuaq, waiting out the weather, too.