Svalbard, a journal of arctic skiing

Six skiers and one photographer embark on an epic adventure to ski fresh powder in some of the most remote mountains on the planet. Armed with tents, skis and long barreled rifles, they journey deep into polar bear country for two of the best weeks of their lives. Our crew was dressed and ready to head out by 2 pm on the afternoon of April 26th. We'd spent the last six months planning for this trip and now it was about to happen. Everything from satellite phones to solar panels had been purchased, tested and packed. We'd even spent an hour at the local firing range in Longyearbyen the night before acquainting ourselves with the WWII rifles we'd rented for the trip, in the case of an unlikely polar bear encounter.

By 4 pm there was still no sign of our snowmobile guides. It wasn't until 6:30 that evening that we were finally grouped up with one of our guides on the edge of town. He quickly scanned over our three polkas (towable sleds) and skis, looking at us with amazement, and said "is that all you have?". By the time our load was secure, it was about 9 pm. We set off into the constant sun. The excitement was palpable and the sights made it all the more thrilling. We rode 45 kilometers up the first valley, banked a hard left and traversed a huge fjord, where bearded seals hung out by the holes in the ice.

As we crested the 1,100 meters ice cap and distanced ourselves from the shale mountains, we were greeted by an unforgettable sight - a flat barren landscape that stretched as far as the eye could see. Without a GPS, we would have been lost within half an hour. Eight hours later we finally arrived at what would become our base camp. We erected the tents and started digging a hole that would eventually become our kitchen. Our snowmobile guides had long gone to sleep, resting up for their return voyage the following day, but our group leader, Hannu Kukkonen (later dubbed The Admiral), insisted we get a head start with the camp set-up. It was only after we started talking nonsense from fatigue that we were finally granted permission to rest.

The Admiral bid goodnight to everyone as he set up the trip wire around our tent area. If any polar bears were to come sniffing around while we slept, the trip-wire would trigger a small explosion followed by a flare, a tactic that would hopefully buy us enough time to react. It was just after two o'clock in the afternoon on our first day of camping when the call was heard. All but one of the crew were enjoying a leisurely breakfast in our now completed kitchen when American skier Kevin Grabowski suddenly screamed from just outside the kitchen area, "Polar bear! Seriously, come now. I'm not fu*%ing kidding, there's a polar bear."

Rifle in hand, The Admiral, followed by his regiment, squeezed through the exit tunnel to find Kevin, who'd just woken up, frantically pointing down the glacier towards two little black dots that were slowly moving in our direction. Barely needing to squint, we easily made out the skiers touring up the glacier towards us with Polkas in tow. "No need to fire a warning shot I guess", one of the crew blurted out, "get some glasses Kevin." With the initial scare out of the way, it was now time to explore. We summited the peak right out the back of our campsite. When we reached the top, the terrain suddenly changed.

We were no longer looking at big expanses of flat glacier complemented by mellow peaks, but at big rugged granite peaks with couloirs that seemed to go on forever. The valleys were tight and the razor-edged peaks daunting. We skied the untracked couloirs, wondering just how many people had skied these before, if any. The satellite phone was working like a charm! We regularly gave updates to our support crew back home and received the most up to date weather forecasts. So, it was no surprise when a storm rolled in on our 4th day of camping. As the storm settled in, we took swift advantage of the downtime to catch up some zzz's, read and celebrate Swiss freeskier, Ilir Osmani's 27th birthday.

Once the booze was finished and we'd plowed through most of our books, the discussions began. Politics, porn and food were but some of the many topics covered. What I recall most from the endless banter that took place in the kitchen hole is that crackers are not a lunch food. Breakfast foods were suddenly disappearing very quickly, threatening to leave us with nothing but oatmeal. That only goes to show the level of cabin fever that was setting in. When we crawled out of our tents three days after the Arctic storm began, we were taken aback to see that the snow was still blowing sideways and that the temperature on Kevin's 50 cent thermometer still read -15 degrees celsius.

Our sources on the ground had told us to expect sunny skies and warmer temperatures, so the mood was somber to say the least. It was time to leave the hole. After hot coffee/tea and oatmeal that tasted like last night's dinner, we forced ourselves back out into the squall to prepare our skis for a tour. There was no way anyone was going to sit around camp one more day discussing crackers. Our crew set off to explore a zone we hadn't checked out before. We headed over the col, 700 meters west of our camp, descended and then banked north to a series of cirques that we'd seen on the map and that were hidden from view. As we neared two of the cirques, the skies suddenly opened and the wind dropped almost instantaneously.

Unexpectedly, we found ourselves looking up at a colossal couloir in full sun that was begging to be ridden. It was hard to gauge how far away the couloir was, but it didn't take long to find volunteers who were eager to check it out. The trip was coming together beautifully and the mood in camp seemed untouchable. Although we sat through one more storm on the tail end of our two-week stay, instead of discussing cracker toppings, we now shared stories of what we'd seen and experienced on this unforgettable voyage. And we laughed at the insane topics of conversation that had consumed us earlier, while cringing at the smells now emanating from our tents. But most of all, we relished the fact that we'd put so many tracks where few had skied before.