The invasion of Ukraine ended our hopes of being able to ski to the North Pole this year (the logistics needed in order to reach the high latitude Arctic Ocean that we ski on are all operated out of northern Russia and the Ukraine…) so we scrambled to put together a challenging and meaningful last-minute ski expedition in Svalbard that met both our scientific and expedition objectives and fitted within the limitations of having already missed most of the permission deadlines.
Slightly miraculously we pulled off a really great expedition. We skied from Barentsburg to Longyearbyen, experiencing a range of conditions along the way and gathering a really good haul of scientific data including over 80kg of snow, ice and water samples which will be analysed for black carbon by Dr Ulyana Horodyskyj in the US and for microplastics and heavy metals by me at the National Oceanography Centre and University of Southampton in the UK.
Most importantly, we had a really enjoyable time and having visited Svalbard many times over the years, I was extremely grateful to finally have the opportunity to do some skiing at last!
