Since the time I have been in Svalbard with my friend Dr. Rene Flach I had the strong desire to walk over the Ice in Greenland. The Norwegian Polar Explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his team were the first human beings to do so in 1888. We sure would not encounter the same dangers than they did overcome, but still, it is a serious undertakement, even in these days of high technology applications.
So I tried hard the following four years to make this dream come true. It has been quite a challenge and finally I did overcome all the hassle: I found two comrades with time and money and- as I thought- good skilled.
Our plan was to go from Isertoq, a little village 60 km South of Tasiilaq (Ammasalik), 600 km over almost virgin ice to Kangerlussuaq (Sondre Stromfjord), on the West coast.
The preparations took only 4 months, thanks to the Internet connection to the far away member, Karl of Seattle. Problems were solved in hours rather than in weeks (by snail mail) within the net. We shipped all equipment to the starting point of the trip, Isortoq in Greenland.

Then Karl took off from Seattle to fly to Sondre Stromfjord in West Greenland. The mission he had to fulfill was very special: He should explore our descent from the Ice and the last part of the way towards the airport, you should know, that the Sondre Stromfjord airport is about 40 km away from the point we would try to leave the Ice. Additional he had to stash part of our rations (3 men for 3 days) as furthest onto the Ice as possible. In the mean time Silvio Kühnel and I were busy to get last minute things. Silvio and I met while spelunking and climbing together years ago. This expedition had downed our financial resources to the zero and below. Only insurance, flights and food were about $ 5000, so at the end we wrote red numbers...Well, Silvio kept telling me, if we are off, they can't catch us and by the end it will be all paid.

So it was, that we took off a week after Karl, and met in Sondre. There we were, cut out from our normal lifestyles. Karl was a phone company (billing) assistant, Silvio served in the Civil Guard of Germany and I just had examinations at my University. We came out of a hectic world. We did not know to that time, how fast this will change...Next morning we flew to Kulusuk and with a Sikorsky Helicopter to Ammassalik, this is the main city of east Greenland. With its mere 3500 inhabitants it seemed more like a small sleeping village to us. We pitched tents near the Heliport and next morning Karl and I went to the harbor to arrange our next leg of travel with the post boat. Karl got some fuel at the gas station and I was very astonished, as the clerk of the harbor travel office told me: Well the ship will leave at 9:00 am. It just turned 8:45 am. Wow! The campground was about 2 km away, so I called a taxi, paid the fee for three one way tickets and began to run up the harbor mountain to cut the way of the Cab. Next 10 minutes looked like in a movie, Karl was busy at the fuel station, trying to explain the worker, what we need for fuel, I stopped by and told him to be ready in 5 minutes, Silvio was very happy to see me arriving with a car in horrendous speed and made photos of me and the surroundings. I told him, come on, we have a boat in 10 minutes, the next will be in a week or two, so hurry up. It took us 5 minutes to crash the tent down and throw all our belongings into the car. Our brakes were noisy as we stopped at the fuel station. Karl jumped in and with him 22 quarts of fuel ( it even was the wrong kind of fuel, but anyway). We arrived at the harbor just in time, threw the stuff onto our vessel and jumped in. And 2 minutes after that the ship took off. Give me five, my friend. Sweating but perfect timing.

The boat ride took 5 hours, Icebergs all around us, nice, really nice. Arrived in Isertoq just in time, and we saw our box that was shipped to this place beforehand. It looked okay. Well guys, where is the Ice ax, lets open the monster and get us some goodies. The kids of the village helped and we had a bunch of fun playing with them. An Inuit (don't call them Eskimo, this means raw meat eater) shipped us and all our trash over to the start point of the expedition.

It was a snow field, leading into the heavy crevassed zone. It took us 4 days to overcome that challenge, equipment broke like it would have been designed for another playground. We jumped crevasses, pulled the sleds over bumps. Every 1.5 m one bump. every bump up to 1m high. Means it has been a lot of effort. The crampons were the fifth day on our feet, when we saw its gonna end soon. We arrived at a snow field and used ski first time. Over the next 2 days crevasses disappeared and life began to get easy. Now our friend Karl showed us that he was unable to ski as fast as we did. So we took food from his sled and assisted him as much as possible. (We each had about 100kg on the sleds, at the very beginning).After the first day of skiing he told us, he wanted to go back. We discussed with him, that if he wants to do this, he would end whole expedition, because we had to accompany him through the crevasses, thus loosing approx. 10 days of our time and food contingent. That would make it risky to continue for the two of us, the winter will come finally. It mostly was a mental problem. So we gave him all assistance he needed (took some more loads off his sled and when it was necessary we went beside him like a troika). We thought he would adapt to the conditions, but something in his mind was not yet ready for such a remote trip.

Every day we needed to ski 6 hours to get a min. distance of 18km. There was the food limit. And after one hour we would stop for 10minutes to rest. Karl took the lead the first two hours, when he was strong, then I took over the next two hours, then Silvio. The last hour Silvio and I usually did on our own pace, so we were at camp early. We erected the base and began to cook, then Karl arrived and jumped into his sleeping bag. We would ask him for his cup and then feed him and give him tea.

Silvio was the evening cook, I did this special task in the mornings. Usually we got up at 8:00am, leaving camp around 10:30. Despite our pampering problems with Karl the next 20 days were a mental break through. If I walked hour after hour I could free my mind and think about stuff in such a difficult way I never could before. You solved a problem, looking at it from a thousand different sides, it 's been great what occurred in our brains. Silvio told me something quite similar . The isolation of the place, the quietness of the snow and the roaring or whistling of winds made this a special experience. It was this time on the wide fields of snow that changed us quite a bit. All the problems of the past and the projects of the future were sorted out. And we knew in another way, how this thing in our heads may function. Walking was fun, soon we walked 7 hours a day. We did not have major problems with our tent, we used a GARUDA, and this is a really good shelter against storm and snow. Soon we got to the point of No Return. Now we were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by 300km of Ice on each side, three small human beings, three sleds and lots of prayers for the next leg of the journey.

The day arose as we got a slight sailing wind from our backs (from east).Although I argued that it was to weak for sailing, the others were more democratic and we sailed 5km this day. After building camp Silvio plays with his sail to get better while Karl didn't give it a try; he prefers reading his book. The next day with stronger wind he fails with handling the sail, we can't sail and have to build camp again.

There was a short episode, which was really strange: While I was helping to safe Karls sail, Silvio's sail drifted by me, but without Silvio. Amazement! Silvio disconnected himself from the safety rope that connected all three of us and began to ski behind the sail in order to catch it. After 100m he did stop, because it was heavy fog and he could not see the sail nor hardly us anymore. So he came back, in bad mood. I disconnected from my rope and sail and we took a man-over-board marking of our position. As soon as the GPS unit stored the point, I took off into the white out. With the wind in my back, I moved fast as hell on ski. Five minutes later I saw an orange spot on the snow, 100m left of me. That's it, Olaf, hurrah. After stuffing the sail into a plastic bag I had to find the way home to camp. (I told Silvio to erect the tent in the time I was on search).This frightened me a bit. I couldn't see more than 100m and knew that the return against the wind would take longer than just some minutes. But I still had the GPS. And I could let me snow over and survive with help of the spinnaker from the sail. Lets try it out...faced straight towards the wind, I took a bearing with the compass and marched with it in my hand. That was not so easy. The snow blowing in my face made it almost impossible to have clear sighting, all iced up in seconds, without my Alaskan fur ruff, I don't think it would have been that cozy. After 20 minutes, I began to loose my patience. But in the right moment I spotted the tent, with Karl staying on guard. Welcome home, I thought!

Silvio was inside, preparing the pads, he was as happy as I was of being back. Now he owes me a XXL-pizza for his sail...Anyway, there was a third day with sailing weather. Optimum wind from back, blue sky, lets try it. Karl should start first, then Silvio and last I did start. Karl and Silvio had problems after a few meters, so I continued a bit on my own. This was a race, breath taking, it really makes you euphoric if you fly over the Ice with 20-25km/hr.After a while I stopped and waited for the others. Silvio arrived after 30 minutes, together we paused for Karl. It took him forever - well, only 2 hours! But he did not sail, no, he walked.

We put him on Silvio's sled, and attached his sled to my sled. That slowed us down an bit. Silvio's and my sail had to pull over 290kg each now. In order to check Karls statement that his sail does not work properly, I used it and found it best of our three sails! This evening we really spoke a hard discussion with Karl. We didn't pamper him the last 6 days, and we really told him what we feel he does for the team: not much.

Next day: Now he changed completely. Maybe it was our fault not to discuss this problem when it has been raised. He began to take part in the camp duties, even put the stuff of the others inside the tent! That was a great achievement! On our descent we had to cross many hollow lakes, crevasses, dry ponds, and creeks full of water. In adventurous actions we jumped over the creeks, to pull the sleds with a Tyrolean system over the wet. Once we used a fragile snow bridge to get over a canyon 10m wide and 15m deep. This were moments, were our adrenaline was sweating in quarts...but we made it. We approached land after 43 days on the Ice...

Karl, due to his lighter load was lots faster in that last part of the trip. While Silvio had trouble with his sled in between the ice towers I was waiting for him, but not so Karl. He took another route and approached land ahead of us. To that time we saw him on the end moraine, Silvio whistled, he looked at us, saw us staying on top of the big ice tower we agreed to meet on, and continued. We went the remaining 500 yards to the place we saw him last. No Karl. We continued to the highest mountain around, shot a flare, yelled, no Karl. Since the food depot that Karl established was 6km away from this approaching point and since he told us he knows the area, the clue was set out to continue to the food depot. He had a map and 2 compasses with a marked route, so he would be okay... It already had gotten late, time for camping. We selected a spot where he must come through should he have been still behind us.

Next day we followed the route to the food camp. We arrived late afternoon but no Karl. The GPS gave us the coordinates of the food depot. Since we were never there, we didn't know the actual place. It was hard to find, right built in a sliding slope besides a glacier river. In the same moment when we dug out the very few food resources Karl had put there, a plane was flying 50m above our heads. There were two possibilities now: Karl had activated his personal satellite rescue beacon (in this case SAR soon would send a helicopter if that plane did find him, according to the SAR procedure) or, since he knows the area, maybe he has been speedy Gonzalez and some car gave him a ride to the airport. (There is a dirt road 10 km from the food depot). That later feasibility means that SAR looked out for us! Since we didn't see a helicopter the evening, we decided to go to Sondre as fast as possible the next morning.

It still took us 1.5 days. When we arrived at the airport in Sondre, we first checked a locker in the Hotel. That's where Karl used to store his belongings. Our faces getting longer, He didn't touch his gear. So we hurried up to the campground to see if he was sitting there with his tent. No Karl either.....Things began to get a lot more uneasy now. We asked police about any rescue in the last few days. Nothing.

Okay, in accordance with Police we made up a search plan : next morning 7am we would first try to walk to that area, were we last saw Karl and search for as long as we could. We discussed the limits of the area, staked them to rivers and lakes, where he could cross impossible, it still was quite a big searching ground. Almost impossible for the two of us, but at the least we wanted to try... The night was very uncomfortable for us. We thought about Karl and what could have happened with him. Although he had all survival gear (tent, rescue beacon, stoves, VHF-radio, sleeping systems, etc.) he didn't have any food and he didn't have a pot. We had both pots , but no stoves. We were forced to cook with dead polar willow roots, but would Karl be so smart to use one of the never used MSR-fuel bottles to make himself hot water? He would be okay if he could find the food depot near the Ice, because when we left there, we left a pot, food, dry wood, fire starter paste and instructions. Would Karl be on the food depot when we look by the very next day? We didn't know.