We will pick you up at your hotel and we drive alongside the majestic
Adventsvalley and pass a traffic sign which declares that from here
and on rifle should at all time be carried. Caution Polar Bears! Our
guides naturally bring rifle and signal pistol with them, and they
have proper training in using them in an emergency situation
.
We will pass the "Ice Pond" which supplies all of Longyearbyen with
fresh water. Further out in the valley are the old
airport and Nordlysstasjonen. Relatively big airplanes landed on the
frozen tundra in Adventsvalley until 1975. In the end of the "landing
run" a car with the front lights on worked as landing lights. No
planes could land in the summer because Adventsvalley turned into a
river delta. Behind the old airport rises the Oprafjeld, most famous
for the tragical aircraft crash, which claimed 142 lives. It was a
Russian Aeroflot plane that crashed in 1996.
We will drive to mine no.7 where the road ends and the hiking starts.
After a short but steep climb we will arrive to the plateau. From here
the direction is chosen depending of the weather. After a few hours we
will reach our dog camp where the excursion guides and dogs live all
summer. Now you will have a chance to get acquainted with our very
nice Alaskan Huskies and if you are lucky there might be some puppies
that need some attention. We will eat lunch and drink coffee before we
start the hike back to the jeep.
