Alagna-freeride.com & Sommerschi.com

You got some cool stuff in here! So, for the extra-ordinary: I was skiing once in Greenland last summer! Cool site there! We were on for the department of geosciences of my university (some tropospheric research project, monitoring ozone concentration and stuff). On an icefield close to the research station stands a short skilift, left by the NATO guys who used to own the site way back in the 70s or so. Guess it was for their leisure time as there's not much you can do out there When they left some twenty years ago, all stuff stayed and fell in decay. The lift was rebuilt some years ago by the research station's personal and some locals. Rather stunning site, great views, cool atmosphere and in June there are days when there's no darkness at all! Here are some images, if you want, I can add a few more.

Hey, that looks really great! I've never heard of skiing in Greenland before, are there more installations like this or is it the only one? How did you get there exactly? And please, add more pics if you have...

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Oh, that really looks very interesting, thank You for posting this report and btw. welcome here in this forum. How many days of skiing did You have over there?

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Schweben im Powder - Die, die es erlebt haben, verstehen, den anderen kann man es nicht erklären!

Really impressing - and welcome from me, too! I didn't know that there were such mountains in Greenland (I always thought it was kind of flat, a huge ice cap or something... ). What's that about the NATO? Is there still something to be seen? What were the facilities for? And for the lift: is it public or private? How long is it?

Thanks a lot! Really impressing location, exactly the kind I like!

Hey Guys, thx 4 the nice commentary. As for your questions: I didn't ski very much, as I said before. That is mainly because I was rather occupied at the research station and then I prefer hiking, so that's what I did mostly when having some time off. After all, we we weren't blessed with many bright days either. All in all, I only did two and a half days of skiing. Per and Philip did some more, Sondre maybe too, I think. I don't know about any other lifts in Greenland. This was the first time ever I've been to Greenland and I didn't see much more than Maniitsoq and the research station and its surrounding area. I don't know whether the lift is public, it is used by the station's personal and some locals from the village down at the Fjord. I doubt that there are many people who know about it, usually noone comes there who is not involved in the research projects. I also doubt there are things like opening times or something: it runs if it runs (that means if there are enought guys who like to have a ride) and otherwise it just stands around.

As for the NATO facilities: no idea! There's a lot of trash lying around and many buildings standing around down in the base camp and on some of the surrounding mountains. They really disfigured that Fkord, the millitary, didn't do anything to clean up the site! But if this interests you I can ask Sondre, he was rather in for this stuff. Seemed to like all that mythical Cold War relics.... Well, I daresay it's just a lot of crap lying around and some forgotten concrete. Anyway, I'll ask him.

As for arriving there: we flew to Maniitsoq, from there we continued by boat. There's also a helicopter at the station, but they don't use very often. They also told us, that we were not to use it for assurance reasons - maybe you got to be working for the NILU or something. I don't know whether there are regular ways to get to the Fjord, in our case it was all organised by NILU and our department at the university. From the landing stage there is dirt road to the station, but as long as there's ice, they use a kind of snowcat, which is much faster in this terrain than a 4x4. There's also a small material cable-car down to the Fjord which is used for the transportation of goods.

Puh... you're quiet curious you are...

where can I see the ski area on google earth?

Allright, I did ask Sondre about the NATO facilities and he told me a lot of stuff, though I do not remember every detail. Basically it was like this: in the early years of Cold War the US installed an early warning system, consisting of several radar stations on the arctic coasts. Those were linked back to the US and to Europe via radio links and - as this was before the age of satellite communication - they used some system which requiered having a radio station every few hundred kilometers. The link went via Canada and Greenland to Continental Europe, so there were some of them located in Greenland. Ours was one of the western stations linking to Canada. Later, I think some twenty years ago, everything was given up, but most of the infrastructure is still there. Some outpost on a ridge (antenna maintenance, I think) was then reused for building the research station, benefitting from some of the still existing infrastructure. Sondre made a lot of photos, which he sent me with some explanations, I'll upload them later. Hope this helped, bye Liv.

Der Lift muss übrigens von Bachmann Steffisburg sein.

Ja? Was ist von dem alles aus Steffisburg? Ist das nicht der selbe wie auf dem Siedelgletscher? Ich dachte, der sei von Leitner (Gehänge sehen auch so aus)?

Hat der auf Siedelgeltscher nicht die Verstrebungen anders? Nänlich auf der anderen Seite? Der hier hat außerdem auch verschiedene Stützen, zumindest sieht es im untersten Bild so aus, als wäre das irgendein Zusammengebastel. Irgendwie sieht mir der auch nicht nach Leitner aus, aber das müsst ihr beurteilen.

Aber wenn Michi Bachmann sagt, dann gibts für mich keinen Zweifel!

Stütze vom Siedellift. Schaut schon ähnlich irgendwo, aber vielleicht ist Siedel dann doch nicht Leitner? Weil nach Leitner sieht der nicht gerade aus. Hat auch die Verstrebung anders als der Grönlandlift, wenn ich es richtig sehe. Läuft anders rum und in nem anderen Winkel.

Aber eine Leitnerstütze scheint der Grönlandlift zu haben, wo auch immer die her ist... ganz schönes rumgebastel jedenfalls, alles Bachmann und eine Stütze Leitner... vielleicht sind das auch mehrere Hersteller bei dem Lift, würd mich mal interessieren wie die Stationen aussehen.

@Liv: Do you have any pictures of the top or bottom station of this Lift?

No, don't have any, sorry.

So these are some photos of Sondre, showing the NATO stuff. He gave me some description, that I'll add.

Hmmm... Also es könnte sehr gut sein, dass der Siedellift kein Leitner ist. Denn dieses Fachwerk + die Stützenform ist schon sehr schweiztypisch. Ich habe hier noch eine alte AK die einen Baco Gletscherlift zeigt. Das Ding hat sogar eine Bacokurve . Aber Leider sieht man in der Entferneung nicht, ob die Stütze aus Fachwerk oder Rundrohr (wie bei Habegger, Bühler und Von Roll typisch, diese Stützen unterscheiden sich nur minimal) gebaut ist.

@ Liv: Danke für die Bilder! Sieht ja sehr interessant aus da!

Wer einen in Betrieb sehen will muss nach Crans Montana fahren.