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Floor and Anirudh Dagar went for a hike
November 28, 2025
Ice Ridge Trail 🇬🇱 – Day 1 – Point 660 & Russell Glacier to wild camp
05:07
10.8km
2.1km/h
370m
230m
We began the day with breakfast in the airport cafeteria, a simple space that doubles as a communal meeting area. You pay 100 Danish crowns and eat as much as you want. It felt straightforward and almost modest, a quiet start before Greenland began revealing itself.
Evelyn had arranged that we could join the Arctic Circle Albatross trip to Point 660 and the Russell Glacier without taking the full tour. We paid for a taxi — still cheaper at around 800 Danish crowns — though the reception was highly confused by this unusual setup. On the way, we passed the remains of an old plane crash.
Volkswagen had once been in this area, building a road and planning to stay for ten years. They left after five because maintenance simply was too expensive. They used to race on the ice, but the ice retreated so quickly that continuing no longer made sense. It felt like a snapshot of a strange, half-forgotten era.
We reached the ice cap and walked about 45 minutes to get onto the ice. Seeing the different layers up close was impressive, almost unreal. Afterwards, we returned to the Russell Glacier, where large pieces of ice calved off with deep rumbling crashes — small tsunamis rolling out at our feet. We saw it two or three times, each one just as striking as the last. That was also, quite abruptly, where we were dropped off to begin our hike.
The trail itself began gently. We stopped at a half-circle bench with wide, open views. Later, we pitched our tents near the water. That evening, the Northern Lights appeared right above us. To the naked eye they looked like pale beams — almost like light smudges in the sky — but when you lifted your phone, the colours came alive. It felt like Greenland was brilliantly saying hello.
Inside myself, though, I was nervous. My backpack felt heavy — painfully heavy — especially with all the food. Six kilos just in food alone. Even though some of it was meant for only two days, it was still a lot of weight. And I was a bit on edge about the group: the four of us together, not knowing each other very well yet, surrounded by people who had that particular style of outdoor experience. Instead of being curious about how they move through the world, I felt myself resist a little, like I had to prove something rather than simply observe.
But slowly, beneath the nerves, excitement started to build. The sense of being on Greenlandic soil. The wilderness. The rawness of the landscape. The reality that this was the beginning of something big, something other worldly. I should probably start by saying how cool it all was — because it was cool. It was the kind of cool that lives in your chest rather than in your head.
And that was Day 1: the first step into Greenland, a mix of nerves, awe and the quiet unfolding of what was to come.
Waypoints
Route Details
Elevation
Highest point (400 m)
Lowest point (140 m)
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