Posted: Jul 27, 2009 02:47 pm EDT
(ThePoles.com) Adrian Hayes, Devon McDiarmid and Derek Crowe accomplished their unassisted, kite-supported mission across Greenland. Adrian called ExplorersWeb on their satellite phone from Thule Air Force Base near Qaanaaq.

He spoke about their challenging last three weeks and how this Greenland expedition compared to an expedition on Antarctica and on the Arctic Ice. Adrian talked to ExWeb’s Correne Coetzer.

ExplorersWeb: How do you feel at the moment?

Adrian: We are pretty healthy, with a few injuries, but we feel pretty good particular after the challenging last three weeks.

ExplorersWeb: How did you manage with the food and fuel as you were running low?

Adrian: Headwinds kept us from kiting and gaining distance. We started planning the food before it was too late and therefore started rationing from Day 49. We were very careful with the fuel and still could last a week with it. Fuel is most important. You can survive if you have fuel.

Furthermore the last three weeks were a challenge with the crevasses at JP Kocks Fjord in the North and at MacCormick Fjord where we ended in the Northwest. It was slow going and new ground. No one has done that before.

It could have been wise to do the route straight to Qaanaaq, but we wanted to cross the Greenland Icecap. In the North the ice makes a fork and we decided to go to the left hand side and from there to Qaanaaq. To travel on sea ice, you got to be earlier in the season.

ExplorersWeb: How did this expedition compared to your South Pole and North Pole expeditions?

Adrian: This one was very different. The team had lots of expertise, which we used when we faced the challenges, and while strategizing. We were always thinking and planning about the altitude, the distance, the wind, which time of the day to kite, how long to kite, when to stop, when to kite, how to kite, which kites to use.

It was not as physical as to pull heavy sleds on the Poles, but very rewarding to pull it off.

On Antarctica there is a routine of getting up every morning and pull as far as possible for the day, avoiding major crevassed areas.

When skiing to the North Pole you deal with the continental drift.

On Greenland we walked at the start and with the descends at the coastal areas, as well as on the Icecap when we didn’t get wind. That was not so much to gain miles, but more to get exercise.

ExplorersWeb: Is there something you should have done different?

Adrian: Good question, hmm, no. We reached our objective and our choice of equipment worked well. May be the one kite, we used the 8 meter kite only once and we could perhaps have one kite less.

ExplorersWeb: What advice can you give to future expeditions?

Adrian: The kites and technology are important. Most vital is to get weather forecasts from someone who is dedicated and who knows what he is doing, like Mark de Keyser. To go in ‘blind’ would have brought too many disruptions. We could plan our route options according to the wind patterns.

ExplorersWeb: Was there any time that you had doubts about finishing?

Adrian: Not doubts, but there were times that we had to strategize, like when there was no wind. We were always pretty confident that we would find a way. This route was never done before and was not easy. The direct route to Qaanaaq would have taken 35-40 days. On a longer expedition like ours or the kiting expeditions of Rune [Geldnes] and Torry [Larsen] and Jesper [Melin Ganc-Petersen] and Erik [Bruun Jørgensen], the challenge takes on a different dimension.

ExplorersWeb: You worked well together as a team. Why?

Adrian: We had individual strength and each one his area of expertise. We were utilizing our strengths rather than being all-rounders at best of times.

Devon and I had the Polar background and Derek was the expert kiter. Devon and I learned to kite about six months ago. It was an ambitious project, but we were confident and lucky with success.

Most important are preparation, planning and equipment.

ExplorersWeb: What was the most awesome moment?

Adrian: Seeing the mountains in the North at JP Kocks fjord was awesome.

ExplorersWeb: Have you reached the purpose of the expedition regarding sustainability?

Adrian: Yes. The world is going green and we were on a sustainability quest. We took daily tests of snow density and deposits. Results will be published in a nature and science paper by one of our science support team members. He will also look at how much the melting is replaced by precipitation.

I will carry on with the sustainability quest when I get back in society.

ExplorersWeb: Any future expedition plans?

Adrian: I’m not stopping yet. These expeditions have become a profession. I will be looking for sponsorships again and then again getting a new expedition off.

We are very grateful to our sponsors Emirates NBD, The National, Emirates Airline, Ozone and all the other sponsors and partners who helped us made this expedition possible.

For now we will fly to Kangerlussuaq, where we shall stay a day and then fly to Copenhagen. From there I shall fly to the UK where I shall stay a few weeks and then go back to the United Arab Emirates. Devon and Derek will go back to Canada.

The Emirates NBD Greenland Quest with Devon McDiarmid, Adrian Hayes and Derek Crowe completed a 67 day kite-ski expedition from Narsaq in the South on the Atlantic Ocean to the JP Kocks Fjord in the North on the Artic Ocean and subsequently MacCormick Fjord near to Qaanaaq (Thule) in NW Greenland – app. 3500 km journey with no resupplies – that is unassisted, kite-supported.

Devon and Derek are from Canada and Adrian is British but based in the UAE. The expedition took place from May to July 2009. The team took food and fuel for 65 days.

This is a new route and the longest unassisted, kite-supported attempt on Greenland.

Adrian Hayes is a British, UAE based, polar adventurer, mountaineer, corporate coach and speaker who holds the record for reaching the Earth's Three Poles in the shortest period of time to date, becoming only the 15th person ever to achieve the feat.

A former Gurkha Officer and Special Forces Soldier in the British Army, Adrian has had a lifetime of adventures and extreme sports - leading or being a team member on climbing and other expeditions all over the World, adventure racing, triathlon, rock climbing, skiing, diving, parachuting and kayaking to name a few.

He is an experienced jungle and desert operator, having served in the jungles of Borneo and the deserts of Southern Oman during his army career. He has also carried out underwater salvage and explosive operations in the remote islands of the South Pacific and qualified as a Paramedic during his military service.

A former Middle East Sales Director for Airbus, he has lived and worked in 8 countries, visited over 100, and speaks three languages (Arabic, Nepalese and Malay) in addition to English.

Greenland’s total ice area of 1.8 million km² (695,000 square miles) corresponds to 14 times the size of England. The ice-free area amounts to 350,000 km² (135,000 square miles) – equivalent to the area of Germany. The ice contains 10 per cent of the world’s reserves of fresh water.

In 1978 Naomi Uemura’s solo dog-sled a north-south crossing with air resupply from Cape Morris Jesup to Narsarsuaq.

In 1992 Rune Gjeldnes and Torry Larsen parachuted onto the southern tip of the icecap. They paddled a kayak to within a day of Cape Farewell but were turned back by heavy pack-ice, arriving at Cape Morris Jesup after a total of 2928 km and 86 days, using skis and kites.

In 2008 Alex Hibbert and George Bullard did a 1374 miles (2546 km) ski return journey diagonal across Greenland and placed food depots along the way.

From mid-March to mid-July 2009, Jesper Melin Ganc-Petersen and Erik Bruun Jørgensen attempt to cross the Greenland Icecap diagonal from Kangerlussuaq (Sønderstrøm Fjord) in the Southwest to the fjord area of Independence Fjord in the Northeast. From there they will travel along the North coast of Greenland, via Cape Morris Jesup to Qaanaaq on the northwest coast; according to them a total of app. 3500 km. The guys were evacuated because of a serious medical condition in the first half of June.

The east-west or west-east routes are the most popular on Greenland. Not many teams had done a vertical route. The vertical kite ski or parasailing expeditions start mostly from either Narsaq or Narsarsuaq in the South and end in Qaanaaq in the Northwest; a distance of about 2500 km.

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