Well, I remember as a lad chewing on cowcake on a local farm (some, experiment with drugs, boys of Blackwood? Animal feed) and didn't like it at all. Some time ago I tried several menus of Reiters meals and the one that came closest in taste to cowcake, actually very close, was the spag bol. So if you're looking for really disgusting I'd recommend that.
Mind you... I always read the labels... and any that contained monosodium glutamate would never get chosen anyway. Maybe the spag bol was in that class... can't remember. My main objection to monosodium glutamate is that it burns the taste buds (marketing blurb says this is a 'taste enhancer') and it creates a powerful thirst (so it's really a 'thirst enhancer). Of course in Greenland, if you get thirsty, you just scoop up water... anywhere you like!
On the water front... there were three lakes that are said to be 'saline' on the Arctic Circle Trail... and hardly anyone touches them. Me... I'll try anything! So, I tried the water from each of the allegedly 'saline' lakes, and could barely distinguish even the slightest of brackish taste in any of them. Still, the water looked a bit peculiar, with the only sign of life being long, wavy filaments of algae. I gather the main salts are calcium and magnesium, rather the the usual sodium. Probably does you a power of good, drinking the stuff!
Oddly enough... as I'm writing all this... I'm checking through the final draft of my Arctic Circle Trail manuscript... and in particular the bit about food!
One of the toughest things I've had to do is to figure out what all these flammable Danish compounds are, and what their nearest equivalents are in English, so that you don't put the wrong stuff in your stove! I saw someone with the wrong stuff, and even when her stove was on the floor, the flames were pretty close to torching the roof of one of the huts!
Want to try your hand at some translations...
Husholdnings sprit
Lampeolie
Benzin
Have fun... and if you want to cheat... visit www.borup.info
I wish I was back there now, Kate, except I'd probably be buried under a foot of snow!
Tropical Wholefoods don't do banana chips... not the pale crunchy deep-fried things. They do moist, but non-sticky strips of bogoya banana, which doesn't taste anything like any other sort of banana you've ever come across before. They're not at all like the sticky, honey-coated chewy bananas you get from Vietnam. Nope, they're in a class all of their own.
Once the weather started getting colder in Greenland, I started adding hot water to my muesli instead of cold water in the mornings. I also added powdered or condensed milk, then I started adding chopped bogoya bananas too. Once the hot water got at them, they softened nicely and added great flavour to the muesli. I'll be remembering that one for the future.
Tropical Wholefoods sell small packs of bogoya banana, but I always order massive 2 kilo packs of them. I then spend a few weeks peeling off the amount I want, either as snacks at home, or larger bundles to take away with me. Which reminds me... I finished the last lot the other day and I need to get another order in!
Yes Ed... I was on the Arctic Circle Trail mid-August to mid-September. I walked it both ways and even extended it so that it ran all the way from the edge of the ice cap all the way to the sea. It was brilliant. I didn't actually have a contract in hand when I did the trek, since Cicerone said - "Walk it first, because you never know, you might hate it!" As soon as I got back, I sent them a few pictures and got a contract immediately, and now they want to go and walk it! I deliberately went just after the peak summer period to avoid the midges, and that worked really well. I doubt if I saw a dozen of them, and they were really lethargic. The bug season is really from mid-June through the whole of July. Once August comes round, it's a case of waiting for the first night frost, then the fall like... well... flies! Anyway, I've said I'm delivering the entire manuscript on Friday, and if everything goes well, the guide will be published this time next year. That means anyone who gets it can spend all winter planning how they're going to do it the following summer!
Most walkers reckon on it taking a week to ten days. I'd say nine days is comfortable, or ten if you include a visit to the ice cap, or even eleven if you end up walking to the ice cap and back again! The huts are very basic, but also very useful. You can camp anywhere you like, and if the weather was to turn nasty, you just need to know where the nearest hut is and you can shelter for a while. I met a tough Inuit couple who were kayaking along a lake, trying to reach a hut before it got dark. In the end, as they couldn't see anything, they just headed for the shore, and as it was raining, rolled the kayak over, supported it on their packs, and lay underneath it all night. I was impressed when I saw them the next morning, but they only stopped briefly for some breakfast, then headed off up a mountain. They left me their kayak and I spent a whole day on a huge lake in it.
Resupply... forget it... there are shops at either end of the route and that's your lot! Best thing is to buy ALL the food you need in the UK and fly out with it. Food in Greenland, and for that matter ANYTHING in Greenland is very expensive. That's another reason for doing the hunter/gatherer bit in the wilds... supplementing your food rations. I told people on the trail that I was walking it both ways to save the cost of flying back. Of course, that was a load of rubbish, but it's true that the cost of food for the return trek was significantly less than the cost of the flight, and I got to see the whole trail again. For practical reasons, I like walking routes both ways, because I get to know more about them, and I get another chance to get pictures if I had any poor weather on the first attempt. In the end, I would have been very sad to leave, except that on my last day it was absolutely chucking it down, and the airport temperature gauge was registering minus 81 degrees Celsius! (I think it was busted... it was plus 11 degrees!)
As for the terrain... it kept buzzing round my head that this is what Scotland must have been like before anyone went to live there... building roads... planting forests... etc. Just huge glens with big lakes, lots of little lakes dotted around, rugged mountains all over the place. The route hovers between 100m and 450m, so there isn't a huge amount of climbing, while the mountains alongside rise to 1000m or 1500m, so they're a bit like 'Munros', to stick with the Scottish analogy.
The only way people experience any difficulty on the trail is by carrying HUGE packs. For some reason, people think they have to fill packs of 60-80 litres, and carry up to 35 kilos of weight. I managed with half that weight and capacity, but there were raised eyebrows as I strode away from the airport! Still... why should I care... I had a great time and I wasn't busting my guts!
OK... well I've read through all the introduction tonight... and I'll read through all the route description tomorrow. All my pictures have already been selected... almost wall to wall sunshine, would you believe? Hoping to crack a deal over the maps, and I'll be drafting route profiles too. I've also done a pretty neat location map viewed by looking straight down on the North Pole... an unusual view of the area!
Paddy: how muich "boulder field" is there on the trail? I've not long returned from the Troms Border Trail in Norway, which was very enjoyable, apart from the long stretches of boulders/stones at 800/900m altitude -- very wearing.
There are two small slopes of boulders near the head of a big lake called Amitsorsuaq. The idea is to keep as low as possible, though at one point you almost have to step into the lake. Anyone who climbs high regrets it. I've heard that people have to take their packs off to negotiate these boulders, but I didn't, because my pack is only half the size of what everyone else carries. Of course, the thing about Amitsorsuaq is that there are kayaks available, free of charge, and you can use these to paddle as much as 25km along the lake, so you wouldn't have any trouble with the boulders anyway.
There are plenty of places along the Arctic Circle Trail where there are slopes of bare rock, liberally strewn with boulders. However, as the boulders are often several metres apart, it's no big deal just to weave between them all. Makes for stunning scenery though!
Well... I kept meeting people who were carrying five changes of clothing, while I can manage with one complete change. Everyone I met had HUGE puffy sleeping bags and big heavy tents... both things that really should be lightweight and low-bulk. Bulky Trangia cookers were carried by a lot of people, while I had one of Captain Paranoia's Squeezebox Stoves. In fact, thinking about it, I reckon I was probably carrying a lot less than half the weight and bulk of everyone else I met!
Bob... I flew there and back over Tasiilaq and the air was perfectly clear. I got great pictures just from the window of the aeroplane. I'd love to spend some time on the ground there!
I have only tried Wayfarer and LWWF meals and they taste Ok but the portions are a bit on the small side and are a tad heavy for anything more than a weekend trip.
I have checked out Chris's outdoor grub website and expedition foods and there seems to be a good selection available.
Just wondering if there are any Freeze dried meals that in your opionion would be tasty and have a good portion size. Unfortunatley I don't have access to these locally so would have to buy off the internet.
Bob... I flew there and back over Tasiilaq and the air was perfectly clear. I got great pictures just from the window of the aeroplane. I'd love to spend some time on the ground there!
Finished up at Tasiilaq after trek. Also v. clear air. The place was unfortunately kind of spoilt by:
The drunks - queued up ouside supermarket late morning to get booze.
Cruise ship which deposited approx. 500 English for the afternoon!
I flew over South Greenland some years ago on an Air Canada jumbo in perfect conditions and the pilot dropped to a few thousand feet above the ice cap so we could get a better look!
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thankyou for your detailed analysis.
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so I spect I'll try some of their bananas. 
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