Summer adventure holidays - 11 -
Isfjord

Itinerary (1)

Day 1 :
Fly from Paris to Longyearbyen. Stay in guesthouse near Isfjord (ice fjord) under the midnight sun.

Day 2 :
Acclimatisation in Longyearbyen: the town of the Far North, a very Norwegian city and the departure point for all expeditions in the Svalbard archipelago.

Days 3 :
A cruise from Longyearbyen to Pyramiden in the morning. We visit Pyramiden, an old Russian city, which mined coal until 1998. Introduction to and handover of kayaks, and departure (depending on weather).

Days 4 to 12 :
9 days of complete autonomy in Isfjord, which is probably the most varied bay of Spitzbergen, composed as it is of many small fjords. Stopovers are made according to the motivation of the party and the weather.

- Billefjord :
We camp next to Nordenskiold glacier and kayak amongst the icebergs along a 5-km long ice face. We approach seals. Then we follow the Billefjord, discovering colonies of fulmar petrels, puffins and guillemots one after another. The sea is dominated by cliffs draped in solid layers of limestone, which are accentuated by beds of white gypsum.

- Sassenfjord (North Coast) :
When we enter the Gipsdalen Valley, we take the time to go inland, into the Arctic tundra, near to the reindeer. We walk for a few hours and arrive on a plateau that culminates at 600 m of altitude, thereby discovering a vast infinity that will inspire your sense of solitude.

- Tempelfjord :
The entrance of Tempelfjord is one of the most remarkable places on Spitzbergen — we navigate below cliffs that bring the towers of a cathedral to mind. The first explorers thought that they had found old human constructions.
At the bottom of the bay, we slide along the walls of the glaciers in our kayaks, around the many icebergs drifting slowly in the calm of the Arctic. Sometimes, seals come to lounge on bits of ice right by us.

Sassenfjord (South Coast) :
The geology of these mountains without vegetation reveals their treasures — limestone beds with thousands of fossils showing on the surface. On the way out of Sassenfjord, at Diabasodden, we stop near a colony of Brunnich guillemots and puffins, nesting just a few metres away.
The Arctic fox generally hunts here on the cliff. In this lively nature, we take the time to explore and to immerge ourselves in a parcel of this world of infinite horizons, made from an unpredictable diversity. And all this under the perpetual light of the Arctic summer.

For the last kilometres to Longyearbyen, we follow an ochre cliff covered in places by scattered tundra, adding to the wild character of the place.

Day 13 :
Fly from Longyearbyen to Paris.

(1) For atmospheric reasons, all descriptions are indicative and non-contractual.