Longyearbyen in the snow :)

As I have already mentioned, it has snowed quite heavily recently in Svalbard and the cold temperatures means that the snow layer has stayed with us! The last few weeks, we have been making the most of it and gone hiking in various places around the valley we are in as the place looks so incredibly different under this fresh new layer of snow 🙂 I thought I would take time to explain where all these places are in relation to where I live within Longyearbyen and what they look like at the moment.

This is a picture I have taken from google (and sadly a shot from the summer, so not covered in snow – but it will do for spatial orientations). I’ve marked out the different mountaintops and plateau that we regularly go to on hikes. 

From the barracks upwards it takes about 2-3 hours up and down to reach Sarkofagen, up to 5 to reach Trollsteinein, around 6 to Nordenskioldtoppen and it takes less than an hour to reach the plateau. It also takes about half an hour to walk the 3km from the student barracks to UNIS (the university).

Now that’s sorted out here are some pictures from these various locations 🙂 :

This was taken from the top of Sarkofagen looking down into the valley 🙂

This was one of our first hikes in the snow, so we got a bit excited 🙂 Here is my friend Mads making a snow angel. 

This was taken towards sunset, walking up towards Nordenskioldtoppen- We didn’t quite walk all the way up though because it got dark real quick and we didn’t have any headlamps with us 😦

Here is another picture taken that same trip of the sunset 🙂 Such beautiful colours that day!

This was taken at the base of the moraine that leads up to the plateau. At first this seemed like the longest hike ever, but it gets shorter and shorter every time. 

This is taken from up on the plateau. Its about an hour’s walk across. 

From this vantage point you can look all the way down into the valley and see the student barracks at one end and the university and the town at the other end:

The town is centered around the university with various outdoor equipment/clothing stores, a supermarket, a coffee shop, some restaurants/pubs, a few hotels, and housing.

This is the view from the moraine up to the plateau looking out towards the student barracks

Yesterday, me and some friends (Alex, Emilie and Hannah) decided to walk up to Trollsteinen to see the sunset :

This is what the top looked like in the sunset. The Rock that you can see is Trollsteinen, which means “troll rock”.

The side, usually covered in sand-like rock, was much easier to climb up when ice-over with snow.

Here you can see Hannah walking up the last bit to the top 🙂

The view at the top was incredible! Well worth the cold. 

Happy hikers standing in front of Trollsteinen 🙂 

And that concludes my small tour  of the mountains surrounding Longyearbyen 🙂