In the very first photo story of my trip, when I shared my highlights, the visit to Eqi Glacier Lodge was one of those highlights. And I promised that I would write about it separately.

So, here we are.

What was so special about it?

It was the feeling that you are staying somewhere on the very edge of a wild and powerful force of nature….which you could literally hear… all day and all night!

In Greenlandic, the glacier is called Eqip Sermia, and is one of the largest calving glaciers in Greenland. At the front it is almost 4 km wide and over 200 metres above the water. The glacier ‘calves’ by releasing enormous pieces of ice from its edge, which from a distance sounds like thunder. And it can sometimes appear at a distance like a little puff of smoke.

Occasionally, there is a calving event which is so large that it produces waves which come crashing to the otherwise calm shoreline just below the lodge. It is a crazy sight – the surf-sized waves seem to materialise from nowhere.

The glacier has been the subject of many scientific studies, as early as the nineteenth century. Most notable was the work carried out in the 1940s-1950s when Paul-Emile Victor used the area as a base from which he conducted expeditions onto the glacier and the ice sheet. The current Eqi Glacier Lodge was built at the location of Victor’s camp, with one of his cabins still standing (although unused).

The boat trip to Eqi Glacier took a few hours. Once we reached the bay, we had lunch while still on the boat, cruising in front of the glacier with our eyes scouring the ice cliff face on the lookout for calvings.  The boat then made its way to the shore in front of the lodge, where we were dropped off before clambering up the rocky slope to the main building for a welcome and briefing.

Our cabins were closest to the glacier, and so furthest from the main building, with a boardwalk making it easy walking.

The next day we walked to the moraine at the edge of the glacier. It was a round trip of around 10.4 kms, with a final steep climb up onto the moraine itself. The view from here was spectacular, and was quite different from the view from the lodge, as we were now looking down onto the glacier from the side.

I think that the most memorable moment for me was when, after returning from the walk, I sat down on the deck outside our cabin, and just wondered at the magnificent sight of the glacier before me, to the edge of which I had just climbed….

…. and the sobering thought that it was slowly melting away.