August 20. 22.5 km | 514 feet of climbing.

The day began under a flat sky and stayed that way. Consistent snow, muted light, and a semi white-out that came and went, growing more pronounced as the hours passed. Not bad weather, but enough to keep your attention.

One crux of a fall crossing is Greenland’s eastern side. Katabatic winds can be ferocious here, and timing matters. You want to start late enough that meltwater is frozen and finish before winter settles in for good. The weather is generally worse on this side of the icecap, which is why most fall crossings go east to west. Today was a reminder of that calculus.

Travel itself was uneventful. The snow was consistent and forgiving, and the terrain rolled gently upward. We moved steadily, each of us tucked into our own thoughts, the line of sleds stretching out and compressing again as visibility shifted.

The most exciting moment of the day came courtesy of my own inattention. While fiddling with my music, I managed to leave a ski pole behind. By the time I realized it, we had moved about a hundred yards on and the tracks were already fading into the white. I skied back along our line, scanning for the faint imprint of baskets and tips, finally spotting the pole sitting alone in the snow. A small mistake, but one with the potential to grow teeth in these conditions.

The day offered its lessons anyway. Cool down before stopping so you are not wet with sweat when camp goes up. When pitching tents, the back end should always face directly into the wind. Reduce what you bring inside to the bare essentials. Small habits matter out here.

By evening we camped at 5,150 feet, roughly nineteen miles east of Windy Camp, where our 2018 trip ended under a brutal storm. The icecap felt larger tonight, the light flatter, the silence deeper.

We had dinner and a small pour of Colorado whisky in the Norwegian brothers Sigurd and Erik’s tent. It was a welcome moment of warmth and conversation after a long day spent mostly alone inside our own heads.

One concern lingered. My skins were showing more wear than I would like this early in the trip.

Still, we had covered good ground. The line on the map crept westward, slowly and almost imperceptibly, across the vast white center of the island.