Sermermiut

I am a very selfish person when it comes to the mountains and certain special places in nature – I would give you my last meal anytime, but I love having some POI’s just for myself. Getting up early in the morning to achieve it is no challenge for me at all, I am ready to go out in no time. I only need some food; the gear is always prepared on the evening before the hike. The cameras are ready, the batteries/backups/powerbanks are always full in order to be sure that I will not miss literally anything. This is particularly important when I arrive to such spectacular and special places like Greenland is.

There is a trail which brings you to a small bay on the southern coast of Ilulissat. Starting with 4 000 years ago this area – Sermermiut – was inhabited by several cultures successively; the area is rich with fresh water from the ice sheet, offers marine life and consequently was possible to sustain human lives. This is a very important place for archaeological excavations and it is protected by UNESCO due to its uniqueness and outstanding universal value.

I left the airbnb at 5:30 and came here at 6. When I left the room, it was snowing shyly. When I reached the trail to Sermermiut, in front of me was the dream scenery – it was snowcovered, serene and absolutely perfect to be at. Not to mention that I was the first human on the plank trail. It was snowing the night before enough to make the trail at certain points merged with the soil, so I had to be careful in order not to fall through the ice on the edges of this plank trail. Everything around me was visually extremely appealing and made me really content with being there.

And the icebergs. Oh, the icebergs. I will never become bored by the icebergs. Dear Sermeq kujalleq, you are doing a tremendous job. Keep releasing the icebergs into the Isfjorden, I will return, you can be sure about that.

It is forbidden to approach the shores of the Isfjorden; the advice is to stay at a safe distance. The icebergs calving off the Sermeq kujalleq can be unpredictable and they flip, collapse or break easily, which causes tsunamis. There are no “fun” tsunamis to begin with, but to end up in these nearly frozen waters surely brings death due to hypothermia which occurs after a few minutes if you are dressed in anything else but a drysuit.

This trail is quite short and very easy to do; it is incredibly scenic and needs to be done when you visit Ilulissat no matter what. When I reached the end of it, I continued to the Blue trail, or in my book, the Dream trail (I am not exaggerating one bit, I swear).