29-Jul-2009 -- There are five confluence points (CPs) in the neighbourhood of Greenlands capital Nuuk/Godthåb, all of them in areas without any settlement. One CP is on the sea, one is in an icelake, attached to the inland ice, but the remaining three are on land and may thus be accessible for a hiker after sailing via open sea or fjord. The CP 64°N/51°W, 45 km from Nuuk, belongs to the latter. Geographically, most of that area can be studied using the 1:75 000 hiking map "Nuuk", and the rest by the 1:250 000 saga map No. 6 "Nuuk/Godthåb. Both maps show the CP at 700 m altitude near the top of a mountain ridge, itself part of a much larger range (Photo 1).

Our visit began on July 26th, when a charter boat shipped us over the Lysefjord (Ameralik) into the innermost part of the Præstfjord (Eqaluit Paarlit), where in times of christianization the norwegian priest Hans Egede had his summer place. The fjord extends in EES-direction and continues into a valley, 12-14 km long and easy to hike along a river (rich of arctic char!). We had our base camp in the upper valley, close to that river, at 63° 59.34'N/51° 7.815'W, altitude 240 m.

It was on July 29th, when we hiked further EES to a lake (not shown on the maps), marking the watershed to the next valley, direction NE. Here the first lake can be passed on its W- or E-side. Its water is of natural dark blue colour, but the next one is a typical glacier lake (Photo 10). Even satellite photos show this remarkable difference. The glacier water is provided by a brook, running down near the S-face of the ridge where the CP is. We climbed between that brook and the S-face until at 550 m altitude, still 450 m away (over ground) from the CP, the brook came so close that further ascent without rope was considered to be too risky. Moreover, according to the GPS-instrument, the direct route to the CP should be the NE-ascent into a steep area of larger loose rocks, even with a rope not recommended. (Photo 4)

So we returned to the ground and investigated other places to find out how to accomplish the project. At the NW-side of the ridge (Photo 7) another brook comes down and the upper part of the mountain poses a serious problem. Hence the task was to find a way to the table-land of the range. Eventually we climbed at 700 m altitude near the brook that runs into the neighbour lake, south of the CP (photo 8). Finally we had to return at 63° 59.74'N/51° 1.58'W due to steep and smooth rock soil, and because it was too late to investigate the area east of this site.

Two days later we hiked from the base camp SE into the most upper part of "our" valley and discovered the smoothest ascent to the plateau at 63° 57.66'N/51° 2.61'W. This journey ended at 870 m altitude, 63° 58.38'N/51° 2.04'W. Here the camera looks into NNO direction (Photo 9), but the CP may be hidden by the ridge with the belt of brown stone.

During the rest of the week we had some other fantastic hiking experiences but could not return to the CP project. Although we approached the CP not better than 450 m over ground, we assume this information could help other CP seekers to accomplish the task.