Jan Mayen

These pho­to gal­leries show images from the inland of the south­ern part of Jan Mayen (Sør Jan) between Kval­ross­buk­ta, Olonk­in­byen (the sta­tion) and west of it, towards Sjuhol­len­dar­buk­ta. For sta­tion mem­bers who like a good hike, this is almost their back­yard. For any­one else, this area is quite inac­ces­si­ble, espe­cial­ly the part south of Karl Stephan­top­pen. The area between Kval­ross­buk­ta and Karl Stephan­top­pen is well in reach for a rather easy day trip, when the weath­er is good. It fits well into the pro­gramm of a stay of 6 days our so, when you most­ly focus on Nord Jan (north­ern Jan Mayen), as most peo­ple will do.

The view from the ridge south of Kval­ross­buk­ta (Antarc­ticber­get, Slet­tf­jel­let, Holtan­na) can be great, you are look­ing down on Kval­ross­buk­ta and Hau­gen­stran­da and over Mid Jan to Beeren­berg and Eggøya. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the vis­i­bil­i­ty is often hid­den by low clouds, espe­cial­ly in sum­mer. The first images are from the area near the lit­tle crater Holtan­na („hol­low tooth“), then we con­tin­ue to Karl Stephan­top­pen. Being 551 m high, Karl Stephan­top­pen is a crater which is eas­i­ly climbed, offer­ing a great panora­ma view. There is a lit­tle lake in the crater, which is open to the northeast.

Exten­sive area of deep, soft moss­es make going quite hard. In fog, you will eas­i­ly lose ori­en­ta­tion, GPS and map and com­pass are essen­tial. The map does not reveal all the impor­tant ter­rain details, though. There is a lot of up and down the hills, you will quick­ly do a lot of alti­tude even though you don’t get very high up.

The pho­to of Lunck­ek­jegla as seen from Karl Stephan­top­pen is cur­rent­ly one of my favourite Jan Mayen images: the warm sun makes the damp moss­es steam. On the slope you can see pat­terns of ice wedges, prob­a­bly dat­ing back into the ice age as per­mafrost is required for the for­ma­tion of ice wedges.

In the oth­er direc­tion, towards the south coast, we see the high anten­nas near the sta­tion and, to the right, the rugged ridge of Schiertzegga.

Photo gallery Sør Jan Inland – 1

The riverbed in upper Troll­dalen is com­plete­ly dry, water dis­ap­pears quick­ly into the porif­er­ous lava rocks. Lack of water is some­thing you need to take into con­sid­er­a­tion while hik­ing on Jan Mayen. Most­ly, you have to rely on snow fields.

There is a path between the sta­tion and Sjuhol­len­dar­buk­ta, well-trod­den over time and over large parts even marked with met­al poles and net­balls. Sta­tion mem­bers are often walk­ing there in their free time.

The lava fields with their exten­sive areas of sharp-edged rocks are by nature dif­fi­cult walk­ing ter­rain, but not impass­able. You can find small lava caves every here and there.

Photo gallery Sør Jan Inland – 2

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