Tasermiut Fjord Expedition - New Zealand Alpine Team 6th August - 8th September 2025
- Mason Gardener
- Sep 25
- 10 min read
Updated: Sep 26
I would first like to recognise the key societies, clubs and sponsors that helped us get over to such an amazing country for an unforgettable climbing experience. Without them none of this
would have been possible.
Special thanks to Macpac for kitting us out with our clothing, Lowa for our boots and Radix for fueling us.
Also many thanks to the
The Expedition Climbers Club
New Zealand Alpine Team
New Zealand Alpine Club
Tupiki Trust
6th Aug - 8th Aug
Travel Copenhagen - Nanortalik
Travelling with Air greenland straight forward affair. Extra baggage costing 100DKK per kg so for an additional 20kg each cost us around $1000 NZD.
Flying into Narsarsuaq for the first leg of the trip. This village is very small and really is only an Airport + Hostel + small dairy size shop. Hostel is excellent and is 10min walking distance from airport.
Travel to Nanortalik is two helicopter jumps. Nanortalik itself is the photo you imagine of greenland, multi colour buildings jotted across the landscape. We spent a couple days here getting prepped for the next 4.5weeks.
Food shopping in Nanortalik is very easy, there are two massive shopping locations in town. Sufficient for all your food requirements. For an overview of our expedition food requirements follow this link. https://www.alpineteam.co.nz/post/greenland-expedition-food-climbing-and-climbing-exquipment.
Jet Boil gas was purchased prior to arrival, and delivered to Brugseni grocery store. There is no white gas available for liquid burners, so we bought petrol from the fuel station. Blue Barrels can be purchased from the Pilersuisoq shop and some borrowed from the Hotel but don't count on it.
Boat travel with serano boat charters, easy to deal with 10,000DKK 6 people return.
9th Aug
Load carries to base of Ula. Tanja and Jacob coming down with Covid so spent the day in the tents. Mason and Liam opted to do two carries in to prepare their team for the next window.
11th Aug - 13th Aug
After a few days of recovery Jacob was back to 80%, their team began work on their new route on the dark west face on Ula. Initially targeting the lower broken buttress, the first two pitches were exceptional. Following an excellent finger crack then a large left facing corner, the quality soon deteriorated into a mix of sand and cheese like granite. Rather scary climbing. The team made it another 3 pitches to arrive at their camp for the night.
Meanwhile Tanja, Dan and Steve begun work on Moby Dick. They initially chose this objective as previous parties had reported newer bolts, more user friendly climbing and excellent quality. Also runout slabs on war and poetry seemed rather exciting for the team to get started on.
Over the next couple days the team quickly realized that the route was not very well traveled, alot of gardening, rock trundling and sometimes flaky cracks. After the first 15 pitches the route improves allot. The upper headwall of Moby Dick has some very nice clean cut splitters. The team climbed to Pitch 22 before baling due to a deteriorating forecast and rain on the horizon. Overall while they thought the line is impressive they decided to switch objectives to War and Poetry for the next attempt on Ula.
Over the other side of the mountain Jacob, Mason and Liam continued toiling away up the lower buttress. Good climbing was found interspersed with a fair amount of rubbish. 10 pitches got them to the big sandy ledge at the base of the headwall. Mason then begun work up the headwall, finally finding some decent climbing on solidish granite. One pitch off the sandy ledge took them to the base of the splitter feature, unfortunately grass and gardening was required to make any progress up. After spending a night on the headwall at the top of pitch 12, they bailed back down to escape the incoming weather. Rap line was established down the lower buttress keeping further left to stay out of the rubbish granite. This now made the new climbing line.
Steve, Tanja and Daniel having decided not to make as second attempt on Moby Dick headed for War and Poetry. The team found this route to be much cleaner and of higher quality than Moby Dick. They had been told in advance that the belay bolts were fairly bad and took along a drill to replace some of them. The team added one new bolt at the first 20 anchors. After this the bolt quality improved and they did not replace any others. This route is a mix of slab climbing and steep offwidth / chimney cracks. They spent three days climbing the line. The team did not make a free ascent of the climb but freed a large portion of the route. In particular the upper 15 pitches of this climb are stunning. Position, rock quality and the challenge of many back to back offwidth pitches makes for a memorable ascent.
During the night as the team descended from War and Poetry they were treated to their first display of the Northern Lights.
14th - 15th Rest
- Deep fried cod with bread crumbs
- Home made bread
- Fishing
- Cleaning clothes
16th - 20th Sending
The new route team started up again, this time following their rap line. After the first pitch, traversing left up wild flakes and staying on more compact granite. The team found some old pitons on this other line, impossible to know if this is an old rap line or a climbing line, we could not find any trip reports talking to this region of Ula. Day one took them back to the first camp fixing a further pitch that evening. The next day making it above their high point, finding more gardening on the headwall. The start of Pitch 14 navigates a 10m chimney by moving left onto a slab up some flakes before returning back to a #2 splitter. From this point forward the climbing improved drastically! Pitch 15 was a mega 60m #4-5 crack going at A2+. We expect it will free beautifully as the granite is solid and no more gardening required! Above this the climbing continues to improve. Jacob then took the lead, opting to bat hook out onto the face around a corner on a hunch they had seen a splitter. As luck would have it, Jacob found an epic 30m splitter which climbed beautifully. The day continued with some ledge and slabby climbing. 1.30am the team topped out! Rapping through the night and reaching the big sandy ledge at 8am for a 2hr kip before continuing to the base. All round a wild adventure for the fellas. Big Kumara 5.10+ C2 R. Topo and further information here https://www.alpineteam.co.nz/post/big-kumura-new-route-in-tasermuit-fjord-5-10-c2-r
21st - 22nd Rest
- Pan Fried Foccacia
- Fishing
- Sitting
- Eating
23rd - 25th Nalu Seige and new routing
The teams then split into 3 groups of 2. Dan and Mason attempting the British Route, Jacob and Tanja on Pedo de Placer and Liam and Steve looking to establish a new route on the significant peak at the head of the valley.
The British route was excellent, most pitches would be 3 star standalone routes in their own right. Grading wise most things felt like 5.11 but if your solid on steep cracks it will feel accurate. First couple pitches have a new bolt added, but in general bolts are in good nick. Would be best to bring spare tat if going for this route. Dan and Mason bailed 5 pitches from the top as the rain set in and they had been moving slower than they envisioned.
The team on Pedo de Placer found excellent climbing on the lower 2 pitches. Hereafter they believe they went wandering and likely lost the route. Although excellent crack pitches were found for the first 6 pitches, the upper section became more adventurous. As the team was not psyched to lose alot of gear, they pushed on through the rain and into the night. After a shivvy bivvy on the knife edge ridge, the team then began rapping the British route at 8am.
Liam and Steve had a very different experience in the valley over. Climbing 5 pitches of nondiscript climbing up to a major corner system. Here they found bolts from a previous team. The next day they tackled a different line, here Steve ripped a hold and a 0.3 cam and severely injuring his wrist. Steve decided to keep leading up a grassy gully, before psyche dropped in the team. They rapped and walked home after this. The quality of this rock is described as poor.
26th The 8lb Artic Char
Mason and Dan wandered on down to the fishing spot for the day. After toiling for 4hrs catching many smaller/medium fish, all of a sudden a monster char came out of the depths and into the shallows. Throwing a small cast out towards it, Mason missed the initial strike. It then swam to the other side of the rock, where he threw another cast in. To his surprise the fish was on, a 5min fight and the monster was landed! That evening the entire team enjoyed a fire with roasted potatoes, roasted carrots and Artic Char to satisfy anyone's needs.
27th - 29th New routing/potential repeat on Honey Buttress & second attempt on British Route.
Steve, Mason and Liam teamed up to have a crack at Honey Buttress. The buttress captures the morning sun and is of excellent rock quality, all of which we had been missing for a few weeks now.
The team climbed the left side of the face. 10 pitches total with 7 of which were absolutely exceptional up the headwall. From our research there is a vague topo of a route with no name just a 'number 1' on the general left side of the face. Although the route we climbed had no evidence of previous parties coming through, we cannot be sure and therefore will leave it as a repeat. Attached is detailed information for anyone wanting to repeat in future. The team added a bolted decent line down one of the obvious splitter lines for our future or another teams adventure. Link to this climb and decent can be found here:
Tanja, Jacob and Dan got on the British route. An almost free ascent bar the two 5.12 pitches near the summit. The team made it back to the ground at 3am 22hrs after kicking off from camp. It was bloody cool to watch the team on Nalu grinding upwards while the Honey Buttress team across the valley had summited and were back at their camp. Solid effort all round!
30th Aug - 1st September
Reat days
- Pancakes
- Making doughballs
- Jacob catches first fish of the trip
2nd - 6th September
Liam, Steve and Mason quested off to take a look at a major dihedral on the nose of SE tower of Ula. This line is to the right of the 2016 Spanish Route 'Qujanaq'.
Setting off up a beautiful 50m handcrack the route quickly fell into a disappointment. Extremely flaky rock and a mostly fused crack in the dihedral meant for slow arduous progress.
3 days on the wall the team made progress up to the top of the dihedral (pitch 7). This last pitch was the standout as it initially started on a thin bridging corner, then breaking out into the splitter they had been looking for. Starting at #5 offwidth and stripping down to #1s after 30m, excellent climbing. Sadly the next pitch appeared flaky and not inspiring so the team bailed feeling a little dejected. The route is open for anyone to complete, most anchors are equipped with double bolts. Some bolts and cleaning is required to make free climbing more enjoyable. With some work we imagine it will climb pretty well.
Dan, Tanja and Jacob went up to Honey Buttress to explore some of the unclimbed splitter lines spied by the other three on the previous excursion.
The team quested up to the bivvy location on the afternoon and set camp. Day 2 saw them climb the original 3 pitches of the original route to the top of the black tower. Then rapping into above the bivvy the team bolted a tricky slab pitch 25 (7b) traverse to enter the splitter crack from the ground. Day 3 they went for the summit, climbing 6 independent headwall pitches to the previous team 'Manuka' 7b. All round an excellent route that is a harder and of higher quality to the original route. Topos for both routes and more information on Honey Buttress can be found here.
7th - 12th September
And that was the trip. Our boat came in a day early as the weather began to turn stormy. Unfortunately once back in Nanortalik we found out about the biggest complication regarding travel within Greenland, "Fog". Many of the small towns and then the main centre's including Nuuk and Narsarsuaq are big traps for low cloud coverage and will prevent and helicopters moving in or out.
Air Greenlands first offering was for us to fly home a full 8 days after our original date. With some work and back and forth the three heading to NZ managed to change flights from leaving Narsarsuaq to Nuuk. This is useful as Nuuk does daily flights and Narsarsuaq does once per week. All in all Air Greenland is a pro at dealing with these delays, they worked extremely hard for us to get home and ended up delaying us for only 2 days. Plus they put you up in hotels and offer food vouches and taxis as they are required. Excellent service all round, can't help the weather but add this contingency into your future Expedition.
