Svalbard Islands - Spitsbergen - The East Coast

#arctic #svalbard #snowmobiletour
In March 2017 we joined a three days expedition towards the east coast of Spitsbergen, the largest among Svalbard Islands.
This area in Winter is completely covered by the ice. The pack on the sea is at least 3 hundreds meters wide and solid enough to ride with snowmobiles on it.
Icebergs, released by the glaciers during summer, are still trapped near the shore into the iced sea. They look like giant buildings colored in blue.
The bays between the fjords are flat but when you move far from the coastline frequently you have to cross marbled white waves on your path.

Of course, as Svalbard islands are the kingdom of polar bears, behind every iceberg or down in the snow you should expect to meet one of those beautiful animals. As we had the lucky to do. We met two of them, a male and a female, engaged in a courtship.

This film is a brief summary of that wonderful trip. Starting from Longyearbyen under a cloudy and snowy weather, we crossed Adventalen valley, then we passed some canyons and ride up to Storfjorden glacier where we mounted our tent.
During the night, unexpectedly, bad weather turned in a beautiful clean sky with northern lights and the day after the sun, the new rising sun of the year, shined again over those incredible landscapes.

Nothing is easy in the Arctic. Traveling, camping, even taking photos. Our expedition was a great success thanks to Stefano Poli, our chief-guide, and his team of Poli Arctici, Dirk Rasmussen and Barrett Donovan.
First of all, I must thank to their great expertise.
But, considering the importance of the group in these situations, I want to thank all the members of the expedition. So I did at the end of the film.

As I said, it is really difficult to shoot photos and films with -30 degrees Celsius (effectively everything is a problem in those hard conditions!). Moreover, if you cannot prevent the shots. So, please excuse some not perfect footage.
I decided to use original clips without color grading or correction to show things as they were really.

#Andy1803 #svalbard #skidoo

Footage is from my little Canon Legria (polar bears for example), from an Eken H8R (the action cam clips of snowmobile ride) and from Olympus OM-D EM5 MKII. We used the same mirrorless camera and a Nikon D3100 to take photos but in some circumstances we had to shoot with a vintage Nikon F3 because batteries and displays of modern cameras were frozen.
Post-production and editing with CyberLink PowerDirector 12.
Mapping is done with Suunto Traverse Watch and Suunto Movescount app.

This is my first YouTube film. I had no experience when I did it, nor "on the field", neither in post-production. I chose a playlist for soundtrack not royalty free. I beg your pardon for this but this is not a commercial film and I didn't earn anything in doing or publishing it.

If you need some information concerning the trip, the gears or other logistic and technical subject, ask in the comment section or contact me through the following links:
Google+ http://google.com/+Andy1803DiStefano
Twitter https://twitter.com/Andy1803DS
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Andrea-Di-Stefano-204252436776089/

Видео Svalbard Islands - Spitsbergen - The East Coast канала Andrea Di Stefano