How would you feel if you spent thousands of dollars, traveled thousands of miles, and came home with… nothing? Christian Pondella and Will Gadd have been wandering over the world for 20 years, and have ticked off a few adventures – but this trip to climb ice in the Greenland Ice Cap was one of the “coolest adventures I’ve ever been on!” – his words, not ours, and he follow up with a quick “no pun intended!”
In the remote, icy wilderness on the Greenland ice cap, a gaping hole marked the spot where climber Gadd and his support crew and film team would descend into the unknown. What they discovered was a sparklingly beautiful, but terrifying 90m-deep cavern, with a roof made of hundreds of tonnes of cracking, creaking and groaning ice.
It took skill, experience and knowledge simply to come back alive. Let alone to get THE shot. And what about their equipment? Well, Pondella told us that what’s pretty funny is that one of the smallest and most lightweight pieces of gear on his adventure is the most important – his camera’s memory cards. Even though they’re tiny, you could say the whole adventure depends on them – if they don’t work, the boys come home with nothing but a memory. Great for them… but not so great for the story they want to tell.
All of this is why he’s packing SanDisk Extreme memory cards – they’re designed to withstand extreme environments. They’re shockproof, temperature-proof and even waterproof – all things which are real risk when you’re rappelling into a frozen cave somewhere near the Polar Ice Cap.
A moulin is basically a giant hole in a glacier, created when surface water finds its way into a crack in the ice and melts through. And in this dream project, the plan was to climb into one and go deep inside the Greenland ice cap to a place nobody has ever been before.
“My first thought was this thing looks f**king scary,” recalls Pondella. It took all of their skill, expertise and experience to know not only when to go in, but also when to pull back. After a first unsuccessful drop, conditions were in their favor second time around.
Just getting out there was an adventure. It was a half-hour heli flight from Ilulissat with amazing views and then we were dropped off in the middle of this ice desert. Just flat ice, as far as you can see. Totally surreal.” See the full interview here.(link)
Whether he’s in the freezing cold depths of a moving river of ice, or in thin high alpine air, one thing is for sure: his photographic environment and what’s happening in it is always changing. With all that in flux, it’s good to have something one can count on – even if it’s just the size of a quarter.
Want to show us your own stuff from crazy adventures and dramatic environments? Submit to the Best of Instagram by SanDisk category by tagging your posts with @redbullillume and #rbi19submission – but hurry, there’s just over a week left – the last entry needs to be in by June 14 at midday (CEST) – so get ‘gramming!
