I have to say this weekend started off amazing and then ended amazing. To begin with I went out with a group of students from UNIS and ended up meeting two other people from Vermont! What a small world to meet two people from the same state all the way up here in the Arctic. One of them has gone to UNIS and now lives up here and certainly represents Vermont proudly up here. then on the next day I had to go into work for a little bit, but I am glad I did because on the way in I got to see this.

Oh ya, rainbow up here in the Arctic, certainly not a sight I thought I would see. Then to end the weekend I went out with a friend from UNIS for a great hike. The rain finally cleared and we got a perfect day for the hike.

This is a picture I took earlier on in the trip but I wanted to give you an idea where the next pictures were taken from. This dog kennel is down the road from UNIS about 1km farther down the valley. It was an interesting walk simply getting to the trail because more Tern's were nesting next to the road and we got a nice surprise as we walked by in the form of ferocious birds. Anyway this is what it looked like up here on Sunday.

This is the view off the peak I am pointing to in the previous picture looking out towards Longyearbyen. Now I don't like how panoramic pictures are so small on blogs so I am going to do the next best thing and just show you pictures as I look to the right.

In this Longyearbyen begins to slip away and you can also start to see further up the Fjord. Also the brown lake by the edge of the mountain.... That's the drinking reservoir, I'm glad they have a great facility for filtering it.

In this I am looking straight across towards the mountains, and I just think its amazing to see the different patterns created by the smaller rivers running into the Fjord. Finally this is what was behind me.

This is the back side of the mountain I climbed about three weeks ago that was covered in stones. As you can see there is a mine shaft that comes from the other side and out here which I thought was very cool to see. This mine is all closed down and most of the entrances are caved in as you can see. Just makes for quiet an amazing sight.

Nest we walked up the valley and circled around the Mountain in the previous picture to circle back into Longyearbyen. On the way we ran into some scary wildlife.... A small reindeer. It is hard to make out in the above picture because we simply did not want to get to close and disturb it.

Then we got a great view on the way back of Longyearbyen.

In this picture you can also see Thomas who is a PHD student at UNIS and who led me on a great hike as I hope I was able to show you.