Hi Everyone
We have supported some amazing expeditions but the bear Dodgers expedition to Spitsbergen.
The team are all mad, barking mad even…..but completely professional and funny too!
Ok down right lunatics would be about right

They literally did dodge Polar Bears, at one point a Polar bear was racing towards Cyan as he was kiting along with his FY07, can you imagine the shock…a Polar bear is about to eat me…. well he did what most would do and smashed his kite into the ground at warp speed a few times Cyan is going to write us a report on that epic part to their expedition.

To read more on their exped check out their story on our EXPEDTION page by clicking HERE and also check out their very cool website www.beardodging.com

We look forward to supporting them on their next expedition, read on for Team member Cyan Rhodes re-cap on the expedition, its an incredible story

Cheers Matt

Cyan Rhodes >>

“The Bear Dodgers are back from their extreme kiting expedition on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. In early April we headed out of Longyearbyen, the capital, with the plan to kite, using the prevailing easterly winds, to the northernmost point on the island, before heading to the most southerly tip.  We were armed with an array of Ozone Accesses, Frenzys and Yakuzas, ranging from 5 to 14 metres, on lines from the standard 30 metres up to 70 metres.

We started the expedition in good weather, albeit with low wind, before encountering our first taste of real Arctic weather.  When visibility was good, the winds were low, yet within half an hour clear skies and a two mile an hour wind would transform without warning into a full white out and a fifty mile an hour wind.  The whole island is extremely mountainous, with its own unique eco-system.  Our prevailing ‘easterlies’ came from the north, east, south and west, frustratingly usually blowing in the opposite direction to the one in which we wanted to kite, if at all.

When the conditions were right though, it was awesome.  High on an ice plateau, with the 24 hour sun circling all around us, surrounded on four sides by glaciers and mountains, we did some amazing kiting.  We had the ice to ourselves and did not see a single other human being for the duration of the expedition.

Time was short and constrained by the weather, we were unable to make the northernmost point of the island and instead headed south to the eastern side, in search of more consistent and favourable kiting winds.  It was here kiting on the sea ice that we had our first polar bear encounter.  A mother and her cub, chased by a huge male bear raced past us.  We slept with one eye open that night!  We spent a few days here kiting on the open sea ice and glacial tongues, surfing the katabatic winds (where the cold air moves towards the warmer sea) and came across our second bear.  We spent several hours kiting in its vicinity, as it fished for seals; an experience of a lifetime.

It was then time then to pack up our kites, leave the bears behind and head back to Longyearbyen to drink beer with the locals.  Three weeks of kiting in the breathtakingly beautiful Arctic wildnerness, dodging bears, made it the most incredible expedition we have all been on.

Cynan Rhodes”

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