Erwan Lelann and Emeline Son are on a four-year, round-the-world trip with their yacht, Maewan, and are being joined from time to time by different parties for sporting adventures. We joined them in the winter of 2014-’15 to ski in the vicinity of Aappilattoq (a.k.a. Appilatoq or Augpilagtoq), the last significant village east of Nanortalik before reaching Cape Farewell. The many surrounding rock faces motivated us to come back in summer. So, in mid-July, Charlotte Barré, Florence Pinet, Gérome Pouvreau, and I flew to Narsarsuaq, where we met the yacht and sailed to Aappilattoq.

On our first day we climbed on a small crag near the entrance to the harbor, completing two routes, and then made a one-day ascent on Marluissat Peak, behind the village, climbing the east face via a 650m route we named Happy Maewan. The maximum difficulties were 7a. [The steeper face on Marluissat, to the right of Happy Maewan, is home to the Polish routes Snake from Appilatoq (7a+), Three Hobbits from the Moon (6b), and Two Hobbits from the Moon (6b). See AAJ 2013 and 2014.]

We then decided to visit Kangerdluarssuk Fjord, which penetrates deep into Pamiagdluk Island from the south. Here we climbed the 300m, south-facing Mickey Pied d’Acier (7a), dedicated to a friend, Mikael Fuselier, who had suffered a major accident in Turkey. The rock quality was high, and again we left no gear, walking from the top down to the shore.

We were attracted by a summit farther up the fjord that we dubbed Saga Africa (60°03.200’N, 44°21.468’W); it is the highest top accessible from this fjord. [This 1,373m summit was named Twin Towers by a 2004 British expedition that was perhaps the first to climb from this fjord but did not climb this tower.] It took three hours to reach the base of this steep wall, and we decided to climb straight up the middle via a perfect crack system. After 100m of 5 and 5+, we embarked on seven excellent pitches up to 7b+. We bolted the belays and used two sets of large cams up to number five. We needed three days (July 26, 28, and 29) to complete the 300m climb, which we named Warm Summer due to the cold temperatures we experienced.

After this we just had time to travel to Tasermiut Fjord and repeat the famous Moby Dick on Ulamertorssuaq. We found it very difficult to get an accurate topo of the route, and so we have created one of our own, which can be downloaded below.

Mathieu Maynadier, France