1st Hike: Palasip Qaqqaa
An obvious first target for hiking around Sisimiut is Palasip Qaqqaa (Præstefjeldet or Priest’s Mountain), the highest hilltop immediately north of town (544m/1785ft). Easily accessible from the road to the airport and with fantastic views that just keep getting better as you climb in altitude. It’s a relatively easy hike in good weather, though it does of course take a bit of stamina to make it to the top. This is from August 5 2018, one of the few days with excellent weather here this summer. The following are just quick and easy smartphone panoramas – forgive the so-so image quality and some obvious artifacts. I promise I’ll post better quality stuff when I get more time with my camera. 😉
Three weeks later I did the same hike and took the time to shoot a timelapse at the top, showing the fog/clouds that is often shrouding these hilltops when winds are from the north. Remarkably, even though it’s clearly windy it was actually quiet at the top! You only had to move to the edge of the hillside to the north to pick up the wind, and that’s how I realized what was happening. The strong wind is forced up along the steep hillside and “overshoots”, hence creating a “bump” (wave crest) over the hill that blocks the horizontal wind right at the top, diverting it to higher altitude. A pleasant surprise!