24 Hours Inside a Glacier (sleeping in an ice cave)

We have stayed in a lot of unique accommodations around the world, but tonight is going to take unique and adventurous to the next level. Whoa.

This is insane. Cannot believe you talked me into this.

Tonight we are packing everything we need to survive into these sleds. Climbing over a glacier in the dark, crawling down into this hole, and sleeping on the ground beneath the ice. Being married to someone like Nate is always interesting.

It's cold.

My husband is borderline obsessed with adventures. The more extreme, the better.

Oh, my goodness.

And 99% of the time, I get roped into his crazy plans, too. Like when we swam across the San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz, climbed a suspended ladder 2000ft in the air. Can't believe you need to eat. Survived on a deserted island. And let's not forget that one time I pretty much passed out doing the G Force challenge in an airplane. Needless to say, tonight is another one of Nate's crazy ideas.

He.

Here we go again.

Are we all pulling a sled?

Yeah, it's three sleds.

Epic. So, honestly, I didn't know that you could even do this until yesterday. So I booked it doing very little research, and this is a much bigger adventure than I thought it was. We're here gearing up, getting our briefing, and we are pulling sleds to the ice cave to take everything we need.

So. Cool. The plan for today, at the moment, we are somewhere here. We take the car and drive to the end of the road here to Nubian. And then we will walk to the ice cave, which is on this glacier here. It's called Lomjermuin. And then somehow find the cave eventually.

Okay, what is the likelihood of an avalanche today?

The avalanche danger is not so high.

The first day we got here, the avalanche warning was a four out of five. And so today it's what, like a one?

Two.

Two.

Okay. It's a two.

And what is the likelihood of a polar bear coming to our camp?

So that's the nice, pretty part of sleeping in the ice cave. And we will be probably so deep in the cave that it's really, really, really unlikely that the bear goes all the way to the where we're sleeping.

Okay.

Yeah.

There is this one polar bear. Her name is Frost. She comes with her kids every now and then and destroys cabins. And she comes over here, this side. Then walks over here and destroys the cabins and goes here, destroys more cabins.

Okay, but she doesn't go over the river. And not the.

I appreciate your honesty.

What are the deal with this, Kara? It's gonna Be a cold one.

It's fine.

Everything's fine.

No turning back now.

Off we.

Oh, it kind of sounded like it broke.

It looks like you're carrying a dead body.

Oh, no, don't say that.

This does feel pretty insane right now. Just walking out into the darkness that we can't see in this weather to spend the night. This might be the crazies and coolest thing I've ever done all at the same time. So the majority of stuff that we're carrying in the sled would normally already be at the cave because they would take it up there via snowmobile so we didn't have to drag it. But the snow was so deep that they couldn't get the snowmobile up there today, so makes it feel like an even better adventure.

So for the polar bear safety, we have this flare gun here and in my bag is also a rifle and the rifle is half loaded which means it's ammunition in the rifle but nothing is in the chamber so it's really safe and you don't need to worry that it accidentally fires. But it's a fast way of having the rifle ready so I don't need to be. Oh, where is actually the ammunition? So it's already prepared.

Sounds great.

So if you missed our last video, it is actually required by law here in Svalbard, once you're outside of the city limits, which we are, that you have to carry a gun for polar bear protection. You would obviously never shoot a polar bear unless it's a life or death situation. But they are a real threat. Someone just last year was killed camping here in Svalbard by a polar bear. So we're leaving the lights of the town behind and the only light we'll have until we get back is the cloudy moon.

There go the smart people where the snowmobile lights are disappearing right now. That's where we're going. We're about to head up the moraine, which is basically just all the little rocks that have been left behind by the glacier receding, but they've turned into a massive 200 meter pile of rocks. So it'll be a pretty good climb. Oh.

What?

Keep happening Too top heavy. My body fell out. You're the best. I love you. I'll make your coffee in the morning. Dill.

Dill.

Make that a double, please.

You see the messy snow on the side?

Yeah.

There was me trying to drive up the scooter.

That's where you got stuck?

Yes.

Wow, that looks deep. And that's the reason that we're getting to carry the sleds up tonight. Also, we could have taken a nice snowmobile trip tonight and gone back to sleep in our warm bed at our hotel. But I think to create an experience that you'll remember for the rest of your life, you have to get a little uncomfortable. And I think tonight might be the perfect amount of discomfort. Wow, that's deep. That is the snowmobile that got stuck and now it's almost completely covered in snow.

Going uphill is harder.

So up until this point, we've been walking on the snowmobile trail. But now we're having to cut across the glacier to get to the ice cave. And our fearless leader, Isabelle, has gone in front to make sure that it's safe and no one is going to fall through a crevasse.

This is one of the sketchiest things I feel like I've ever done.

It is pretty crazy there being so much snow on the ground that you just have. No. Oh. Just kind of fell through right there. No clue what you're walking on. My guess is we were walking on rocks at some point and now there's. There's ice underneath our feet. I will say, even though you can't really where you're walking, I feel a lot safer than the last time I was on a glacier. Having no clue what I was doing and being stuck in a rainstorm, that was a bad decision. One of those things as you get older and wiser, you realize that was probably one of the most unsafe things we've ever done.

We made it.

What a hike.

Now it's nine o'. Clock. When did we start?

Seven.

20 maybe.

Yeah, nice.

Good time. That makes me feel better. Isabelle just said that we made the same time that people normally make without the sweats.

Would have been way faster if you didn't have me too.

It only took us two hours to pack.

That's crazy. That is way smaller than I pictured it being.

Yeah, really nice.

Yeah, I pictured this like big blue entrance.

Two days ago it was completely snowed in. So now we have made it a bit bigger.

This is epic. We are inside of a glacier right now.

Real quick, before we show you around our cave home for the night, let me tell you about our snow secret weapon for staying healthy on the road. Also, it's light outside, so we're clearly not in Spaart anymore. But it's still snowing and I'm still freezing. AG1 is the sponsor of this video, but they have been a part of our daily routine ever since we discovered them back in 2020. Now that we're back to traveling the world again. We are more than intentional than ever about prioritizing our health. Because we're traveling, our diets are all over the place. Spoiler alert. I've been averaging more than one bowl of ramen a day for the last week. Which is why I love starting my day with ag. Because it is packed with vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, superfoods. All things that I am 100% not getting from my diet alone. So I just have such peace of mind when I start my day with this, knowing my body got the nutrients it needs. I love the way it tastes. I love the way it makes me feel. And I think you will too. So if you click our link in the description below, you can get the AG1 immunity bundle, which includes the jar and the shaker. Up to a year supply of these immune supporting vitamin D drops, which we also take every day. And five free travel packs. Four free. Four with your first purchase. We absolutely love AG1 and hope you do too. Click the link in the description. Okay, back to the cave. Oh my gosh.

It's like everything has a little bit of freezer burn. Minus 6 degrees Celsius all year round, no matter what.

Yeah. So now in winter time, if you need a shelter, the ice cave is the best place to be. It's. You feel it already. There's no wind. It's like being in a freezer. You have the ice around you. In summer, you can't go in here because it will be a river going through.

So you can only do this in the winter time. Epic.

Coming to you, girl.

Incoming. Okay, now that we've pulled all of our stuff into our new home plan is to have a hot drink, some snacks, and then we'll go explore the cave.

Cheers.

Oh, it's so warm. I can feel it going all the way down.

Into the cave we go.

Oh. Oh. Smooth.

Ow.

For real this time.

There's a lot more dirt inside of this ice cave than I expected. See ya.

Bye. Oh, I feel so awkward cause my hat's covering up my eyes a little bit. The ground is solid ice.

Whoa.

This is insane. If one of these fell down while I was looking up, it would literally blind me. Look at these icicles. It's like a whole wall of them. Oh, my gosh.

What is this? How does this happen?

From the water, the drop scan and then it freezes. If you touch it with your hand, it feels like plastic and it's really dry.

Once again, I did very little research before booking this. So I had no clue what to expect once we got in the cave. But this is incredible.

These icicles are curving. Someone tell me how that happens.

This is the way to go. And it's quite a bit to crawl in there. It takes. It depends on how well you are in crawling. But when we come back, you can choose. You can crawl back, or you can go down the fun slide.

How is it?

It's lower than it looks. I feel very awkward because I can't really look up.

I haven't quite figured out how I'm gonna do this with the camera. Yeah. It's a bit of a squeeze.

Just think about where we are right now. Nice work.

Well, not gold anymore.

That honestly looked like a car, dude.

So this whole cave was formed by water, and so it just keeps, like, twisting and turning. The craziest part is our guide said that the cave this year is completely different from last year. So during the summer when all the water came in, it just moved some things around, and that whole crawling part we just did didn't exist last year.

This is pretty intense.

Yeah, it is.

Right now, in this moment, I do feel like I'm just in the belly of a glacier.

Look at this. This looks like marble.

Wow.

Look at these layers here.

You can see how the glacier is made. It snows in winter. It doesn't melt in summer. Then it snows again next winter, still doesn't melt, and another layer of snow, another layer of snow, and so on. Eventually, the snow gets so compact that it turns into ice, and then you can glacier ice. And then in between these different layers of snow, there might have been, like, a volcano outbreak or something. And then you have, like, a layer of ash. So now, in theory, this should be horizontal. Right. The reason why it's not horizontal is because the glacier has been moving, and there was.