Climbing in Upernavik

Upernavik appears here as the launching point for a sailing-and-climbing expedition captured in Vertical Sailing Greenland (2011). The film follows Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll, Nicolas and Olivier Favresse, Ben Ditto and a crew aboard Bob Shepton’s boat as they work their way down Greenland’s coast from Upernavik toward Cape Farewell. What the record emphasizes is expedition craft: cramped living quarters, dodging icebergs, and treating a granite fjord as both home and objective.

That combination — boat life plus high-stakes climbing on cold rock — drives the film’s appeal. The camera often reads as the photographer’s eye among companions, so logistical sequences and weather-bound instrument checks are as important as climbing clips. The crew’s attempt to find and climb big walls (the film references the place called the Impossible Wall) is shown alongside the small, practical acts of an extended season: rigging lines from a tender, hauling systems, and waiting out conditions. The Upernavik entry anchors these scenes to a northern Greenland town in the Avannaata region and to the realities of maritime alpine climbing.