Climbing in Nuuk – To Ukkusissat (aka. Store Malene, 775m) – A mountain with amazing view in Nuuk

Although I have been staying in Nuuk almost 2 years, I haven’t been to hiking or climbing in Nuuk. In fact, when I visited Nuuk for the first time in 2010, I thought that it would be hard to say Nuuk as one of the best places to visit in Greenland. HOWEVER, this thought has been changed since I lived here in 2015. Personally Nuuk is actually one of the best towns in Greenland to experience both nature and city in a very close distance.

Greenland has not only snow and ice but also very green nature.

There are two popular mountains where people can enjoy within one day or a few hours – if you are familiar with hiking or climbing or working out 😉

One is Lille Malene and the other one is Store Malene. Lille means little in Danish and Store means Big in Danish.

There is no forest with tall trees in Nuuk. Therefore if you visited mountains in Nuuk, you might see more rocks than grass.

I am not a person who is enjoying hiking or climbing normally. In fact, I even do not go to the gym so whenever I do something related to using my body, it is always a big challenge. However, the most important thing is that in fact, after doing it, I can feel that I totally like to do it! It was one week ago, Tuesday evening, my lovely friend asked me to go to Store Malene. “Store Malene?! Okay! Why not?!”

Yeap, in fact, I must confess that I was a bit afraid of going there because I do not have any experience of climbing mountains like that!!

It was not Lille Malene which is 420m above sea level. It was Store Malene which is 775m above sea level! My apartment in Nuuk is very near the sea which means that I start climbing from 0m above sea level!!!!!!

However, I really wanted to make it! Because to challenge me! To experience this beautiful mountain with a fantastic view! I would love to look down at my lovely second home, Nuuk.

Also, I am taking a master’s degree at the University of Greenland and I used to live with four other guest students. Whenever guest students arrived in Nuuk, the (almost) first thing they do is climb Store Malene. However, I haven’t done it yet because I have always thought that I would have a chance to go there. Well.. it has been two years with that thought and I just realized if I keep pushing away this plan, I would never make it.

So I just packed and went to the mountain!

I just started to walk and already could see beautiful nature which is completely different from the town. When I started to hike, I already could look down at the buildings in Nuuk. 

So yeah, this is Lille Malene 🙂

This orange-coloured spots led us to the top of the Store Malene.

Hm.. already 298m! It says that ‘do not forget to drink water!’.

Over 350m, We could see Sermitsiaq…

which is the symbol of Nuuk, however, because of the different angle, it looked uglier than normal hahaha

Now we reached 476 m. It is over the halfway!

The more I climb, the more sun lights come to me! It is August but there is still snow up there. 682 m!!!

I could stand the almost same eye level with most of the mountains around me!!

Now 775!!!!! Finally!! Kiisami – finally in Greenlandic! haha

Well.. now I am writing this blog and posting like this, but it was not really easy to climb! I just imagined it would be some hiking BUT it was just almost rock climbing for me! Total 3 hours to climb to the top of the Store Malene!

Of course, I have taken a lot of breaks and also had many photos!

The views that I have seen while climbing were also amazing but this was really fantastic and I felt sooo good!

Especially the sea view from the top of the mountain! just WOW!

Aaaaaand I just wanted to do something that many people do on the top of Store Malene!

😀

Yeap, I totally felt freedom!! We had enough time for break then started to come down with a little bit easier way which is through SNOW!

Well…. I don’t walk normally on any slippery land with snow and ice without my spikes during the winter time. However here, I did not imagine that I would meet snow so I didn’t prepare for this at all!!

At first, I just started to walk down but eventually, I just sat on the snow and enjoyed sliding 😀

Again, we followed orange spots!

Wow! 269m!

It was much easier to come down 🙂 So I couldn’t believe that I was there on the highest spot on the mountain!

Even many Greenlandic people living in Nuuk haven’t climbed there. Some of my friends said me that I am like Nuummioq which means a person from Nuuk. It was a very productive day but the next day, I suffered from muscle pain but it was a very obvious and expected result ^^

The next day, the mountain was full of fog. It was a very good decision to climb the mountain before the weather gets like this.

My body was exhausted after climbing but I would definitely wanna do it again! I think that is why people keep climbing and visiting mountains because of this feeling full of achievements!

Read more travel blogs from Insuk Kim