Mike Horn: The Young Explorers PANGAEA Project - Big Wall Climbing in Nunavut, Canada

The next part of the expedition is what they all were waiting for, and that is big wall climbing. The big wall is going to be a challenge for many of us. I think those who might be a bit afraid of heights or haven't done much climbing before, it's going to be interesting. We came here in Baffin Island to join the Pongaia project and help my country organise the big wall climbing. Baffin Island is one of the most beautiful places in the world for big wall climbing. And Petal sent here to help three experienced mountain guides to take care of the security aspect and organise all the lines, organise all the camp to be able to go on the wall. We brought eight portal edges, 600 metre rope, 90 carabiners, screw carabiners and all the gear for a total weight of 240 kilos. What we had to organise here is a large group of not experienced people on the big wall and means you always need to be attached and that's a very, very big safety aspect. That's why we had the training at the Salisham camp first and then we did some training on the boat. I'm just feeling really excited because we're just going to start climbing up the wall. It's about a 180 metre high wall, which we're going to climb up today and sleep on the top of it. I'm feeling very excited right now. When you climb a big wall like this, it's very important to always check all your material and to be very safe. Then after the safe, you can really enjoy the big wall like this and it will be very great. So we found this tower and set up a camp at a 180 metre high probably and it was quite vertical and quite steep to the camp and I was very impressed with all the young explorers because they all took responsibility of what they were doing. It feels amazing. It looks like as if you're above the clouds with the fog rolling in the field. It's feeling great. I can't wait to reach the top. I was a bit afraid before, but hanging on the wall is fantastic. It's more like a chill out. Everyone's safe and we've just got to keep rationing our day pack so we don't eat them all because I think we've got a long day of climbing still to go. We're here on a vertical wall that goes straight into the fjord and we can see Pangaea from above and it's just incredible. You really have to trust the gear because if you fall down here, it's over 100 metres just free falling. So you have to trust the ropes, you have to trust the carabiners. Let's get going. So we've arrived at our campsite for the night, which is 200 metres up in the air. We've been living in the vertical world for today and it's a very exciting world. It's pretty high and we're going to spend the night on the portal edges, which is going to be a new experience for many of us. The fog has drifted in, but the view from up here is amazing. We've got some good supper cooking. Everyone's very hungry and it's going to be a good night. It's pretty cold to sleep here, but you have a very good view and that's worth it. This is definitely the best evening of my life. During the night we had this wet weather coming and everybody was very, very wet in the morning. It was quite cold and then we started organising the descent. They did an excellent job being responsible for what they were doing. We spent a very nice day up in the mountains. It was a pleasure to be with all these people coming up this big wall.