Tarka and I were dropped off late this afternoon, high on a large (and as far as I'm aware, nameless) glacier in the Watkins Mountains that's often used as a basecamp for climbers heading on to Gunnbjorn Fjell, Greenland's highest mountain.

We've got the place to ourselves this evening and aside from a bit too much wind (outside the tent, though no doubt we'll experience both varieties in the fortnight ahead). It was a bittersweet flight in to our current home; the mountains of Greenland's east coast are stunning, and seeing them for an hour from the round window of a slow, low-flying Twin Otter is joyful enough to make all of the fundraising slog of recent months and years pale and fade.

But we flew here with the knowledge that a three-man team were rescued from the icecap not far from here only a few days ago after an ordeal that involved a storm-shredded tent, a heli-rescue and a horror story that I suspect will make it to the press soon. It was a sobering reminder that this is a landscape of consequence as well as beauty, and the scudding, scuttling spindrift seemed oddly sinister as we pitched our tent this evening, the sunset a little less benign.