The Crown Prince Frederick Range ( da, Kronprins Frederik Bjerge) is a large

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

King Christian IX Land King Christian IX Land ( da, Kong Christian IX Land) is a coastal area of Southeastern Greenland in Sermersooq Municipality fronting the Denmark Strait and extending through the Arctic Circle from 65°N to 70°N. History This area was named in ...

, eastern

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

. Administratively this range is part of the

Sermersooq Sermersooq (, da, sted med meget is, lit=place of much ice) is a municipality in Greenland, formed on 1 January 2009 from five earlier, smaller municipalities. Its administrative seat is the city of Nuuk (formerly called Godthåb), the capital ...

Municipality. Despite being relatively unknown it has some of the highest summits in Greenland.

History

The Crown Prince Frederick Range was first surveyed by Sir Martin Lindsay in 1934 during the

British Trans-Greenland Expedition Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Martin Alexander Lindsay, 1st Baronet, (22 August 1905 – 5 May 1981) was a British Army officer, polar explorer, politician and author. He first came to national attention in the 1930s, as a Polar explorer in Greenlan ...

and was named after the Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark (1899 – 1972) who would be crowned King Frederick IX in 1947.The Development of Mountaineering in East and North-East Greenland An Outline History
/ref> The expedition crossed Greenland from west to east, and succeeded in fixing the positions of many other important features further to the northeast, including Gunnbjørnsfjeld —the highest point in Greenland. On the return journey the team headed south-west to Amassalik and on their journey discovered the extent of the Crown Prince Frederick Range. Lindsay's expedition set a new world record after travelling on

sled A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners ...

s, 700 of which were through hitherto unexplored territory."French Honour For British Explorer", ''The Times'', 12 April 1935. Following Martin Lindsay's pioneering venture few expeditions visited the range which remained almost consigned to oblivion for many decades. Finally in 1995 the first guided icecap journey through the range was organized''1997 American Alpine Journal'', p. 222-225 and the following year, in July and August 1996, a number of the main summits of the range were climbed for the first time by members of the Tangent British East Greenland Expedition, including

Paul Walker Paul William Walker IV (September 12, 1973 – November 30, 2013) was an American actor. He was known for his role as Brian O'Conner in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise. Walker began his career as a child actor in the 1980s, gaining recogniti ...

. The expedition set up its base camp at and from there climbed a total of 55 peaks.North America, Greenland, Kronprins Frederik Bjerge, Various Ascents
/ref>

Geography

The Crown Prince Frederick Range is a group of

nunatak A nunatak (from Inuit ''nunataq'') is the summit or ridge of a mountain that protrudes from an ice field or glacier that otherwise covers most of the mountain or ridge. They are also called glacial islands. Examples are natural pyramidal peaks. ...

s scattered over a vast region between the

Greenland Ice Sheet The Greenland ice sheet ( da, Grønlands indlandsis, kl, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term ''inland ice'', or its Danish equiva ...

and the coast. It extends for about in a northeast-southwest direction between the 67th (

Schweizerland Schweizerland, also known as Schweizerland Alps, is a mountain range in King Christian IX Land, eastern Greenland. Administratively this range is part of the Sermersooq Municipality.Google Earth Its highest point is one of the highest peaks in G ...

) and the

68th parallel north The 68th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 68 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane, in the Arctic. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, Asia and North America. At this latitude the sun is visible for 24 hours, 0 minut ...

(

Hutchinson Glacier The Hutchinson Glacier ( da, Hutchinson Gletscher) is a large active glacier on the east coast of the Greenland ice sheet. This glacier was named after American aviator George R. Hutchinson who crash-landed and was stranded in the area in 1932 du ...

). The range is located to the northeast of

Mont Forel Mont Forel is a mountain in King Christian IX Land, Sermersooq Municipality, Greenland. It is part of the Schweizerland range, also known as 'Schweizerland Alps'. This peak is located in a popular climbing destination, together with the Watkins R ...

and southwest of

Kangerlussuaq Fjord Kangerlussuaq Fjord (old spelling: ''Kangerdlugssuaq'', da, Søndre Strømfjord) is a long fjord in the Qeqqata municipality in central-western Greenland. The fjord is long and between and wide, flowing from the estuary of Qinnguata Kuussua r ...

. The level expanses between the nunatak clusters of the range are usually very wide and permanently covered with ice and snow. The average height of the intermontane areas is between and .

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

The region of the Crown Prince Frederick Mountains is uninhabited, the nearest settlement being

Tasiilaq Tasiilaq, formerly Ammassalik and Angmagssalik, is a town in the Sermersooq municipality in southeastern Greenland. With 1,985 inhabitants as of 2020, it is the most populous community on the eastern coast, and the seventh-largest town in Green ...

, located about 175 km to the SSW of the southern end of the range.

Subranges

Panorama Nunatak A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

() and Redkammen () are two large nunataks at the northeastern end. They are located to the southwest and to the southeast of the

Hutchinson Plateau Hutchinson may refer to: Places United States * Hutchinson, Kansas * South Hutchinson, Kansas * Hutchinson, Minnesota * Hutchinson, Pennsylvania * Hutchinson, West Virginia, in Logan County * Hutchinson, Marion County, West Virginia * Hutchi ...

respectively and are sometimes included as part of the Crown Prince Frederick Range.''American Alpine Journal,'' 1991, Volume 33 p. 374

Mountains

Although most peaks of the Crown Prince Frederick Range are yet unnamed, quite a number of the nunataks have very high summits and a total of nine have peaks are higher than . Owing to its remote location this large range has been somewhat neglected by mountaineers though, despite some impressive peaks of good

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

. * Peak (3,256 m) and highest point at * Peak (3,153 m) at * Peak (3,127 m) at , highest rocky peak of a massive nunatak with many peaks, including a 3,069 m high summit 1.3 km to the west. * Peak (3,108 m) at , the spectacular central summit of a nunatak with three peaks. * Peak (3,092 m) at * Peak (3,088 m) at * Peak (3,075 m) at * Peak (3,056 m) at * Peak (3,021 m) at * Peak (2,996 m) at * Peak (2,995 m) at * Peak (2,990 m) at * Peak (2,961 m) at * Peak (2,948 m) at * Peak (2,945 m) at * Peak (2,904 m) at * Peak (2,897 m) at * Peak (2,891 m) at * Peak near TBEGE base camp (2,882 m) at * Peak (2,830 m) at * Peak (2,824 m) at * Peak (2,777 m) at * Peak (2,542 m) at * Peak (2,691 m) at * Peak (2,473 m) at * Peak (2,465 m) at * Peak (2,446 m) at *

Anniversary Peak Anniversary Peak is a summit in The Bugaboos of British Columbia, Canada. It is located southeast of the Bugaboo Glacier, on the southern boundary of Bugaboo Provincial Park. Precipitation runoff from Anniversary Peak drains into Bugaboo Cree ...

(2,440 m) * Peak (2,425 m) at * Peak (2,370 m) at * Peak (2,093 m) at * Peak (1,831 m) at

Climate

From the north and from the west the range is fully exposed to the influence of the

. As there is no barrier to the shrieking cold winds of the icy expanse,

ice cap climate An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds . The climate covers areas in or near the high latitudes (65° latitude) to polar regions (70–90° north and south latitude), such as Antarctica, some of the northe ...

prevails in the region. The average annual temperature in the area of the Crown Prince Frederick Range is -14 °C. The warmest month is July when the average temperature reaches -2 °C and the coldest is March when the temperature sinks to -20 °C.

References

External links

Picture of Kronprins Frederik Bjerge AreaStatus of the endangered ivory gull, Pagophila eburnea, in Greenland
{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Greenland Nunataks of Greenland Sermersooq