A decade-long desire to visit Greenland and the allure of journeying by boat into virgin territory to attempt unclimbed peaks, two or more days away from civilisation, is what inspired us to set our sights on Timmiarmiut, an area of fjords, granite walls, peaks and spires 300km south of Tasiilaq, East Greenland.

Throughout the planning we were lucky enough to be in correspondence with Hans Christian Florian, a Tasiilaq-based doctor and joint author of The Unknown Mountains Of East Greenland. Hans was instrumental in arranging plans with Salomon Gadeegard, a skipper and skilled hunter based in nearby Iqortoq, to take us to this little-explored stretch of coastline. However, a week before departure came the news that given the predicted sea and weather conditions we would not be able to reach Timmiarmiut safely and therefore Salomon refused to take us any farther south than the Umiivik region, approximately 100km north of Timmiarmiut.

We learnt later that the underwater topography and exposure to the open sea changes significantly at Umiivik meaning there would have been a considerable risk of erratic waves and high seas that could swamp the boat. Given the unforgiving cold seas, our quarter ton of food and equipment and a cabin so small that two of us would have had to stand on open deck, it would have been reckless to venture south.

Hitherto we had considered late-season pack ice as the main inhibiting factor to reaching Timmiarmiut and were unaware that the temperament of the Greenlandic seas could also drown our plans. Even our alternative destination of Skjoldungen which was first explored for climbing by Mike Libecki, was out of safe reach and I began to wonder if the last ten months was just a fruitless exercise in planning and dreaming.

We spent the next few days frantically re-doing our research; scouring old journals, maps, geo-tagged images and satellite imagery, and extracting as much information as we could from our most knowledgeable contacts. Eventually we settled on the Kangertittivatsiaq region and became further convinced of the area when Hans reported that he had recently returned from hunting narwhal there and had seen jagged spires and towering walls erupting from an unnamed cirque.

Kangertittivatsiaq, 120km north-east of Tasiilaq, is an open fjord region peppered with peaks and glaciers that tumble into the frigid Arctic waters. It is best known for the imposing Ingolfsfjeld (2232m) in the South Steenstups area. Ingolfsfjeld has seen a number of attempts, but only a handful of successful ones including the jagged 50-pitch east ridge completed in a 75-hour push by a Yugoslavian team in 1971 and a 2000m route on the south face by a British team in 1975. Our particular cirque would be on a promontory south of Ingolfsfjeld and overlooking the vast expanse of the Danish Straits to the east. The main fjord of Kangertittivatsiaq to the north served as a passageway for the countless icebergs and debris issuing from the nearby Glacier de France.

Despite the radical change in location, our desire to attempt new routes in an untouched area was undimmed. Once I had resigned myself to the fact we would not be reaching Timmiarmiut this year, I assumed that would be the end of our logistical surprises. However it was only the beginning: first a shipment of much needed nutritious food and an expensive Advanced Elements inflatable kayak failed to show up in time for our departure with Salomon as a result of which we had to re-do most of our food shopping in Tasiilaq and source another kayak to enable us to explore the fjords and access potential climbs. The cost of replacing all the lost goods and incurred damages amounted to the price of a round-the-world air ticket.

Nevertheless we eventually got underway, loaded up Salomon's boat and headed north into the Arctic Circle, weaving our way through the Ammassalik Fjord and east through a labyrinth of smaller fjords and channels set amongst sweeping walls of rock and jumbled glaciers that slithered erratic paths through untrammelled peaks. Patches of sea mist hung in the still air and occasionally we heard the groaning and fracture of icebergs over the puttering diesel engine. After 10 hours we pulled into the Kangertittivatsiaq fjord and caught our first glimpse of the cirque. Seven prominent peaks formed a 5km-long and 1.5km high fortress looming over a tiny glacier and a small grassy area amongst moss-covered boulders that would serve as our base camp. The scale and sheerness of it all was both exciting and intimidating.

We were a team of four: Steve Beckwith and I had completed a new route on the west face of Dragon's Horns on the Malaysian island of Tioman in 2009, American Mike Royer whom I had been to Kyrgyzstan, and Matt Bunn, an Australian sociologist studying climbers for his Ph.D. Before leaving for Greenland, amidst the frenzy of last minute research, I had spoken briefly with Derek Fordham who said he had dog-sledded past our base camp site many years ago. As I sat on a boulder looking out to sea I wondered what it must have been like to travel by here on a frozen sea in winter, mushing your dogs ever onwards in to the icy wilderness. My musing was interrupted by the sight of a small boat heading towards us, yawing with each turn around the numerous icebergs.

We quickly assembled on the shoreline as John Christensen, a friendly skipper we had briefly met in Tasiilaq harbour, motored towards us with four Americans; it turned out to be Skjoldungen climber Mike Libecki, along with climbers Ethan Pringle and Angie Payne and adventure photographer Keith Ladzinski. They were here on a Mountain Hardwear-sponsored trip and their original plans for Skjoldungen had been scuppered for the same reason as ours. It was a welcome surprise and a somewhat unlikely occurrence that two unrelated teams should end up sharing a virgin cirque together.

Everything up to this point, the change of location, losing our food and a kayak, and now sharing camp space with new friends at the edge of the world, helped teach me that I'd be best to drop any expectations I might have for the rest of the trip. More unpredictability appeared to be in store.