PREPARING FOR DEPARTURE: It's a beautiful sunny day and I am relaxing at home in Connecticut with my wife Vicky and my three lovely and very funny daughters, Alexandra, Sarah and Laela. Spring has arrived, the birds are singing, nature is blossoming. I am about to leave for Greenland. I'll be gone for three weeks, and I have just gone to my desk to try to quickly answer the question: "Why am I doing this?"

But before I explain the why, I'll explain the what part of the equation. I'm flying to Thule, Greenland, which is also known as Qaanaaq. There I'll spend a day or two with the local Inuit community before strapping on skis and setting off to traverse the Humboldt Glacier -- the Northern Hemisphere's largest and fastest moving river of ice. My partner in crime is the famed Belgian explorer Alain Hubert, co-founder of the International Polar Foundation and a great defender of the Arctic environment.

Now onto that "why" question... The first two obvious reasons are "adventure" and "sports". Venturing into the unknown, relying solely on my own mental and physical resources, gives me an immense sense of pleasure and accomplishment. This trip will require me to completely immerse myself in nature, physically and spiritually. It is an opportunity to reflect on daily life from afar, to get to know myself better, to enhance my passion for life in a way that helps me to live it better.

The allure of the Arctic is undeniable. It is nature in its most raw and energizing state, yet also at its greatest extreme. Once we arrive in Greenland, there will be no engines for us, no brick-and-mortar dwellings to protect us from the elements, no refrigerator for our food, no WC, no TV, no CNN. We will be alone with Mother Nature. We will take what she gives us, and we will respect her.

But this trip is about something more than a thrill. This time I'll embark on an adventure with a larger goal in mind: to witness areas and communities dramatically affected by global warming. I'm going to experience a land and a way of life that pays the hidden costs of the growth of Gross Domestic Product in the United States and the Western world. My goal is to bring back and broadcast just a few of the stories that might one day soon allow us to realize the impact we have on the Arctic and its people, as well as their importance to our planet and to our civilization.

Starting tomorrow I'll begin posting my first dispatches in a new series exclusive to OnEarth magazine's Greenlight blog called Destination: Greenland. I hope you'll join me as I venture forth to reflect upon life at the extremes.

 [Editor's note: Over the course of two weeks, Larry Lunt, a member of NRDC's Global Leadership Council, and Alain Hubert, a Belgian explorer and founder of the International Polar Foundation, will trek some 200 miles from the town of Qaanaaq across Greenland's Humbolt Glacier, the Northern Hemisphere's largest and fastest moving river of ice. Along the way, as special contributors to OnEarth's Greenlight blog, Lunt and Hubert will post dispatches from the ice: stories of a culture and wilderness in flux and lessons for what our own future may hold.  Follow the journey at our Destination: Greenland page.]