Days 23 and 24 - And then there were three

Thursday 3rd & Friday 4th March

Coarvi hytte to the Sulitjelma Turistsenter AS

Total distance traveled (since Nordli): 462.1km

Total number of days traveling: 24

A nice day. High cloud, no wind, temperature around minus 1. Steady, quite heavy snow all day.
There is a silence when the weather is like this. The snow deadens all sound. We occasionally see birds, but they don’t have much to sing about at this time of year. No territory to protect, no mates to be attracted. Certainly no insects and the nearest road is a long way off. The only sound is the rythmic shoosh, shoosh, as you push your skis ahead of you.

Some time later a quite unusual noise for this time of year and latitude can be heard as we follow an unfrozen river. The black waters rushing through the white just add to the monochrome feeling of our world.
David is quiet today and unusually lagging behind. When we arrive at the Sulitjelma Turistsenter he breaks the news that he must return to England for family reasons. He will leave us tomorrow. It is devastating news. Without him there would be no trip. Trond and I will continue, but it won’t be the same without David.
I spend the afternoon getting a crash course in using the GPS, then Trond and I pack our food from the resupply for the next 11 days through Sweden to Abisco.

Anyone for Pokemon?

Friday 4th March.
Today is an enforced rest day. Trond’s new skis and the new pulk have failed to arrive.
Bjorn, the marvellous owner of the splendid Sulitjelma Turistsenter lent us his car so that we could drive 45 minutes to Fauske, the largest town nearby, to try to track down the new kit.

The Sulitjelma Turistsenter A great place

It is a glorious day for skiing, so a real shame that we are not able to continue our journey today. But, these things happen.
It does at least mean that we can drop David off at the train station.

Lovely light during the drive to Fauske

We track the pulk and skis down. They are on a bus to Sulitjelma, where we just came from. Hey ho. At least we both managed to buy a couple of useful things that we couldn’t have bought in Sulitjelma.

With David safely delivered to the train station Trond and I drive back. Plenty of time to discuss the new team.

We are both confident that we will have a successful trip and that we will work well together.

Back at Sulitjelma we collect the new skis and pulk (sledge). Pulky McPulkface is officially retired. Long live Pulky 2.

Collecting skis and Pulky 2 from the post office

Tomorrow, Saturday 5th March, the 3 of us, Trond, me and Pulky, head north once more. This next 11 days or so sees us heading into a quite remote part of Sweden. We don’t know much about the cabin system there. We do know which cabins sell food (full service) and which ones don’t (self-service). What we don’t know is if there will be any kind of mobile signal. So, this might be the last blog for a while. Not so much signal strength is required for Instagram, so keep your eyes peeled for updates there. If none of that works you can track our progress on a live map via the link on the website regardless of mobile signal.