Days 36 -43 - I just blew in from the windy city…

Abisco to Kilpisjarvi

Once again, so many days without signal and I don’t just want to write a dry précis of each day. So, let’s try something different. A précis of the whole in one, okay, two paragraphs and then some detail of one, ok two, particular days. One was a very tough day.

Here’s the précis bit…

It is 7 or 8 days from Abisco (Sweden) to Kilpisjarvi (Finland) via Norway. During this time we have only one planned night in the tent, the rest are in huts. It is now day 5 of those 7 days and we have spent 4 nights in the tent.

The first night out of Abisco was always planned as a tent night.

Packed up and ready to go after our first camping night out of Abisco

Bad weather was forecast for a few days time, so, after our first night in the tent we changed our route to avoid poor mountain weather and skied along a 40km lake. This involved a second night in the tent. Not to worry, we will be in a hut tomorrow night at the Havgahytte. However, on arrival after 37km of skiing we find this tiny cabin is full (2 people and a dog) so we sleep in the tent. Again!

Our tent pitched outside the full (two people and a dog) Havgahytte

Eric and Lea demonstrate modern technology (fairy lights) to Trond, who looks on in wonder - At the Havgahytte

Not to worry, tomorrow we will be in the new Dærtahytte. Lovely.

But it is not to be.

Read on dear reader to find out why we spent yet ANOTHER night in the tent…

That’s the end of the précis bit.

Saturday 19th March

Havgahytte to the Dærtahytte (or not)

What a day! It had snowed lightly all night and just after we left we received a message from Trond’s wife via the inReach saying.

Do not travel tomorrow. Big storm coming in. High winds.

But, that’s tomorrow right?

Wrong!

She had sent the message the previous evening and it had only arrived this morning. So, her tomorrow was our today.

In blissful ignorance we head up through the trees following a very faint dog sled trail and then onto a large plateau where the wind started howling. Visibility was ok, so onward and upward eh? Upward to where the visibility was not ok. To the point of there being almost no visibility. Just vague rocks in the distance. visibility came and went though, so we made decent, if slow, progress.

In the afternoon the wind thankfully dropped, but visibility reduced to absolute zero and stayed that way. The GPS took us onto some dodgy high ground beneath some low cliffs. A path in summer, but impassable in winter and we were forced to retrace our steps (or, skis if you are being picky). This wasted a good half an hour.

Looking at the map we saw that we could bypass the cliffs with a 2 km flat detour and off we went into the murk.

It has now been snowing very heavily for well over an hour. Heavy wet snow that sticks to us like, well like heavy wet snow and soaks everything. Light is fading and I am now skiing on a compass bearing using an old fashioned compass. Because I can’t trust my own sense of direction. With absolutely nothing to see as a reference point I am forced to constantly look at the compass. This involves skiing one handed (flatish terraiin - I know because I didn’t fall over) for well over an hour without looking up. There is no point looking up because there is literally nothing to look at (though I did have visions of bumping into a reindeer). Almost 11 hours after heading out and with light fading fast, the regular checks on the GPS show that we are very close to the big lake that is the key to the final 5 km to the hut.

Whiteout conditions captured in glorious technicolour

Living the dream

However, I can’t find it. Every time I ski towards it (now downhill) it moves. Here’s how it worked. I check the GPS and use it and the compass to orient i.e. point my skis at the lake then ski down in that direction for about 1-200 metres. I cant use the compass skiing downhill blind, so I ski a hundred metres, Trond follows and I check again. The lake is now 600 metres away and we are facing the wrong way! I tried this 3 or 4 times with the same result. The lake just never got any closer. We always ended up skiing parallel (ish) to it.

It is now dark. So, if absolute zero can be further reduced it just happened. The hut is now less than 5km away. The lovely, warm, dry hut. However, at the rate we are going it will soon be 6km away. We are soaked through. We declare the ground we are on to be flat based purely on the fact that we have stopped sliding downhill, and decide to put the tent up.

1 hour later, at 8pm, we are in the nice warm tent eating dehydrated food. Finally warm and mostly dry. A sensible decision. Utterly knackered and listening to the heavy snow fall, we are in our sleeping bags by 10pm. Very late. No alarm set for tomorrow. The only plan is to hope we can get to the Dærtahytte 5 km away and sit out the forecast storm.

Safe in the tent Trond starts looking for his earplugs (allegedly, I snore)

The tent spot is not flat. Neither of us sleeps well because we keep sliding off our sleeping mats onto the cold wet floor. Deep joy.

I have to knock snow off the tent a couple of times before midnight to stop the weight damaging the tent and tent poles.

And then the wind starts…

Sunday 20th March

Tent by lake to Dærtahytte

The wind started at about 2am. If sliding off the sleeping mats wasn’t enough to spoil a good nights sleep we now had a gale blowing outside, and a tent bouncing around like a crazy bouncy thing. And the noise… Wow! It sounded like it could pick the tent up at any moment and send it speeding off to Kansas. “There’s no place like home…” I thought to myself, but it didn’t work. I was still in a tent, in a winter storm, in the middle of nowhere.
A great song (The windy city) from the musical Calamity Jane was now stuck in my head. Look it up. Its a classic.

Fortunately wind always sounds worse in a tent and even more so when you are half asleep. I woke at 5. Dozed till 6 and wondered what the outside world looked like. Had visibility returned? Would it be possible to stand up let alone ski in the wind that continued to violently buffet the tent? (see video clip on Instagram) I imagined another 24 hours stuck in a damp tent. Trond awoke. He had slept badly too. “Any visibility? He asked. “No idea” I replied, “I’m too scared to go outside to look.” I put some snow on to melt for breakfast. Eventually a call of nature that could not be relieved using a pee bottle, drove me out of the tent. It is very windy, but not too bad. Certainly skiable. The sky is, surprisingly, nearly cloudless. Visibility is perfect.

Trond wondering how I could possibly miss such a big lake

Drying our stuff at the Dærtahytte

We shall go to the hut, which we can see from the tent. So happy. A leisurely breakfast and we are away by 8.15. By 9.45 we are at the hut. Which is full (a group of 7 skiers from France). There are two huts though and the second, older hut, is empty. We move in. The contents of our rucksacks and the Pulk explode to fill every space. The stove is lit. The coffee is made. Bliss. As the morning and afternoon progress the wind speeds increase. The cabin creaks and groans. We thank our lucky stars we are not still in the tent. We eat. A lot. Did I mention? Bliss!

We will move on tomorrow though the winds are forecast to still be above 40kmph.

We left the Dærtahytte in beautiful , but windy conditions

Back to the précis…

A few hours after the above photo was taken the weather deteriorated and the wind increased to a tad more than 40 kmph. We Estimated it at about 100 kmph. Hitting us from the side it was difficult to stay upright.

A rather blustery day on the border of Sweden

Then, to add insult to injury, we hit “rotten snow.” Rotten snow is not normally encountered before the end of April and into May, but it’s been a funny old winter.

It is caused by warm old snow close to the ground melting and the the top layer also melting. It will not support a skier and you suddenly crash through up to your thighs. Then the snow is ok for 20 metres or so and you hit another patch. It is really difficult to get through. We are slowed to a crawl. Faint old scooter tracks help, but even they collapse beneath our weight occasionally. The last 2km seemed to take forever.

Me trying to hold the Pältsastugan hut down in the high winds by leaning on the table

I demonstrate a patch of rotten snow. We weren’t smiling the previous day after skiing for 7 hours

Tuesday 22nd March

Pältsastugan (Swedish hut) to Kilpisjarvi (Lapland hotel - Finland)

All I will say is that some days are worse than others. I really struggled today. Enough said.

So, we have been traveling for 43 days and have covered 921 km. Tomorrow, we head east. For five days. Oh, and a bit south! “Why East?” I hear you ask. “And south!? Are you crazy!?” I hear you add. Depressingly we can’t go due North. Big, impassable in winter, mountains block our way so, east it is. (And a bit south). If you listen carefully you can hear a grown man sobbing.

More from me when we get to Kautokeino in about 5 days. No signal between here and there.

If you crave more you can catch up with my audio diaries on both BBC Hereford and Worcestershire and BBC Berkshire.

Still smiling (just)