Trial run - Part 2 - Big news
Wakey, wakey in there.
Picture the scene: It is dark on a barren, snow covered mountain east of Finse, Norway. A small red tent stands alone in a sea of white. The winds that have battered the tent much of the night have died and it has been snowing steadily for a few hours.
It’s gone 6.00 am and will be dark for another couple of hours. 3 figures slumber on as the snow gathers on their tiny shelter. 15 minutes later one of them finally stirs. “Erm, did anyone hear their alarm?”
Ok, so we may not have done very well with the getting up part of our test, but we do all agree that we slept well.
I am also particularly pleased with myself, as I have finally mastered the art of using my pee bottle without getting out of my sleeping bag.
Despite waking a little late we still manage to get everything packed up and ready to go by 8am. It’s only just light as we set off. Unlike the sunshine and good visibility of the previous day today is steady snow and very poor visibility. The snow is great as it means no more ice, but the visibility? It takes us 1 hour to cover 2km. We have 20km to cover and a train to catch. We need to speed up, but navigation in these conditions is tricky.
Nice snow. Shame about the visibility
Trond shows David his Pokemon high score
It snows most of the day, making skiing much more pleasant, but if anything visibility gets worse. Trond pulls the pulk all day. He is truly tough.
Trond and the sledge with no name. How about ‘Pulky McPulk Face’ or ‘Bob (sled)’?
We make a brief stop beside a summer cabin to eat lunch. What look like large drifts of snow along the side of the building are in fact solid ice. Attempts to just ski through them deposit two of us on the floor.
A relatively uneventful day except at one point, when we have stopped to check navigation and I say, pointing in the direction we are going, “There are 2 people up there.” “Yeah, right” says David. “No really,” I insist, pointing again. David does a double take. They are about 30m above us and seem to be kicking the side of the cliff. They aren’t wearing skis. Climbers? Not here. Are they in trouble? They wave happily at us, so, no. As we get closer we can see they are digging out the doorway of a tiny, and I do mean tiny, cabin where they are clearly going to spend the night. I think they are a bit worried that we are planning to do the same and probably breathe a sigh of relief when we carry on past. Who in their right minds would want to spend a night out in this? Ah!? Erm!
Yes, that is a hut hiding in the snow.
For a while navigation is considerably improved as we follow the tracks left by the two skiers (who are probably still trying to excavate the door to the cabin).
After 18km and almost 7 hours we can finally see Finse, a small collection of cabins clustered around a surprisingly large train station and hotel, still about 2km away and 200 metres below.
Bright lights, big city Finse
Between us and it however, lie lots of large boulders, holes and snow drifts, all pretty much invisible in the flat light and poor visibility. We just need to ski down without falling into, over or off any of the previously mentioned hazards. And we do it. Well, almost.
Skiing down is fun. The snow is lovely but, close to the bottom, we encounter a large drift of snow. The flat light makes it extremely difficult to see the edge, the bottom, the drop or a sensible way round. At least one of our party however finds a quick way down. No names, but said person was lucky the pulk he was pulling at the time didn’t land on him. No injuries apart from a bruised ego and we continue down to the train station.
He performs all his own stunts you know.
Finse is to Noway what Chamonix is to France. It is very well known and very popular. To be honest I’d never heard of it. It’s most recognisable claim to fame for non-Norwegians is the fact that the scenes on the planet Hoth in Star Wars - The Empire strikes back were filmed here back in 1979. You can read more about this by clicking on the link.
Chewie. Is that you?
Anyway, we check the train times back to Ustaoset and head into the Hotel for a beer, a sandwich and a chat. Have we passed our own test? Can we (read: me) ski well enough in most conditions? Does the pulk work? Are we fast enough? Are our rucksacks light enough? And lots of other criteria. Well dear reader, the answer is yes. We passed the test. David, who, I think, has struggled with our earlier failure, is now happy to give it a try. We will restart our journey north, as a team of 3, and ski to Nordkapp.
Yay!
Our train back to Ustaoset.
I was disappointed that no stormtroopers with wheelie bags got off.
So, what next? Well, Trond will return to Oslo and finish his work commitments by the end of the week. David and I will join him on Saturday. We then have 3 days to sort out the additional resupplies we will need and other bits and bobs, then 2, days travel from Oslo to Nordli where we will restart our journey to Nordkapp. It may not be the full Norge på Langs we had planned, but it is still around 1,400km over 50-60 days. Still quite a challenge.
I really hope you will continue to follow the blog and Instagram as well my audio diaries on BBC Radio Hereford & Worcester’s Kate Justice show. The map tracking will be turned back on and will once again be accessible via the website.
Please do share the links with your friends and wish us luck.
