Just one cold night with calm weather and temperatures round -11 °C was enough to freeze the coastal Baltic Sea after yesterday’s stormy weather. Between the thin and dark new ice are thick old ice floes, most of them grounded on rocks, because most free floating ice floes were blown away yesterday.
If you were there and looked really closely you would see the new ice floes moving up and down a bit. There are still not frozen together.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Ski tour Vindelfjällen”.
Yesterday Skellefteå—Umeå by car (130 km).
Today Umeå—Hemavan with Annika by car (400 km).
Tomorrow Hemavan—Viterskalet with Annika (12 km). Not by car but by ski, start of our short ski tour on the Vindelfjäll.
Last preparations in Hemavan: repairing Annika’s backpack · packing backpack and pulka · Annika preparing the fur trim for her new Anorak · putting climbing skins under the skis for tomorrow we’ll have to ascend the Stoere Vaerie or Norra Storfjället.
I’ll be offline for some days. Travelogue will follow next week.
Some photos from today’s small road trip with Annika from Mo i Rana to the fjord Sjona, Norway.
Why we are in Mo I Rana? Because Annika and I just finished a four days ski tour in the Vindelfjäll mountains. We had left our car in Hemavan and from Hemavan it’s only 100 km to Mo I Rana, where we’re visiting D. and C., friends of Annika.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Ski tour Vindelfjällen”.
Back home from Mo i Rana. I drove the first half from Mo i Rana to Storuman, Annika the second half to Skelleftehamn including the power-parking into 20-25 cm deep fresh snow that had fallen since last night.
First we will buy some food for tomorrow’s breakfast, then it’s pizza time!
More about the ski tour in the Vindelfjäll will come. Stay tuned …
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Ski tour Vindelfjällen”.
A perfect day for a ski tour awaits us when Annika and I wake up in Hemavan, where we arrived the evening before. The ski is blue, the air is calm and the outside thermometer at Hemavans Fjällcenter shows -23 °C.
Today Annika and I will start our first ski tour together. We are going to be in the Vindelfjällen mountains for four days and stay overnight in two mountain cabins of the Swedish tourist association: Viterskalet and Syter. Annika is going to use a backpack and I a pulka sledge. Hopefully Annika’s backpack will hold, she already had to fix a friable strap the day before. After a breakfast we take my car and drive up the slope to park it near the Kungsleden sign.
Here the Northern Kungsleden starts, Sweden’s most popular hiking trail which is 450 km in total. We will follow the Kungsleden for two days and then turn west to Umasjö or south to Solberg back to civilisation.
At half past nine we are ready to start the tour. An employee of the ski area takes some pictures of us, wishes us a good tour, sits down on his snowmobile and drives away.
Now we have to climb up the ski slope, luckily not directly. Anyway we have climbing skins under our skis that prevent slipping back when ascending slopes. It’s no fun at all to use a pulka without them. We ski on broad prepared ski trails. It doesn’t take long and the fixed strap of Annika’s backpack breaks again. At the small hut of a ski lift she replaces it provisionally by another strap. Luckily this makeshift solution will work for the rest of the tour.
Although the sport holidays started the day before the ski resort is anything but crowded. When we however leave the ski resort behind us we are really alone for a while. Only another pair of skiers faster than us overtakes us at the steepest slope of the day. We are above the tree line. Only some solitary birch trees interrupt the snowy kalfjäll.
After a while we meet the snowmobile track. This track is quite popular because the Viterskalet cabin serves waffles – a welcome destination for snowmobile enthusiasts. For us as skiers it is a bit boring to walk on a five to ten meter broad “snowmobile Autobahn” and the exhaust fumes of the less modern snöskoter stink terribly.
We pass the summer bridge over the Västra Syterbäcken. Here’s even a toilet in the middle of the snow covered mountains. Only four other kilometres to go.
The whole winter trail is marked with red wooden crosses and there are many of them. In nice weather this seems a bit overdone but all people who followed such a winter trail in snow storm know that it can be very hard to find the next mark even when it is near.
Another hour of skiing and we arrive at the Viterskalet cabin. The stugvärd who is responsible for the mountain cabin greets us. There are two larger buildings: The cabin of the stugvärd with shop and even a small café and the guest cottage. The shop is tiny but has everything you need. Therefore we can buy most food in the shops and do not need to bear everything for four days.
We allow ourselves the luxury of a cold coke and a waffle. Then we move into the guest cottage. It is huge and hasn’t been heated for a while. Our sleeping room is heated by gas and temperature is at least over 10 °C but the huge kitchen has only 1 °C and it will take hours to warm it up some centigrades. The other guests have left. We will be the only ones to stay overnight.
I stroll around and take photos while the sun is slowly going down.
Annika and I still have garlic bread bought in Hamavan and eat it with a goulash soup bought in the shop. It doesn’t take long and we cuddle ourselves in our sleeping bags. Soon we fall asleep. Mountain air makes you tired!
I however have to pee in the night. For that I have to go outside. That means putting on boots, mittens and a down parka, because it’s -20 °C. This seems to be very uncomfortable but it has its advantages. I can watch an incredible starry night in the Swedish mountains. It is so bright and clear that it only takes seconds to spot the milky way. I just have to go in to fetch my camera and tripod. The green lights over the horizon is a Northern light, but a very weak one.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Ski tour Vindelfjällen”.
I wake up early in our four-bed room. Annika and I are in the Viterskalet Mountain Cabin in the Vindelfjällen, part of the Swedish mountains. I get up, take tripod and camera and go out. The temperature in the kitchen has dropped to 7 °C, but that’s almost 30 °C warmer than outside, where it’s -22 °C according to the outdoor thermometers at the windows.
I love it when the rising sun colours the snowy mountains in purple, pink, orange and yellow until it stands so high, that the snow looks white.
At ten o’click we start our tour: 12 or 13 km to Syter Fjällstuga, the next mountain cabin. We follow the winter trail that slowly bends eastwards into the valley Syterskalet.
Here we walk in the shadow of the mountains. First it’s a nameless top (1603 m), then the Södra Sytertoppen (1685 m) that blocks the sun. Round a kilometre before the emergency cots– also named Syterskalet – we leave the shadow and walk into bright sunlight. We take a break at Syterskalet, both for eating and drinking and for attaching the climbing skins to our skis.
After the rest we have to climb a bit, round 100 metres in altitude. That’s why we mounted the climbing skins. With them the ascend is easier than expected.
When we reach the peak I remove the skins. Although I’m a lousy downhill skier I want to try anyway. The terrain is difficult for me, because parts of it are icy and others are hardly covered with snow. With large bends and a bit of luck I manage to ski downhill the slope. Annika skis downhill with climbing skins that slow down her skis. Because of that she can use the snowmobile tracks that are to steep for me. We meet at the chain bridge over the stream or Svärfarbäcken. The Syter Mountain Cabin is on the other side. We don’t have to use the bridge to cross the stream, it is completely frozen. There’s only a marked hole in the ice for fetching drinking water.
We arrive at the cabin and the stugvärd – the host – welcomes us with hot juice; a nice tradition on the mountain cabins. We realise that we met before in Nallo, a small cozy cabin in August 2017, when we took a day off.
We get a cozy room with a bunk bed and take it easy the rest of the day.
Of course I have to go to the toilet again in the night and the sky is as starry as the night before. I made some photos and due to the long exposure you even can see polar lights on the photos. These polar lights however were hardly visible to the naked eye.
Today we are going to take a day off and stay at the Syter Fjällstuga. I’m an early bird and get up before sunrise. Again it’s -22 °C and the temperature will not rise above -15 °C for the whole day.
After a breakfast (we have crisp bread, butter and cheese plus hot cocoa) we start a small day trip on skis. We want to go up the slopes north from Syter. It is fun to go without pulka. Flocks of ptarmigans (snow grouses) are overall. First you hear them, then you can see them as white spots. If you come closer they fly away and you realise that you hardly spotted half of them.
Today we do not follow any marks, we make our own tracks. The tour is shorter than expected. Annika still has climbing skins under the skis and does not have any problem with the many icy patches on the slope, but I have. Instead of descending any further we turn right and make our way to the Kungsleden that continues to the northeast. Here we ski back to the cabin.
The rest of the day we stay in and round the cabin. It’s awesome to ski through the incredible beautiful winter landscapes but it’s just as great to meet interesting people.
Annika realised that today is fettisdagen, the day in the year where the Swedes eat en semla, a barm filled with marzipan and cream. And right – the man mentioned above prepares semlor for him and his family. We are invited to take one and gladly accept. The rest of the day is a lot of talking, resting, eating and Annika making pancakes. But we even start to pack our things. Tomorrow we are going to Umasjö and that’s 22 km to go. We want to get up at 6 o’clock to start the tour as early as possible.
The last photo shows a typical situation in the Swedish mountains in wintertime: Sitting on the loo. It is dark, so you need a headlight to go there. It is cold (-23 °C), so you need a warm jacket, too. You think, that’s uncomfortable? Then you never tented in wintertime where you long for such a utedass (the Swedish word for this type of outdoor toilet).
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Ski tour Vindelfjällen”.
Today we will have the longest distance of our ski tour: round 22 km from the Syter Mountain Cabin to Umasjö. We get up at 5:45 and start our tour at 7:30 to have enough time before sunset.
G., the stugvärd recommended to go on the small river Voehpejoeke or Svärfarbäcken, it would be easier to ski. We however do not dare and follow the marked winter trail. That turns out to be a quite bad idea. The trail seems to connect all existing hilltops around. The hilltops are exposed to the wind so that they are free of snow. There is vegetation, rocks and a lot of bare ice where neither the skis nor the poles get any hold. We barely make any progress and our frustration grows. After a while we decide to follow G.’s advice and ski down to the winding river.
You have to know, that there is ice and water under your feet for all we can see is snow, a bit of vegetation and some rocks. We feel safe and we are at least three times faster than before. After some time we come to a wide plain where I make the first tour photo of the day.
The morning had been cold again with temperatures below -20 °C, but it quickly became warmer and clouds have approached, covering the mountain peaks. Despite to the forecasts it is windy and the drifting snow makes the view hazy.
After 5 km we pass a Sámi dwelling, marked in the map as a black triangle.
Then we approach a narrow passage and the frontal wind increases. First I think it is snowing but it’s just the snow driven by the wind. We avoid making smaller breaks because there is no shelter in the valley and we would have to put on down jackets to avoid hypothermia.
The way is long but navigation is easy. We just have to follow the red crosses. Visibility is not the best but still we can see at least the next three or four crosses. After the valley we have to ascent a pass but the ascent is so slow that we hardly realise, that it’s already the pass. I check our position with the GPS but take the wrong number. I know that it has to be wrong but we continue anyway. What shall happen: we are on the trail and it feels like we are in time. It was only the first stage that slowed us down.
Even though the way is long it is a great tour. Snowmobiles are prohibited and we ski through the untouched snow landscape, completely alone. I do not take many pictures because I don’t want to loose too much time.
It’s still windy. When Annika goes ahead parts of her ski tracks are snow covered after already half a minute. At least it’s not cold, probably between -5 °C and -10 °C.
I check the GPS again, this time more properly. We have come further than expected and are faster than thought. Sometimes we stop to drink a bit and eat chocolate (mostly me) but we try to minimise the breaks.
We are on a plateau now, where the wind is calmer and it’s easy to ski. But we know that we have to descend 300 – 400 metres. And soon we have to ski downhills which is not our most outstanding skill. At least the slopes are wide and there are no trees around.
The trees appear a bit later but still it’s easy to ski. And then we finally meet the first snowmobile trail. It is descending through the forest but it’s so wide that it’s easy to ski down, either directly on the tracks or on the sides through untouched snow. Then we come to the “snowmobile main road”. The signpost says, that 17 km lie behind us and 5 other km to go.
This part is both boring and tiring. The track goes up and down which doesn’t matter for snowmobile drivers but for us. We curse every hill we have to ski up.
But finally we reach our final destination of today’s ski tour. The road E12 in Umasjö.
Our four-day ski tour is over but neither the journey nor the day.
Annika’s colleague F. is staying on her mountain cottage in Umasjö. It is she who comes shortly after our arrival and gives us a lift to Hemavan, where I parked my car three days ago. We buy some food and drink (rich in calories!) and drive back to Umasjö where we meet F. again in her cottage together with her family. We sit in the living room and report from our ski tour. After that we continue our journey to Norway, where we visit friends of Annika in Mo I Rana. The road conditions are not the best and I’m tired but luckily it’s only a one-hour drive from Umasjö.
That has been a long day and an exhausting one as well, but – more important – a great one. Now I’m looking forward to the next ski tour together with Annika.
Vi kan spela fio-lio-lio-lej
vi kan spela basfiol och flöjt.
Och vi kan dansa andra hållet, andra hållet, andra hållet,
och vi kan dansa andra hållet, andra hållet med!
It’s midsummer. Midsummer on the island Saltkråkan. People are singing and dancing round the midsummer pole accompanied by an accordion.
When I look outside of my window the new snow has started to bury the fence to my neighbours and it’s still snowing. That’s because midsummer on Saltkråkan is a scene in an old TV series that Annika and I looked yesterday. The snow is reality.
While Annika and I travelled back from Mo I Rana three days ago it snowed 20–25 cm home in Skelleftehamn. It also snowed the whole weekend, probably another 20–25 cm. What a relief for a winter fan like me after the rainy warm period in February.
In my backyard lie two layers of snow. An old, crusted layer of 35–40 cm that is so hard that I broke the wooden folding ruler while measuring. On top there’s a layer of fresh, fluffy snow 30–35 cm from the last days.
The Baltic Sea is covered with ice and snow and looks wintry again. I wouldn’t dare to enter the ice because you cannot distinguish between old thick and new thin ice because of the snow. It may take weeks until it’s safe again and maybe it won’t happen anymore this winter.
I’m curious if more snow will come. While the weather forecasts are quite ok when it comes to temperatures they are completely useless when it comes to the amount of snow.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
Last year a friend of mine told me he would travel to Murmansk and asked me if I wanted to follow. The friend finally did not have the time, bit I got the opportunity of a Murmansk trip thanks to Barents Press, a journalist network in the Barents Region. I became a member as a photographer this year.
The project called Redex 2019 has a strong focus on sport journalism and sport events in Murmansk. People who know me may know that I do not care about sport competitions. In this case however there’s a large sport event I’m interested in: the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship. I’m very glad that I was invited to travel and my thanks go to Barents Press for the invitation, for taking all the costs and for the great organisation.
Monday 11 March, 7:00. I just finished my breakfast in a hotel in the Comfort Hotel Arctic in Luleå and we are ready to travel to Murmansk. We, that is five journalists, me, and Sergei, our Russian chauffeur. He came from Murmansk with a Mercedes 15 seater minibus the day before. Good to have a bit of comfort, for we will travel about 840 km which will take the whole day.
Off we go. To Finland it’s only 130 km.
And – swoosh, are we in Finland. You hardly realise that you just crossed a border.
There are different ways to Murmansk. We will take the way via Salla. We make a lunch break in Kemijärvi where we got an extraordinary delicious lunch at Mestarin Kievari with a lot of salat and side dishes and even two different desserts.
At 15:30 Finish time (1 hour ahead) we arrive at the Finnish side of the Finnish-Russian border. Sergei has to make some paperwork and we have to wait, then we all show our passports before we enter the bus again to drive to the near Russian border.
The first check is before we exit the bus: A Russian official gets on the bus, counts us and checks our visas. Then we drive to the custom office where we leave the bus and have to fill out a form, that we have to keep with our passport the whole stay in Russia. It takes some time to fill the form, especially since it’s so tiny.
Then we go through the control, one by one. I’m first. There’s a minor problem with my form but Tim who speaks Russian can help. I wait on the other side where there’s a small exhibition of war memorials found at the border. I say one of the few sentences I know in Russian: Можно фотографировать? Yes, I may take pictures.
Then we are i Russia. Another check of the officials, that we are complete and have our stamps on the forms and in the passports. 20 other km and we have travelled half the distance. The Russian roads and landscapes are very similar to the Finish ones. It’s not easy to take landscape photographs from a bus driving on a bumpy road with a lot of windows reflecting the light. I start to doze.
We stop in Алакуртти/Alakurtti to refuel the bus. We have to wait, because the gas station itself is being refuelled and that takes some time. Anyway it feels good to stretch my legs and to get some fresh air.
After half an hour we continue our trip. We make a short stopover at a petrol station in Кандалакша/Kandalaksha, then we drive on.
It starts getting dark and I try to sleep a bit. It’s still 250 km to Murmansk and our trip takes some more hours, but finally we approach the city.
On the sign stands: “Murmansk, Hero City”, an honorary title from the Soviet times for outstanding heroism during WWII.
Just before 22:00 local time (+ 2 hours) i enter room 838 at the Park Inn Hotel, where I’ll stay the next five nights. So the whole ride took almost 13 hours and I’m really tired. But before going to bed we meet at the lobby and go to a restaurant nearby to get a late dinner. (I remember the food was tasty, but I’m not sure because my brain already had turned on the autopilot.)
The whole route: Luleå – Haparanda/Tornio – Rovaniemi – Kemijärvi – Salla – Кандалакша/Kandalaksha – Мурманск/Murmansk.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.
The first two days of Redex 2019 and therefore half the time in Murmansk is already over. Yesterday was very intense, today was more relaxed.
Yesterday we met trainer Erika of Fizkult, a gym for people with special needs such as medical rehabilitation. We met trainer and director of the bandy team Murman. We were shown the hockey stadium, the most northern ice rink in the world and the bandy arena. We met Irina Andreeva, leader of the municipal Sport Committee in her office. By good luck we met Davaadorj, ice swimmer from Mongolia while visiting the sport swimming pool. We watched a rehearsal of a flag parade, part of the closing ceremony of the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship and we had dinner in the Sumakh restaurant in the Volna shopping mall.
To come to all these places we walked sometimes but mostly we took the trolleybus. There’s always a ticket collector in the bus and you have to pay cash. A trip costs 32 Rubel, that’s round 0.45 Euro.
Here I won’t tell all the stories about all the interesting people we met. I’ll just show some images that I made yesterday. That’s why I called the article “side dishes”.
Today we took a trolleybus to the sport complex Долина Уюта/Dolina Uyuta where there was a huge cross country skiing competition of school kids. It was interesting to see all the kids and teens warming up and the communication with their trainers. Looks like a great place to ski, even though I cannot skate but only ski classical style (on a very low level).
After that we went to the press conference of the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship, the main event in Murmansk that will start tomorrow. 400 swimmers from 33 countries will compete in ice swimming with distances up to 1000 metres. But that’s another story.
Just two other snapshots photos from today:
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.
Tomorrow, 15 Mars 2019 the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship will start. 400 swimmers from 33 countries will participate in this competition and will swim distances up to 1000 metres. The event is organised by the IISA and the town of Murmansk.
The first contact to this event we got yesterday, 13 March in the swimming bath. We met Davaadorj Shagdarsuren, a professional swimmer from Mongolia and only participator of his country. His traditional clothes were really eye-catching and according to himself much too warm for Murmansk. He’s more used to winter temperatures between -35 °C and -50 °C.
Later we had an appointment with Irina Andreeva, leader of the municipal Sport Committee and member of the organising committee. She gave us interesting details about the ice swimming championship and the organisation.
When we went back we passed the Five Corners Square we heard loud music. There a rehearsal for the closing ceremony was in full swing. Heroic music sounded from the PA system and young people were marching to it with huge flags. Half of them in some kind of winter uniforms and flags with the logos of the IISA, the city of Murmansk and Аспол, the association of polar explorers. The others with the national flags of all participants. A nice gesture to all countries. I have however to admit that such kind of parade looks quite odd from my German-Swedish perspective. I’m not used to marching and parading.
Today at 1 o’clock was the press conference for the championship. It hold place in the hotel Azimut. 13 officials talked a bit about the event and invited the journalists to ask questions. Since there came hardly any question they started to ask each other instead. Quite funny situation.
After that we got our press accreditations. Now I have a press badge and I’m quite curious how freely I’m allowed to move the next two days to take pictures of this event.
For yesterday, the day we drove back from Murmansk, the weather service issued a snow warning. I had parked my car in Bjässviken at the house of B., another participant and it was covered with 10-15 cm of snow. B. fetched a broom helped me to free my car.
When I came home, even the minor streets had been cleared of snow. On the one hand this is great for driving, on the other hand it meant I couldn’t park my car on my property. I first had to remove the plogkanten, the wall of snow that the snow plough had pushed aside in front of all the garage driveways. I was tired after almost 15 hours of travelling, but clearing the plogkanten didn’t take much time and after that I could park my car beside the house.
When I woke up, it had stopped snowing, but another 10 cm of snow had fallen over night. Again the street had been cleared already. So another plogkanten blocked the way for the car. With temperatures slightly above zero this snow was wet and heavy and it was much more exhausting to move away this snow, especially because my “private snow dump” in my front yard is getting larger and larger.
Taking a break I stomped through the deep wet snow taking some pictures. I measured 77 cm of snow in my backyard – that’s something for the midst of March.
Perhaps I should buy a new car. Yesterday I saw a nice one at the petrol station in Алакуртти/Alakurtti. The advantage: I probably never have to clear snow again. The disadvantage: beside of being slow the topic of petrol consumption should be avoided …
By the way: While I wrote this article it had started snowing again.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.
The main reason for us to visit Murmansk just this week was the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship and the 1st Ice Swimming Arctic Cup 2019. There were 7 individual distances/styles and 2 relay distances/styles, all from 50 m butterfly to 1000 m (!) freestyle. The event is organised by the IISA and the town of Murmansk. 400 swimmers from 33 countries will participate.
After breakfast we meet Dmitry, a local journalist at the hotel lobby and then take the trolley bus to the ice swimming pool, which is located in the freshwater lake Семёновское озеро/Lake Semyonovskoye, 5 km from the centre. We arrive there to see the opening ceremony at 11:30 but due to the many starts the competitions already have begun in the morning. As usual we have to show our press badge to be able to enter the arena.
I’ve been on several winter swimming championships before: in Joensuu and Rovaniemi in Finland and of course several times in Skellefteå.
The first thing I notice are the many people wearing robust drysuits. There were two for each lane, all secured with ropes, plus additional divers. They belong to EMERCOM, the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The next thing are the restrictions for the press. We have got a plan with the marked areas where we are allowed to stand, but even there we sometimes are shooed away because we block the audience’s view. We are not allowed to go too near to the ice. Security first! The area behind the pool was open for a short time and then closed for the rest of the competitions.
When we arrive the 500 m freestyle competition is in full swing. A total of 47 swimmers compete in this distance. Some people are so exhausted after the swimming that they have to be helped out of the water. Some of them are even lad to the hot tub where they are able to warm up, but most people can walk by theirselves.
The opening ceremony starts with a flag parade in groups of three, one for each country: a boy presenting a sign with the name of the country, a cadet holding the country’s flag and a swimmer of that country. Here we meet again Mongolian swimmer Davaadorj Shagdarsuren.
Then a line of women walk along the green walkway. They are clad in white and blue dresses and hold traditional Russian welcome gifts in their hands: bread and salt. They walk around the pool and present these gifts to the guests from all countries that stand there in one line.
Finally the championship is opened by the outstanding Russian ice swimmer Alexandr Brylin who swims 25 meter holding two flags in his hands.
The next hours I take various pictures: Of the two mascots dancing around, of the swimming itself, or of the Chinese people having fun with the Russian women.
I have a lot to watch and I reflect on similarities and differences of this ice swimming event compared to others. While Skellefteå is partly a fun event with short distances and a funny cap competition, this competition is a 100% serious sport competition. On the other side the opening and closing ceremonies (we got a sneak preview two days before) in Murmansk are colossally enormous. Nevertheless the championships in Skellefteå have a larger public, partly because it’s in the middle of the city, partly because in Skellefteå you can compete in 25 m, too and many locals do this.
The scenery has its contrasts, too: snow – cold ice – open water – people with warm clothes – women wearing fur – swimmers in bathing suits – colourful flags everywhere – grey concrete buildings in the distance.
I take the freedom to loosely quote Tim, who helped organising Redex 2019: Russia will always surprise you!
Today it’s the day of the 1000 m freestyle competitions. To be allowed to participate you have to proof that you are able to cope being in the ice water for at least 25 minutes. Nothing for the average leisure swimmer. We arrive to heat number 2, where among others Ren Feng Wang from China participates. Just before swimming all participants get a medical exam and another after the swim.
The start commando: all others swim crawling while Ren Feng Wang breaststrokes. At the end of the competition he will be slowest of all with a time of 24:05:04. For me this would be worth an extra medal for being able to cope the icy water such a long time.
Winner of heat 4, men is the German Martin Kuchenmeister, a professional ice swimmer with a time of 16:56:94.
In the same heat a swimmer has to give up. He is helped out at the other side of the pool by the people of EMERCOM.
Some more photos:
Again, it’s the contrasts that fascinate me. The competition, the concrete buildings and the white Russian orthodox church Savior on Waters.
When you watch the championship you hardly realise that there is a lot of life on the Lake Semyonovskoye outside of the fenced area. People are walking, skiing or ice fishing and some of them stand outside the fence and watch the championship as well. After a while I leave the temporary arena and walk across the lake to make some non-swimming photos.
At the end of the day there are two winners of the 1000 m run:
For the men: Petar Stoychev from Bulgaria with 12:10:81. For the women: Alisa Fatum from Germany with 13:02:39. Chapeau!
Today I finally had to work with my it job again.
But before that I just had to take my camera and drive to different places by the sea. I was curious how it would look like after the snowfalls of the last days. This morning between 75 cm and 80 cm of snow in my backyard and we are talking about the average, not the snow drifts.
Normally the coastal line is quite visible here. Either you see stones sticking out of the rocky coast or you can spot the raised ice edge. Today you mainly saw a white plain. Only some of the largest rock and some brown tufts of grass were sticking out of the snow. I really had to look for motives to avoid images with a plain-white bottom half.
I would not dare to enter the ice because you cannot see its thickness. Probably there are weak spots that wouldn’t bear my weight.
On the roofs protecting the two wooden boats there was hardly any snow. Probably it had been too windy. Parts of the outside furniture of the restaurant Sjökrog were buried deepely in the snow. There was also a completely buried table, but that would have given a very boring photo.
The boat bridge normally shows nice contrasts between the wooden construction and the water, whether covered with ice or not. Even here the snow made it all the same today: snow everywhere reduced the contrasts radically.
Now I was satisfied enough to start working, but first I had to shovel snow. I had already cleared the garage driveway last Sunday, not I had to dig a bay into the snow so that the postman could approach the mailbox by car. Phew, that was work, round about 1.5 m³ of frozen snow had to be moved and thrown in my front yard.
Snow makes everything beautiful, it’s only a matter of the amount.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.
While swimmers still compete in 1000 m of ice swimming as part of the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship in Murmansk I leave the spot and start to go back to our Hotel Park Inn. That’s round 5 km to go.
In Summer I would have to go round the lake Семёновское озеро/Lake Semyonovskoye. Now it’s winter and I can simply go across. The ice is at least 50–60 cm thick as the huge ice cuboids along the way show. In the heap of these ice blocks kids were playing. One of them probably will become next generation’s polar explorer.
On the other side of the lake I can spot grey concrete buildings – as cuboid as the ice blocks – and the Russian orthodox church Спас на водах/Saviour on Waters. They have been the background scenery of the championship, too.
And I see people everywhere. The lake is not crowded, but used of many people for different activities. Some of them are sitting on folding stools and doing ice fishing. Others are going for a walk or doing cross country skiing. The nice thing: some of the skiers are quite athletic and fast, others are do not have any technique and are quite slow. But they ski anyway. And all of them seem to enjoy being outside.
These funny “motor-bananas” probably only exist during the ice swimming: The vehicles consist of three parts. In the middle there’s the “chauffeur” standing in a sledge-like plastic tub. At the rear a banana-shaped inflatable rubber thingy is attached on which people can ride. The whole thing is driven by a small caterpillar attached to the front of the plastic tub and operated by the man in the middle.
I start to cross the lake. I pass a snowman and admire his artful face. He looks however too serious to be my namesake Olaf from the film Frozen.
The lake is not so big and soon I reach the other side. Here’s the winter bathing place I already heard of before. I’m angry with myself that I didn’t take swimming trunks and towel with me because the cold water looks inviting. But no swimwear, no bath.
Here I have to leave the Lake Semyonovskoye and I start following the main road Улица Челюскинцев/Ulitsa Chelyuskintsev back to the hotel. Temperature is above zero and the snow is soft, brown and greasy, but it’s easier to walk on that than on blank ice. At the branch Улица Туристов (“Tourists Street”) a woman comes my way. She bears skis with an old-fashioned binding system. I’m sure she wants to go to the place I just left: the Lake Semyonovskoye.
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.
This evening we gather on the Площадь Пять Углов, the Five Corners Square in Murmansk. We want to join the closing ceremony of the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship. The event has started already and we are not alone.
And it’s a big, long show with loud music. And I mean really, really loud! Never ever will I travel to Russia again without ear protection. Right after some children dances the flag parade that was rehearsed some days ago starts. Loud playback music: A male voice sings a very patriotic sounding song. The only words I understand: “Murmansk! Murmansk!”. To this song flag bearers are marching on the elevated walkway and onto the stage. One group in some kind of winter uniform bears the flag of the event, others clad in black uniforms carry the flags of the participating nations. “Murmansk! Murmansk!” The final country is Russia and of course it gets the biggest applause.
Now the Russian regions whose swimmers participated were presented, and these are a lot. Russia is divided into 55 oblasts and krais, 22 republics and 8 other regions. Not all of them were involved in this World Championship, but many were.
Alexandr Brylin, the guy who swam with the flags yesterday comes for example from the Amur Oblast which is north of China. Альметьевск/Almetyevsk – the town presented in the photo below – is much nearer, just 2500 km by car. Russia is huge!
Everything is accompanied by music, fireworks and flames. An enormous and perfectly staged spectacle.
After that a singer enters the scene accompanied by girls in metallic dresses. The singer is dancing, acting, jumping and gesticulating all the time and finishes his number with a big jump from the winner’s podium.
Finally the award ceremony starts and with that the swimmers enter the scene. They are welcomed by a speaker that stands near the mixer unit in the darkness of the night. TO be able to read the names he wears a headlight. Many people stand around the fenced area, others stand a bit back in the snow that covers the flowerbeds. One child however seems to be longing for a quieter place. It rests a while on some kind of box before it has loaded its batteries and jumps back to its family.
The rest of the evening? A delicious dinner in the restaurant Terrasa with the other participants of Redex 2019 including translator Anna and journalist Dmitry.
We return to the hotel quite early, because tomorrow we will travel back to Luleå in Sweden and already leave at 6:30 local time, that’s 4:30 Swedish time! The journey back will turn out to be relaxed and without any problems. 15 hours later I’ll be home in Skelleftehamn again.
I had been inside most of the day. Finally I just had to go out to enjoy the nice blue sky, at least for a short time. I parked my car at Storgrundet, crossed the ice to the island of the same name and went to the seaside of the island. There I spotted moose tracks on the sea ice that went criss-cross and led to another island.
I was walking without snowshoes and it had been exhausting to cross the narrow island. The snow had been more than knee deep, easy to sink in, still pretty firm and hard to get out. It was much easier to go on the snow covered ice on the Baltic Sea although the snow was very wet sometimes. Rubber boots are a good choice in this season.
The Baltic Sea behind the island however looked like winter would be eternal. Just a snowy layer as far as the eye could see.
This was my most daring tour on the sea ice yet. This article may not be for the faint-hearted. Spoiler alert: I kept safe and dry!
After an extremely lazy day yesterday I felt today like I had to go out and get some fresh air. Cross country skiing? No, the tracks are probably extremely icy. Jogging? No, the water puddles from the melting snow are deep and I wanted to keep my feet dry.
What about trying to walk to the island Bredskär? There’s a large patch of old ice that should be easy to cross. But behind the islands there could be weak ice. Didn’t I want to keep dry?
Yes, I definitely wanted to keep dry. So I used a funny combination of equipment today. On the one hand snowshoes for winter walks, on the other hand a drysuit in case of breaking through the ice.
I took the car to the small boat harbour Tjuvkistan, changed into the rubber boots and started my tour from there. The ice was easy to cross even though there were some wet patches. That doesn’t automatically mean that the ice is weak. Mostly it’s freshwater from melted snow or seawater that found a way up through the cracks in the ice. Soon I arrived at the island Bredskär – it’s only 750 m to go. Unfortunately clouds had been approaching covering the sun.
I turned right and walked along the eastern shore. Wind, waves and winter’s coldness had built a ice wall along the shore.
When I reached the eastern tip I had a decision to make. Should I walk around the island and already go back? Or should I dare to cross the sea ice to the next islands Gråsidan and Nygrundet. I chose the latter. I opened the belt of the backpack, checked my ice claws and started carefully crossing the sea ice. Step by step. Step by step. The first half was no problem but then the ice started to look grey. That could be a sign for weak, thin or watery ice. I could see air bubbles moving under the ice with every step. I expected to break through the ice with every step. Perhaps the ice was not weak at all and only covered with water but I was not eager to find out and slowly continued. Step by step.
The ice seemed to get weaker and weaker, thinner and thinner, wetter and wetter. Perhaps it was real, maybe it was only my imagination that gave me this impression. After some more careful steps I finally reached the island Gråsidan. Hooray! Nevertheless only a temporary success because I knew that I would have to go back later on.
I arrived at the northern tip of Gråsidan, turned right and walked along the eastern shore heading south. It was there, where I found the almost secret world of ice. Of course it was not secret by purpose but I guess I was the only one that had managed to approach this special location.
East from the island there was a layer of sea ice and on that there was a huge variety of ice. Large ice floes, heaps of smaller ice discs, round-shaped ice objects and much more was there to see.
It was like an open air art exhibition. An art exhibition of one of my favourite artists: nature. And I had it all for myself. It was not easy to go. Sometimes I had to cross chaotic looking ice fields, sometimes my foot landed in a deep puddle of meltwater. Look at the next photo: This puddle had not only drowned half of my rubber boot but a snowshoe, too.
I was however wrong in one thing. Others visited this world of ice as well: moose. Countless moose tracks covered the sea ice heading seaward. What does a moose want there? There’s only ice and then – already visible in the distance – the open Baltic Sea. The next island in the southeast is more than 11 km away.
Either moose have a very poor sense of orientation or they like ice art just as me. I imagined several moose visiting the various objects and discuss shape, colour and the meaning of the artworks. These visitors however had left, only the tracks were left.
While strolling through the exhibition I already passed another island: Nygrundet, the outermost island of the archipelago. Nygrundet was near the open water. Very near. I approached a huge block of ice and there it was: My personal “Ultima Thule” for today.
After I was sure, that this ice block was connected to the island and no iceberg sailing to Finland I decided to climb the block and make myself comfortable. Although temperatures were slightly above zero it was quite cold due to the strong gale with wind gusts round 22 m/s. That’s round 80 km/h. Brrr! I was glad about my warm anorak that I took with me.
After eating and drinking a bit I decided to go back. I crossed a small patch of sea ice and then went along the island which is connected with Gråsidan by a stripe of land. Unnoticed by me the clouds had moved away and the sun came out. Ice gets a completely new look when sunlit. So I decided to go to the art exhibition once more and turned again.
And turned again to finally return home. On my way back I saw a manmade art object at the shore, but I could not understand its purpose. I preferred the tiny pine trees sticking out of the snow. Then I crossed the island Gråsidan from east to west (less than 200 meter).
The last photo clearly indicates that I hadn’t been in the Arctic. It’s still Skelleftehamn. On all of the mentioned islands there are summer cottages. The cottages on Nygrundet and Gråsidan were empty due to the difficulties to get there.
I started to look for a better place to cross the sea ice back to the island Bredskär. I had felt quite uneasy while crossing the ice to Gråsidan and I hoped for better ice. To make a long story short: I found a longer, but better and easier way.
I was relieved when I arrived Bredskär. Now the ice probably would be thicker and safer. I walked along the island somewhere between sea and land. There where a lot of very wet patches but on safe ice. Now I only had to cross the sea ice once more, then I would arrive on the mainland and at my car.
Here a lot of water, partly frozen, covered the ice. Snowmobiles and ATVs had left deep traces and wheel ruts. I started getting a bit impatient and instead of taking the same way home I turned left a bit earlier. First it went well then I had to plunge through surficially frozen water and slush. With the snowshoes that was quite exhausting but the shore came nearer and nearer.
I could spot my parked car and the snowy slope where I had to go up. 100 metres to go. 50 metres to go. 10 metr… – crash!
My right leg went through the ice to the upper leg. It was not weak ice, I just oversaw a large and broad crack. The rubber boot was soaking wet but not myself. The attached stockings of my drysuit had kept me dry. It’s funny anyway that this happened just seconds before finishing the tour.
Probably I will keep a bruise on my knee for some days as a nice memory of this very special inter-season snowshoe tour on the Baltic Sea. And a fabulous tour it was.
Directly translated from my packing list with some comments.
The peninsula Näsgrundet is one of my favourite places for photographing in Skelleftehamn. There are many motifs especially in wintertime. The snowy rocky coast, the ice covered Baltic Sea or the island Gåsören on the horizon. Probably you have seen some of the motifs here in my blog.
Mostly I take the car. I drive along the street Näsuddsvägen. To the left there are the huge cisterns for storing oil and other chemicals, part of Oljehamn, the oil port of Skellefteå. To the right, on the other side of the bay Kallholmsfjärden there’s the peninsula Rönnskär, home to several industrial facilities. Most prominent is Boliden Rönnskär, one of the world most efficient copper smelters.
There are several rock dumps beside the street. Since last year there’s a huge one between street and bay. Today I went up the slope and watched the sunset. These are perhaps not the photos I normally made home in Skelleftehamn, but the industry is part of this coastal region, too.
Have a look at the last photo: It looks like the peninsula Näsgrundet with its red houses and the tug boat to the left would almost touch the island Gåsören with its lighthouse. The distance between them however is more than 1.5 km. It’s the telephoto lens that makes the distance shrink, at least visually.
By the way: if you live here and wonder why my car is so dirty – one of the reasons is this huge water puddle that I have to “ford” when going to eller coming from Näsgrundet.
The last few days it was quite warm with maximum temperatures round 10 °C. The warmth of the sun warmed the rocks and made the ice melt around them. Today it was very windy and the water level was 50 cm above average. Therefore the sea ice rose while the coastal ice has still been frozen solid to the shore. That has resulted in large cracks in the ice which made the high water flow up through the cracks and cover the coastal ice.
This turquoise blue water almost looks Caribbean, but of course the water is still literally ice cold. And while the air is warm at daytime, the ground is still so cold, that ice needles grow on the undercooled water puddles.
Spring equinox was a week ago, now the days are longer here than in Central Europe. Sunrise tomorrow will be already at 5:00. I hope that sun and wind will remove the ice cover on the Baltic Sea soon. I’m longing for opening the kayak season 2019.