This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Sometimes it’s worth to go out and make photos in the late evening, especially when it’s full moon, some northern lights and one has a room near the Telegrafbukta in Tromsø.
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
This weekend I planned to take the Fjellheisen. Fjell is Norwegian for mountain(s) and heis for lift or elevator. Fjellheisen however is not a vertical lift but a cable car up to the mountain Storsteinen (421 m above sea level) where you can have an incredible view on Tromsø, visit the café and most of all can start countless hiking tours.
Today morning I took the bus and changed to another bus near the polar museum. The second bus crossed the large bridge Tromsøbrua over the strait Tromsøysundet and ascended to the bus stop Fjellheisen. I planned to buy a multiple ticket (much cheaper) but the payment failed three times. To my delight I got a free return ticket. Soon the cable car arrived, two other guests and I entered it and Fjellheisen started its way up while I was looking down to the autumnal town Tromsø.
I got of the cable car, walked up some stairs, went through the door and then there it was: Winter ❄︎!
First I just strolled around. The snow was 10–20 cm deep and it was quite easy to walk. Few others people were around although the weather was quite fine – even though not as sunny as I expected. I decided to start my hiking tour by hiking up the nearest summit Fløya (671 m). Sometimes I had to cross knee deep snow, but mostly it was less. I followed some footprints – I wasn’t first this day – and soon arrived at the landmark – whatever it is – on a small pre-summit of Fløya and then on the near summit.
That didn’t take much time. So I continued in direction of the summit Romssavákkivárri (Sami) or Bønntuva (Norwegian) (776 m). Parts of the slopes looked steep but still it was relatively easy to ascend beside of the fact that the snow was deeper here. In the lee it was mostly knee deep and wind-pressed. This type of snow it quite easy to sink in and then you have to take the leg up the very same way it went down, since the snow is way too hard to plunge through. Sometimes I felt like a stork with balance problems.
On the way there were many heaps of stones which are used as waymarks. But you should be very cautious to follow these waymarks strictly in this part of the mountains because there are many tourists how just love to build heaps of stones everywhere. Anyhow, they are nice photo motives.
And so are the mountain ranges in the southeast. It could be the famous Lyngen Alps, but I’m not sure.
On the summit of the Romssavákkivárri I took a selfie. It was sub-zero (my Cola froze) and windy and I was glad about my winter anorak. Next time I’ll take warmer pants with me as well as woollen mittens.
What you may forget when you see these photos is the surroundings. All the snowy mountains are surrounded by straits and fjords of the Norwegian Sea. Here’s a panorama photo taken from the summit.
If you take the telephoto lens (most photos were made with it) you also see the snow line, which is quite low but not low enough to cover the lowlands with snow, too. That have to wait probably some more weeks.
After a while of photographing, eating cookies, drinking, watching, resting and enjoying I started my way back. Some other hikers had passed by and left tracks in the snow that made it easier to walk most of the time. I looked down at Tromsø and watched the weather worsen. From the north clouds with dense snow showers approached.
Several times I stopped. Once to talk to a skier – the only one I met today. He was British, lived in the Netherlands and was in Scandinavia quite often. Later I would meet him again at the cable car and he would give me a lift back to Tromsø. Thanks a lot!
Mostly however I stopped to take more photos.
Up here it was quite sunny and when finally the first snow flakes fell down I already was near the summit station of the Fjellheisen, where I had vegetarian lasagne for a late lunch in the café. It was a quite small portion and of course expensive as almost everything in Norway, but it was tasty. After that I went out again. The sun has started to set and the western sky was orange.
When I looked east I looked into a void. A huge shower cloud had approached and it started to snow. Seven minutes the same motive looked like this:
At 17:00 I took the cable car down, got the mentioned lift of the British man and was back in central Tromsø where I hardly could believe, that I just made my first winter hiking tour. Down in the city everything was just wet and just a bit slippery.
Conclusion: That was a great day with hiking through a winter’s sneak preview. I’m lucky since the snow will probably last for half a year, at least in the mountains.
As usual I made most of the photos with my Nikon D750 DLSR and different lenses. Today however I had another “camera” with me, my new iPhone 11 that I got from my employer, the Norwegian Polar Institute. It’s a huge improvement to my old iPhone SE. First of all the camera is much better and it has a real wide angle lens. Then the phone works in the cold! My iPhone SE would hardly have survived this day while the iPhone 11 was still ⅔ loaded when I ended my tour. Having these advantages I can live with the fact, that the iPhone 11 is bigger and feels twice as heavy than the SE. No ad, just my two cents.
iPhone photos today (all edited with Adobe Lightroom): The 1st one, the panorama and the last one.
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Today I had my first work day at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø. Since I am in quarantine I had to work from home. Not easy when you don’t know what to do yet.
Right after work I took a walk to fight my fatigue. First up the streets, then along some tiny paths through the forest-like park Folkeparken. One of the paths led down to the western shore of Tromsøya, the island which Tromsø is on. Here I started to take pictures.
You see the coloured spots at the right side of the last photo? It’s people taking a picnic. There are not extremely many people around, but more than I expected. They jog, they cycle, they sit round a campfire. They take photos, they act as photo motives. They take care of their children, they walk, they talk. They take a winter bath from the wooden pier, they paddle kayak, they sail. All these people present Tromsø as an awesome place to be. The gorgeous autumn weather is just the icing on the cake.
Oh yes, I miss Annika! Anyhow I think, I’ll like it here.
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
7:58 – Umeå airport. I’m one of the first passengers for the flight SK2023 to Stockholm Arlanda at 9:50. Outside it is dim and foggy but I’m waiting outside anyway to avoid using my face mask that will accompany me the whole day today.
9:43 – Umeå airport. I’m going to the airplane. Of course with face mask. Soon our airplane departs and lifts us above the thick layer of fog and then the clouds. Welcome sun! After we landed in Stockholm Arlanda i realise that it’s as foggy there as home. I have something looking forward to: Japanese food. Then I’ll pass the security control once more. As already in Umeå my camera bag is examined for explosives, this time very thoroughly.
Next stop: Oslo-Gardermoen airport.
Why I’m taking this long and environmentally unfriendly trip by plane? Because the passenger trains from Sweden to the Norwegian Narvik have been cancelled for months. From there I could have taken a bus to Tromsø. Hopefully the train will be opened soon again.
13:46 – arrival in Oslo. And guess what, it’s foggy again. The airbus A320 was almost empty. Only 25 passengers instead of 180. I (and the stewards) have the last 7 rows for me alone.
In Tromsø I first have to show my passport and my employment contract, then I have to go to the baggage claim to get my luggage. It has to go through the custom. While doing that I somehow leave the arrival area where I planned to make a corona test. Since the info desk is closed I have to continue without any test. Maybe I’ll manage to get one tomorrow in Tromsø. This could shorten my quarantine of ten days.
The most visible ad at the airport: Norrøna outdoor equipment featuring a downhill skier. That slope would be hundred times too steep for me but I start longing for snow.
Next (and final) stop: Tromsø. The checkin is in ten minutes.
16:30 – Somewhere above the airport Oslo Gardermoen. Our airplane has started. It is hardly half full. The fog has vanished and I have a view to the autumnal surroundings of the airport.
This landscape looks cosy, a bit like Tolkien’s Hobbiton. An hour later the landscape looks completely different.
Soon the plane starts to sink giving me the probably fastest sunset I’ve ever seen. Hardly more than five minutes later we have landed on the airport Tromsø Langnes where I get a lift of K., my roommate in Tromsø.
Tomorrow I’ll have a day off. The next day I’ll start working at the Norwegian Polarinstitute. Unfortunately from home because I’m in travel quarantine. That’s not the easiest start, but that cannot be changed.
As some of you may know I’ll work for the Norsk Polarinstitutt in Tromsø from the 1 October. I’m looking forward to this extremely interesting job and the town Tromsø is outstanding. The downside is that Annika and I won’t see each other very often, because the distance it too far to visit each other for a normal weekend. Hopefully I’m allowed to work from home in Obbola/Umeå sometimes.
Last Saturday I packed around 250 different things that I may need here – from my big computer monitor to my digital piano and warm winter boots. When I packed everything into my Subaru on Sunday morning I realised that I even had spare room for my ergonomic office stool and my warmest winter parka. Nice!
On Sunday at 10 o’clock Annika and I started our tour to Tromsø. The day before our home region Västerbotten was put on the red list by Norway again, which means that we had to be in quarantine while being in Norway. Bad luck! Therefore we didn’t make our stopover in the Norwegian Narvik as considered before but already in Kiruna in Sweden.
The next day we were stopped by the police at the border. The police informed us about the quarantine rules and wanted to know our place to stay. Since I had a lease contract for my room in Tromsø with me we were allowed to cross the border. At 16 o’clock we arrived in front of the house where I have a room in a shared flat. My room is quite tiny but there is place in the living room and kitchen as well. The flat is in the 2nd floor (3rd floor for Americans) and you can see the steep and partly snow covered mountains of the island Kvaløya and the mainland. It’s even possible to watch the Hurtigruten ship passing by but I didn’t see it yet.
Yesterday we made a car trip to Sommarøya, a peninsula with some beautiful beaches. We bathed in the Norwegian Sea. At 11 °C water temperature it was warmer than excepted. In contrary to the Bothnian Bay – the northernmost part of the Baltic Sea – the Norwegian Sea won’t freeze in the winter because of the Gulf Stream. So I can winter bath the whole winter without chopping ice if I want to.
Two images of yesterday:
Today we will make another day trip, tomorrow we’ll start to head home to Sweden again.
And the quarantine? Well – we shall stay home, but we are allowed to buy food and to be in nature as long we are able to keep distance to others. So the restrictions were quite lax. Mostly it’s the museums and the public transport (including the cable car Fjellheisen) that we have to avoid.
P.S.: Now all things have more or less found a place in the flat and I can enter my room shown on the 3rd photo above.
Have I told you, that the weather in Norway is constantly changing? So it was as well when I continued my road trip the day before yesterday.
It wasn’t cold, but most of the precitipation came as snow and even by the sea everything was white.
In Hofles I waited for the ferry to Lund which takes 25 minutes. I love standing onboard and watch the snow covered hills and mountains pass.
On the other side there was first less snow, …
… but as soon as the road climbed up a bit everything was white again. Here are two photos from a barbecue hut by the road 74 to Sweden. The first one from now, the other made in August 2016.
This time I have booked a cabin in advance. It is in Rötviken, 20 km behind the Norwegian-Swedish border. Although the campsite is by the road it is really quiet. Hardly any car uses this road.
I was tired from all the driving of the last days and fell fast asleep. The next day I would take it easy.
What a beautiful morning! The sun came out the first time since I left Solberget four days ago. Two dogs were barking. Did they bark at me? Now, it was the two moose that were about to cross the road but then turned too the the lake Hotagen.
This day I didn’t have to go far, just 140 km along broad roads through the Swedish forest. Easy to drive but a bit boring to look at.
I made a short stopover in Östersund, the largest town in the county Jämtland.
Then I continued to Orrviken.
Today I will spend my day here and repack my things for a ski tour that I will start with two friends tomorrow. Then I’ll be offline for about two weeks.
Vi hörs – see ya.
From the wintry fjäll to the rainy coast
It’s only one day of travelling, hardly 300 km, but today was filled with a lot of varying great experiences and feels like a complete holiday.
After breakfast I leave Hemavan behind and again I travel to Norway, this time taking the road 73 via Joesjö. It’s just below zero and it’s snowing. I cross Norway and now the snowfall intenes. It’s snowing handkerchiefs and the visibilty is poor. Within minutes the road is covered with a fresh layer of snow.
The heavy snowfall lasts only short and soon visibility is much better. Twice I pass an open barrier. This route section can be closed when the weather is severe. If this should happen to me I’d choose to wait on the western side. What a cozy shelter the Norwegians have built there.
Now I’m really in Norway. It’s just impossible to describe the zillions of different impressions. It’s the endless combinations of different landscapes, different moods and different weather that makes travelling through Norway so interesting and inspiring.
An example image, from bottom to top: a river rushing through a canyon. Above that a hill with a green coniferous forest. Above that a mountain with a forest covered with fresh snow. Above that a high mountain over the timber line, completely encased with white snow. Above that clouds bringing snow or rain (depending on the altitude) and the sun trying to peek through a cloud gap. And that’s one of a thousand images.
I do not even try to photo all the different scenic moods because it would take ages. And by the way: there are hardly any parking opportunities by the roads.
So I publish just some travelogue photos, mostly taken through the windscreen.
At 14:25 I arrive in Vennesund. Here I have to take a ferry to continue my trip south. An hour later my car is in the belly of the ship and I am on deck. It’s windy, but warm with +4 °C. I’m the only one on deck. The journey takes only 20 minutes.
After leaving the ferry I continue my road trip and the landscape is as gorgeous as before.
Anyway I got quite tired and I’m longing for a cosy place to stay. I plan to take the first opportunity. At the branch, where the 802 leaves to Bogen I see some kind of camping kiosk. I leave the car and meet an elderly man, who gives me his cabin for a night. It costs 800 NOK, but first it’s Norway and then this cabin by the fjord is a welcome luxury after travelling by car for three days.
Now I have to check the weather forecast for tomorrow. I’m in a winter mood and long for snow!
I’m sitting in the bus somewhere in Northern Finland. We just passed the sign “Tornio 410 km”. Are we there, it’s only some more minutes to Haparanda from where a car ride of another 270 km awaits us. Then I’m home.
Home from the incredible interesting and inspiring but also exhausting Barents Press International Media Conference that took place in Tromsø for two days. Great speakers, great talks! Here are some of the topics:
At the same time winter had come back to Northern Scandinavia and so to Tromsø. I used the mornings and evenings to walk round or just visit the roof terrace of our hotel to make some pictures of Tromsø.
Thursday 2 May – the weather is quite nice. I’m glad to walk around after the long bus trip there.
Friday 3 May – the morning is windy. First it’s dry but then snow showers rack over Tromsø for the rest of the day. Some of them are quite intense.
Saturday 4 May – Tromsø is covered with fresh snow. The air is cold but the ground is warm and so the snow is partly melting again. In the evening some very intense snow showers cover Tromsø with more snow.
Sunday 5 May – partly cloudy, partly blue sky that reflects in the sea water. And so do the ships.
Although I enjoyed the conference it was a bit of a pity that I didn’t have more time to take pictures and explore the city. On the other side I’ve been in Tromsø several time and probably will be there again.
I would love to work there for some months but the tax rules of the non-EU-member Norway would make that quite complicated because then I had to declare taxes both in Sweden and in Norway.
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 “2019-02: Northern Norway”.
I’m writing this blog article from the train. We left Trondheim central station ten minutes ago at 7:50, at 9:22 I’ll be Storlien in Sweden where I’ll have to change train. But back to the day before yesterday evening. The Hurtigruten ship MS Lofoten had just left Stamsund …
22:30 – we just had left Stamsund. The next stop would be Bodø at 2:30 in the night.
As expected I overslept Bodø, stop #18 of my Hurtigruten journey to Trondheim. I was awakened by a loud, squeaky noise. It was our ship leaving Ørnes, stop #19. It scraped along the huge truck tires that are fixed to all piers to avoid damages and made an awful noise. One hour later I stood on deck and looked at the MS Spitsbergen, the ship that Chris and I visited eight days ago. It had been in Bergen and now was returning to Kirkenes.
At half past nine we passed Polarsirkelmonumentet, a monument marking the polar circle. It looks a bit alike as the more famous monument at the North Cape.
But – where’s the winter? We were not only going south, we also had unusually warm weather for mid-February. Beside of the higher mountains most snow had melted and the landscape looked more like a rainy September day than the middle of winter.
Later there was a little ceremony for having crossed the polar circle. I have crossed it many times but I participated too. Obediently, I took a spoonful of cod liver oil, because I wanted to have the spoon that you may keep.
I have to admit, that the journey started to become a bit boring. The winter was far up north, the weather was warm and rainy and I’ve been on the ship for three days already. I made some pictures anyway.
Next stop Nesna, stop #20.
Next stop Sandnessjøen, stop #21.
Here I even took some detail photos of the MS Lofoten from the pier.
We travelled along the Helgelandskysten, the coast of Helgeland. It’s a well-known scenic route which Annika and I took some years ago after having visiting friends in Norway. First it showed a funny combination of ancient mountains and modern functional houses.
De syv søstre (the seven sisters) came into view and seemed to follow us for half an hour. This is a quite impressive mountain range with seven summits. Some of the tops were in the clouds that made the view maybe less postcard compatible but in my opinion more impressive. The mountains looked higher with their summits hanging in the clouds.
Next stop Brønnøysund, stop #22. Here we had a stopover of an hour. When I left the ship rain was pouring down and I was glad about my Gore-Tex clothes that I actually didn’t plan to wear before April.
We left Brønnøysund at 17:00 and it was still quite light. Half an hour later it became so dark that you could hardly see anything but the lights of towns, villages, streets, cars and other ships.
Next stop Rørvik, stop #23 and the last stop before Trondheim. The weather was just as bad and Rørvik in a rainy winter evening is probably not the most beautiful place, especially when there’s a huge construction site in the middle of the village. Soon I returned to the ship that lay head-to-head with the Hurtigruten ship Nordlys. Some very last photos of the tour.
At half past nine we left Rørvik. I was already lying in my bed in cabin 121. The alarm clock was set to 6 o’clock in the next morning. The next day we would arrive in Trondheim where I would leave the Hurtigruten, take a taxi to the railway station and then the 7:50 train to Storlien. There I would take another train to Sundsvall and a third one to Umeå. In Umeå I would stay with Annika for a night and travel home by bus the next day.
Our train just stopped in Gudå. 20 more kilometres and I’ll be back in Sweden. Ha det bra, Norge. Takk for turen.