Three kind moose Jan 28 2021

Sometimes I have to interrupt my work for the Norwegian Polar Institute that I’ve been doing from home in Obbola/Sweden since late November. It’s my home office window to blame. Sometimes it’s a beautiful sunrise that I can witness and sometimes it’s animals.

Today it was three moose, mother and two kids. First they stood on the other side of our bay Grundviken and gnawed a bush. I put on boots and winter parka, got out and went into hiding behind a fence. The mother looked skeptically in my direction but the moose stayed. After taking some photos I went in again. Just when I started continuing my work, they came nearer crossing Grundviken. I jumped into boots and parka again and managed to make a nice photo before they vanished behind our neighbours house.

Thank you for your visit. You’re welcome to drop by again.

The forest is covered in snow Jan 24 2021

Snow fell in the last two weeks. Not in the South of Sweden, much less in the North of Lapland, but a lot in the province Västerbotten where Annika and I live, amongst others a bit west and north of Umeå.

Today we wanted to go up the hill Hemberget in Tavelsjö (or at least try). We parked our car at the church, crossed the road and skied up to the cemetery. There we followed the advice of a sign to cross the cemetery. Leaving the wrought iron gate behind we were lucky to find a snowmobile trail to follow through the forest. The forest was deeply covered in snow.

The trail crossed a cross-country ski run twice and vanished into thin air. We followed the way marks on the ski run and then left it to continue on untouched snow. At least we tried. While I managed to ski ten metres, Annika who has much shorter skis was bogged down in the deep powder. It was no surprise, I already guessed that we wouldn’t reach the top due to the snow conditions. So we changed plans and skied on the Tavelsjö skidspår, the cross-country ski run. A short, but extremely beautiful circular trail. It was so fun to slide on the perfectly prepared run that I forgot to take any photos.

Cabins at the forests edge (taken on our return trip by car)

The snow in the forest was round 130 cm deep. How I measured it? With my ski pole, which is 150 cm long. I sticked it into the snow at many places and looked about how much was left in average. But there’s also another method of measurement:

The photo was taken three steps beside the ski run. Here the snow was so loose, that even with skis I stood knee deep in snow, sinking deeper with every motion. I unmounted the skis and hopped. With a PLOP! – I landed in chest deep powder snow and took a selfie for my blog. Then I wanted to continue to catch up with Annika. I wasn’t stuck but I didn’t I manage to get my feet onto the skis that now lay one metre above my feet in the powder. I had to crawl back to the ski run where it was easy again to mount. I guess we never would have reached the summit of Hemberget today, at least not with these skis.

So I plan to look for Tegsnäs skis for Annika. It’s time. These wooden skis are a much better choice for such snow. There are 225 – 240 cm long and also broader than normal tour skis. Disadvantage: I’m not sure if we manage to put them into Annika’s Volkswagen Golf. Well, we’ll see …

After the snow … Jan 22 2021

Where’s the way to our house?

Another snow warning level 2 Jan 21 2021

Just nine days after the last snow warning that brought up to a metre snow in Västernorrland another snow warning was issued for today. And it has been snowing (and still is) and blowing since early morning. Time for a ski tour through the forest between two meetings …

Why I have time for a ski tour when working? Because as an employee of the Norwegian Polar Institute you have the right to two paid hours of training/sport/outdoor activities each week. One of the advantages of being employed there!

I went Spåret – “the track”, a circular route just 500 metres from here. It’s 3½ km long and leads through forests, over rock and along some swamps. Now with half a metre of snow you only see the the forest. Anything else is covered by white snow. And so is the small boggy pond: You should know where the planks cross it because under the snow there is still liquid mud.

This time the plank bridge was easy to find, because I could see the ski tracks that Annika and I left last weekend, when we skied Spåret the first time. I continued through the forest. I have jogged and promenaded this track many times, otherwise I hardly would have found the way.

Skiing was quite exhausting because my skis sank down at least 20 cm with each step, sometimes even knee deep. Will I come back in time to participate the next meeting? I guess I have to ski faster and take less photos. The last one I took was when I crossed Södra Obbolavägen, our only road to “civilisation”.

To make it short: I arrived in time.

Some hours later I had a special after work activity: clearing a roof of snow. Most roofs had been blown free but there was one large snowdrift on the roof of our main house that I shovelled away while standing on the old metal ladder.

Clearing the roof (Screenshot of a movie, that Annika Kramer made)

The ladder stands still there. Probably I’ll have to do some more shovelling tomorrow again. While I write this blog entry a huge snowdrifts starts to cover the bottom part of my home office window. What a pity, that it probably will rain on Saturday. One of the few disadvantages when living directly by the coast where it uses to be warmer than in the inland.

Ice fog and hard rime Jan 20 2021

When it’s cold – -17 °C yesterday morning – and large parts of the Baltic Sea is still open ice fog forms over the sea. When this fog turns to the land hard rime will cover the bare trees making them look like fragile snow sculptures. A wonderful view.

Icy morning – the trees are packed in hard rime

Icy morning – some islands are surrounded by ice fog

Skiing through the winter forest Jan 19 2021

It’s -18 °C and the sun is shining. 60–70 of powder snow cover the ground. We ski through the wintry forest following a narrow trail that other skiers have carved into the snow. We cross a snow mobile track that in turn crosses a snow covered bog. We enter another snowy forest.

It’s only a day trip and soon we arrive at the forest cabin which is open. We are alone and make a small fire in the oven while I try to take pictures of the Siberian jays but they are shy.

I just love Lapland in winter!

But …

This is not Lapland. It’s the Västermark nature reserve and this is just 77 km away from home. Annika and I went there last Sunday to enjoy the great winter weather and so we made our first little backcountry ski tour together this winter. More to come …

Translation:

English	German	Swedish
Siberian jay	Unglückshäher	Lavskrika

Embracing the winter Jan 14 2021

Today? Thursday. A normal working day at my home office in Obbola, Sweden. Well – almost.

(1) There’s this incredible view from my home office.

Morning by the sea – seen from my home office

(2) … and the possibility to take a small break and plunge through deep snow. First to our “own” bay Grundviken, then to the coast. The ice fog above the open sea glows in the rising sun.

(3) … and the after-work cross-country skiing on “Olles Spår” together with Annika. It’s -19 °C but as long as you are moving, you stay warm.

After that: Thai food. Then home. Hot shower. Outside temperature: -20.4 °C, this winter’s coldest day yet.

Ski premieres 2021 Jan 13 2021

The first ski premiere was already last Saturday. We were not the only ones who read that Olles Spår, a cross country ski track northwest of Umeå was freshly prepared. The parking place was filled with eighty other cars when we arrived. We took the 5 km lap. Oh, so nice to be able to ski again!

Being back at the car there were even more cars. They filled the parking place and parked along the road as well. But at least one of the skiers didn’t came by car but by bike.

Today I had my backcountry premiere. I was so eager after the snowfall yesterday and last night.

It took some preparation. First I had to dig free the garage door to fetch the old skis (the new ones are in Tromsø). Then I had to thaw the door look of our house with a hair dryer to be able to lock the door. But finally I could start. I took the way to our beach Vitskärsudden but as expected it looked quite different from last week.

The car roads were cleared but there was just enough snow to ski. The plain was partly easy to ski, partly the snow was so loose that my skis went submarine. Here I heard and felt the first **whooop**, the sound of a larger area of snow settling under my weight. A clear sign of avalanche danger in the mountains but no problem here.

And then I arrived at the beach. While the sea was open again, the beach was only ice and snow. Probably the ice floes that prevented our previous winter bathing had been washed ashore yesterday morning, when we had a water level of +60 cm.

I decided to follow the shore to the left. I never went there before. There were snowdrifts where I sank to my knees with skis on and I know that there are a lot of rocks, but skiing went better than excepted.

Oh – so many motives. But this tour was only an extended lunch break from work. I didn’t have as much time as desired. Following the coastal line slowed me down because of the uneven and icy underground and finally I had to go back into the forest.

Anyhow I was slowed down even more in the forest because the snow was so loose that I got bogged down to the ground all the time and then my skis got caught in the underwood. I was glad when I reached a road again. Now I just headed back until I arrived home two hours later – later than planned.

And after the ski tour? Back to work!

Fresh snow fell home over night Jan 13 2021

After yesterday’s snow, that mostly hissed by horizontally due to wind speeds up to 24 m/s the wind was calming down over night. To my surprise 20 additional cm of snow fell on the ground last night without having being blown away.

What a wonderful winter morning. Hardly any wind, still snowing, -7 °C and our house dressed in white velvet.

Snow covered pine in the noonday sun. Jan 3 2021

#justaphoto