Black and white weather
+1 °C, grey and hazy with some rainy showers. I ignore the weather and go out for a longer walk. Time to put a black and white film in the iPhone.
Another snow warning level 2
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.
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.
Skiing through the winter forest
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 |
Two weekends home in Obbola
28. November – crisp and partly sunny
6. December – warm, grey and rainy
If the landscape is dull and grey – photograph in black and white!
Lunch break
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Days grow shorter and shorter in Tromsø so I took a small outside promenade in my lunch break to catch a bit of daylight. Tromsø is so beautiful with 10 cm of fresh snow that had fallen since yesterday.
I’m not sure if the snow will stay for longer or melt away soon but it doesn’t matter for me. That’s because on Sunday I’ll take the airplane home to Obbola in Sweden and will stay there the rest of the year.
But that’s another story that will be told on Sunday when I’ll spend many hours in Oslo Gardermoen and Stockholm Arlanda waiting for the connection flights.
Just a detour to work
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Though Saturday I went to the Norwegian Polar Institute yesterday to get a handover from a former colleague. I went however not the direct way (20 minutes) but a long detour (90 minutes) to catch some air and some light before being in the office until dark.
Just some photos taken with my mobile.
It’s nice to go lightweight and taking pictures with the iPhone. While the photos are impressive considering the size of the lens and sensor, the quality is of course long from that of my Nikon. So next time I’ll carry more weight but probably I’ll be more content with the image quality afterwards.
Dark, windy and wet
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Perhaps you saw the photos that I took on my way to work five weeks ago. The sky was blue, it was quite warm and the sun was shining.
![[preview]](https://way-up-north.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/preview-1.jpg)
Today it was completely different. For the first it was dark. Dark on my way to work and dark again on my way back. Sunrise was at 8:33 and sunset already at 14:21.
Then it was quite windy and very rainy the whole day. Sometimes it just rained a bit, sometime it was bucketing down huge amounts.
Here are some photos from my way to work. Taken with my iPhone and black-and-white again.
The way back was more exciting. When I went round the Framsenteret – the marina to my left – I first thought I was totally lost in the dark. I didn’t know that there was a huge artificial lake to the right. I never saw it before. Carefully I tested with my rubber boot, it was 25 cm deep. Then I realised that this was no lake but the parking place. It was completely flooded. Did it really rain so much? Apparently.
I continued stomping through huge water puddles. My outfit: rubber boots – rain pants — waterproof parka – reflective vest to be seen by others – headlamp (in one of the parka pockets)
Then I realised that even the sea water level was exceptionally high. Would I be able to go back the very same gravel path you can see on the second photo? That path lies quite low and in the morning I could see a chain of seaweed lying on the side facing land. When I arrived, the way was completely gone. I could only see the water of the sea up to the site fence.
To make a long story short: I continued the path. Mostly it was 30 cm of sea water covering the gravel. That still worked with my rubber boots, but it shouldn’t have been more. I was really glad to have a bright LED lamp. Probably I wouldn’t have dared without it. And not it beacme clear that there will come a day where this part of my favourite way to work will be impassable without offshore survival equipment.
Appendix one: and the sun?
Tromsø is located at the latitude of 69° 39′ N, almost 350 km north from the polar circle. That means, that the days not only get shorter and shorter but that there’ll be a time where the sun doesn’t rise and set at all. This time is quite near: In three weeks it will be the last time you’ll be able to see the sun and then again in January.
To illustrate this I made some charts. The y axis of each chart shows the dates from 1 January (top) to 31 December (bottom). Each row shows the solar altitude for that day by color.
From left to right: München, Germany – Obbola, Sweden (my home) – Tromsø, Norway (my current workplace)
Sun | Sun (golden hour) | civil twilight | nautical twilight | astronomical twilight | deep night
These are the main differences:
München has sun each day, but a real dark night, too.
In Obbola in Northern Sweden there’s always at least 4 hours of sun (if the clouds allow it) but it hardly gets dark in summer.
Tromsø has the most extreme changes of sun altitude during the year: Round seven weeks of polar night in winter and almost ten weeks of polar days with midnight sun between May and July.
So there’s much to experience here. The next experience will be the technique sea kayak course this weekend. Probably with a lot of rain at 3 °C and on Saturday even gusty winds round 14 m/s.
October snow in Tromsø
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Yesterday evening it started to snow and this morning it still has been snowing. 10 cm of snow cover the streets, cars, houses, trees – it’s the first noteworthy snowfall in Tromsø, since I’ve been here.
The beauty of the snow won’t last long because already on Saturday it will be warmer again and it will thaw away. But hey, it’s only late October. Winter hasn’t even started yet.
And now I’ll take a short breakfast and walk to work.
My way to work
This article is part of the series “2020-10: New in Tromsø”.
Today I got the test result: corona negative. So I was allowed to go to work at the Norwegian Polar Institute. It’s a bit more than 2 km to walk and I did walk.
Here are 16 photos, from the street where I live to the entrance of the Framsenteret.
As usual: A click will enlarge the photo, then you can navigate by clicking or using the left and right cursor arrows on your keyboard.
A walk in the bog Torsmyran
Annika googled it, then we visited it shortly last Saturday, yesterday I took the opportunity to visit this bog with more time: The Torsmyran Nature Reserve.
The parking place is right next to the E4, 45 km southwest from Umeå. You open a gate (and close it behind you to keep the moose away from the road). Then you walk to a small forest strip and follow a round 100 metres long wooden ramp leading into the bog. The platform at the end of the ramp is raised so you have a nice view over the 8.3 km² large bog.
That’s it.
As long as you don’t dare to enter the bog by foot. At first the bog looks flat, but if you take a closer look you see that there are slightly higher parts, mostly covered with heather. Even pine trees grow here and the ground is safe to walk. Beside of these parts there are large areas covered with peat moss, a sure sign that you will get wet walking onto. Even with rubber boots! And there are depressions. Some are covered with water, others with brown mud.
Is the mud deep? Well, have a look at the next photo:
You see the bit of a stick sticking in the mud? That’s my walking stick that I use when hiking through bogs. It’s two metres long. Without any effort I could stick it into the mud like that. Anyhow it was possible to avoid such treacherous places in this labyrinth of humps and pools, even though I came quite near to take same pictures.
After a while I come to a line of wooden planks. Old wooden planks. Old, half rotten planks with rusty nails looking out. I decide to follow the path. First it is quite easy, but then the planks go submarine. Since both my camera and I myself are packed waterproof I continue. Although the planks were slippery I succeed without taking a bath.
There is a signpost in the middle of the bog, leading to cities and places in the area. Who needs a signpost at such a remote place? Well, winter is coming and the bog will be frozen and covered with snow. Then the whole area is easily accessible by snowmobile. And that’s what the signpost is for: Helping the snowmobile drivers.
I leave the signpost behind and continue the path. Partly the planks lie directly on the mud. *Crack!*. One of the planks breaks under my right foot but still supports my weight. When I come to another watercourse to cross and see the the planks deeply sunken into the water I decide to turn back. This passage looks quite challenging and for a round trip I would have to cross the watercourse again at another place.
Slowly I walk back to the platform at the end of the ramp. I have to zigzag a lot to avoid open water or muddy patches but I arrive. I’m quite wet and muddy from taking some photos. I however already suspected that and have spare clothes in the car and a canister with water for cleaning. And something even more important: Chocolate and something to drink!
Disclaimer: It’s not the first time that I hiked on boggy ground. It needs some experience to avoid the soft patches and knowing how to free yourself when sinking in mud. That’s why I have a long and stable walking stick with me that could support my weight in case of sinking. Take care!