Cold drizzle and snow on the weekend May 20 2024

After a summer day on Sommarøya on Friday, the weather got colder again on the weekend and it started drizzling and raining. Both on Saturday and Sunday I took walks in the forest near my apartment. Ten days ago I still saw some cross country skiers, but now the season is definitely over, I think while I’m walking along the wet paths.

Yesterday it got colder and colder and drizzle became sleet. In the evening it started snowing and this morning at least five centimetres of fresh snow had fallen at temperatures round 1 °C. I took a small walk through the forest again – it looked quite different.

Today the wintry weather may continue and I won’t drive through the mountain valleys since my car has already summer tyres. Tomorrow warmer weather and sun will melt the snow away.

Tromsøya between the seasons May 9 2024

Today I took a promenade on Tromsøya. In the beginning of May the island is between the seasons. Partly late winter, partly early spring. Some areas are free of snow while on others still a lot of snow covers the ground. Now it is time to look carefully not to break through the snow and fall into the next ditch.

Walking off the tracks can be exhausting, because the snow is often knee to thigh deep. Therefore I mostly followed the ski trails. They are not prepared anymore and get narrower and wetter …

… but as long as there is snow there are people to ski. At least a few.

Ski tour in Sweden – side trip to Nallo Mar 23 2024

This article is part of the series “2024-02: Ski tour Sweden”.

Day 10 – 7 March – Vistas—Nallo

After our break day in Vistas we have planned to go for a side trip to Nallo, a small STF cabin embedded in high mountains just nine or ten kilometres away. We will stay there overnight. The weather forecast looks great for today (sunny and calm) and ok for tomorrow (overcast but also calm). In the morning it was -13 °C but temperatures are rising quickly.

After breakfast we pack our things, but leave some items behind. We’ll be back tomorrow. Our friend Dirk who is stugvärd here accompanies us a bit then we start our ski tour. Then we continue alone up the valley Stuor Reaiddávággi.

We arrive at lunch time and make something warm to eat. This time no packet soup as usual, but trekking food (mostly powder). Quite ok, if you ask me. I manage to take a photo of the cabin in the sun, that shines here for less than an hour this season because of the high mountains in the south.

The cabin is an Abrahamssonsstuga (or Fjällstuga 65). This type of cabin has 21 places and was built a lot in the mountains between 1965 and 1973. It can happen that you hike the whole day to arrive at a cabin that looks exactly alike the one you left in the morning. However, I like them if there are not too crowded and this night we will be only six people (plus the stugvärd) sleeping there.

At dinner we eat trekking food again, this time another brand. That pulp was the most disgusting stuff I have eaten for ages and neither of us manages to finish the meal. Good, that we have chocolate left to cover the bad taste. After dinner another polar light is building up. First just a thin stripe like a spotlight, then it broadens. At the same time the first clouds have started gathering but are held back by the mountains.

Day 11 – 8 March – Nallo—Vistas

Oh, the weather forecast was correct. It is cloudy today. However we have an easy job today: Just skiing back the 9 (or is it 10?) km and loose 220 metres of altitude. Breakfast, packing, doing our cabin duties and off we go.

While Nallo was above the tree line Vistas isn’t. First there are single birth trees than birch forests. Back with the trees comes the animal life, mostly the ptarmigans that sometimes sit on a branch of a birch looking like big, fluffy snowballs. Not the best camouflage … . What we however do not see are the four moose. We will see them later from the cabin using a binocular.

And then we are at Vistas and the Sauna is almost ready.

After sauna Annika is preparing the farewell dinner. Dirk already had watered the dried potatoes, feta cheese and vegetable in the morning, now she is making frittata with porcini mushrooms. Delicious! Dirk contributes the dessert and we have a “gemütlich” evening together. It’s Annika’s and my last day in the mountains. Today we will reach civilisation again.

Ski tour in Sweden – Sälka—Tjäktja Mar 19 2024

This article is part of the series “2024-02: Ski tour Sweden”.

Day 5 – 2 March – Sälka—Tjäktja

It is our second morning in Sälka. The night was quiet – no storm, no snow. That’s quite a bit of luck for the travel group that left pulkas and skis on the ground without even thinking about finding shelter for their equipment.

Pulka chaos – how not to stay over in wintertime

Today Annika and I will have a short distance to ski. It’s only twelve kilometres to Tjäktja but we have to cross the Tjäktjapasset which is pretty steep. 8:15 – we say goodbye to the warden and his friend and follow the undulating terrain north. We can already see the pass in the distance. It is still 8 km away.

The terrain is still undulating but it slowly changes. First we skied up and down, now we ski up or straight ahead, a sign that the terrain starts to rise.

Ah, I love my pulka. Most of the time I can pull it effortlessly over the hard snow, although there is a lot of food in it and a tripod and safety equipment and two down jackets and other clothes two sleeping backs and more. But when I have to climb steeper passages I realise that both my fitness and my strength could be better. So at the pass I have to take small breaks to catch my breath. The next photo is taken by Annika and long before the steep passage where we were too occupied to take any pictures.

Each of us climbs up in his/her own pace.

Me ascending Tjäktjapasset (Photo: Annika Kramer)

But then we are on the edge of a platform where I just must look back. 19 years ago on my very first ski tour I stood there and was completely flabbergasted when I looked into this valley Tjäktjavagge. And so it still is today. We stand there for a while before we continue skiing further up the pass.

Whew, that was exhausting, but now we are on 1100 m, the highest altitude on our tour. Time to take a rest at the shelter. No photos, just some tea and nuts before we continue. Now it only goes down, down, down and we remove our climbing skins. Soon Tjäktja comes into view. It is smaller then the other cabins on the Kungsleden. To our surprise we are the only guests tonight.

Inside the kitchen – outside the kitchen

Day 6 – 3 March – Tjäktja

The weather on this tour has been extraordinary well and today we have another sunny day with blue sky. We are staying at Tjäktja and after breakfast we start our “duties”. The stugvärd (warden) is sawing logs, I am chopping wood. And then Annika and I take two empty canisters to fetch water. This means we have to go down to the frozen river where there is a hole and some tools to crush the ice. We have heard that the ice was very slippery and so we put on our spikes. Good choice.

The first container I pull up the snowy slope. Yes, it works but it is pretty exhausting. The other container Annika drags over the ice. I fetch the first container and we pull both back to the cabin. Well – pull … . It is a bit like walking puppy dogs. Twenty kilo puppy dogs. The containers stay behind, hurry ahead, bump into each other and then leave the path again. But finally we “walked” them home and have 40 litres of fresh and ice cold water from the river Čeavččanjira.

I go down to the river again to take some photos. I like the bridge and the icy area beneath.

But what I really love is the huge snow drift hanging there near the now frozen and invisible waterfall. I crawl in more and more until I can make the last of the three photos from my private “snow cave”.

Resting days are made for – well – resting. We are reading and taking a nap while other guests arrive. Slowly the sun is setting and the colours on the mountains go pink.

Time to cook and eat something. Right after dinner a beautiful polar lights have formed, although the sky is still kind of blue and not black yet. What a luxury to see it so early.

The northern lights are lasting for hours and are everywhere. Annika and I are standing there for a long time together with two people from Switzerland. Every now and then I leave to take photos. And more photos. It is an incredible experience to see the aurora far away from the light pollution of the cities. This is an extremely beautiful moment and this evening which marks the first half of our ski tour is a perfect end of the day.

Yes. The northern light continues, but the photographer has to catch some sleep. God natt. Good night.

A nightly snowwalk Feb 20 2024

I woke up at 4:20 and since it still snowed I decided to to go out to take a photo. Or two. Taking a photo – or two – became a longer promenade in the snowy neighbourhood.

Just some photos before I continue sleeping. My sleeping room is behind the window behind the bush on the second photo. You see it?

For the stats: Last Saturday 90 of snow were measured at the meteorological station Tromsø PLU. Now it’s 128.4 cm.

Almost like a ski tour Feb 18 2024

When I look at these photos it looks like I’ve been on a multi-day ski tour. Deep snow, packed pulka, white mountains, snowy forests, a snowed in cabin, a cosy fire in the oven. And more snow.

But these photos do not come from a long ski tour but from five different locations nearby. Some are on Tromsøya, some on Kvaløya and the photos were taken within the last two weeks.

1. A short ski tour near Håkøybotn, Kvaløya.

I was tired, I was lazy, I was in a couch potato mood. Anyhow I managed to take the car to the Håkøybotn graveyard to do a little ski promenade up the hills. The snow was fluffy and when I was almost back at the car I realised, that it was quite deep too in some places, when I put off my skis …

2. Sunrise

Last Saturday I could see how the sun slowly started to illuminate the snowy mountains on the island Kvaløya in the morning. What’s special about this is that I took these photos from the balcony of my new flat. Yes, it’s a 600mm telephoto shot and the photos are slightly blurry but that doesn’t reduce the experience standing there and watching the daylight appear.

3. Pulka test tour

The last ski tour I did was with Annika in 2020. In 2021 Covid prevented a tour. In 2022 I was on my first arctic cruise instead. In 2023 I worked on Svalbard for a week and we had vacation there.

But our next ski tour is just a week away. So the question was – does my pulka sledge still work? So I tested it last Sunday and everything seems to be ok. Nice!

4. A cozy fire in the oven

Back home I changed clothes and fired the oven in my cozy new flat. I don’t use it for heating, but for hygge.

5. Today’s ski tour

It has snowed quite a lot and last night the official snow depth exceeded 100 cm for the first time this winter. I put on my skis already on my parking place and skied up to the forest, where I first followed the tracks and then went “off-piste” though the forest. The snow was so fluffy that I couldn’t see my skis anymore. There were somewhere under 30 cm of snow.

Now the days are getting longer and longer and when I’m back from our ski tour I guess I can just do such shorter ski trips right after work.

Bonus

There are three holes in the photo grid shown at the beginning of the article. Time for three more photos. Why I didn’t put them into the grid? Because they do not look like ski tour photos. I made them on different shore locations on the island Kvaløya on my way back from the ski tour two weeks ago. Here they come:

The last way to work by the sea Dec 8 2023

As most days I walked to work today. It’s 2–2.5 km one-way depending on the route. Sometimes I am lazy and just follow the main road, but today I took the longer route by the sea.

7:09 – I come to the part of the way that is flooded sometimes. Today I’m lucky. I don’t wear boots but shoes with spikes because the roads and pavements are icy.

11:51 – an early lunch. After some grey days the sky is clear again and in the south you see the colours of the sun. The sun itself is below the horizon.

11:51 – view from the canteen of the Framsenteret

13:45 – today I go leave early. Later I’ll work a bit from home. Since it is early it is not really dark yet. The sky is still blue and there is a golden spot at the southern sky.

I love this way and I will miss it, because it probably was the last time that I went to work here today. Next week I’m first on vacation and then I’ll move to a larger apartment within Tromsø. It has a bedroom, a real kitchen and even a balcony. I’m so looking forward to moving in but I’ll miss my way to work by the sea.

A short November promenade Nov 12 2023

This weekend I planned to be lazy and so I was but since the weather was so beautiful today that I decided to take a walk by the coast. There are only two other weekends with a chance to see the sun in Tromsø, then polar night begins.

Some today’s snapshots:

Autumn tour to the glacier Steindalsbreen Sep 25 2023

After being abroad in Germany, “home home” in Sweden and on vacation in the Netherlands for almost a month I have returned to Tromsø, my “work home” one week ago. Time to work again for the Norwegian Polar Institute but not only that …

Some days ago my colleague Marika asked me if we should go out for a hike to the glacier Steindalsbreen in the weekend. I knew the place from hearsay but never have been there. I gladly accepted – I like hiking with good company. Yesterday on Sunday we met at 7 o’clock and off we went. First by car.

Car trip

Steindalen is on the Lyngen peninsula and round about 100 km away. According to Google it takes 100 minutes but we stopped several times, either to take pictures of the reflections in the fjord or the curious fox beside the road.

Through the forest

After the car was parked we started our tourat 9:25. The birch and alder trees were clad in autumnal colours. The path led westwards through the forest along a small mountain river.

To the cabin

After the path going up and down it led nearer to the river. We passed some moraines – witnessed from the ice age – and spotted a waterfall falling vertically down from a mountain. Then the cabin Steindalshytte came into view. There is a wooden bridge to cross one of the rivers.

Through the U-shaped valley

We followed an inflow of the stream and soon the valley opened more and more. And there it was – still in the distance – the glacier!

It gets rocky

The path went further up and the ground started go get rockier and we left the delta like wetlands behind. But still there were many crouching plants present, many of them in the brightest autumnal colours.

Approaching the glacier

A hill and the glacier Steindalsbreen came in full view, another hill also the glacial lake in the front. Quite depressing were the signs that marked the retreat of the glacier. Oh – so many hundred metres in so few years ;-(

Nearer and nearer …

The first photos Marika and I took from the edge of the glacial lake. Then we followed a path to the right that brought us nearer to the ice. Here we walked on gravel covered ice. I found a hole, perhaps 80 cm in diameter and 150 cm deep.

On the mud flats

As usual I hiked with rubber boots and so I could walk on the sandy mudflats right in front of the glacier. Oh, so beautiful the turquoise blocks of ice!

Mud, ice, and water

I also took some photos of the ground. Was it sand? Hard mud? Ice? Sometimes probably all the three.

Then I looked back to the lake. Hard to imagine that we hiked through autumnal forests some hours ago. This landscape looks eternal somehow although it is the opposite: very fragile and threatened by the global warming.

Heading back

After a meal break by a large rock it was time to head back. The times of midnight sun and bright nights are over and at 7 o’clock in the evening it would be dark. Just some more photos from our way back.

After round eight hours we were back at my car. What I great tour!

Takk for turen, Marika!

Tverrfjellet on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Aug 6 2023