I couldn’t sleep. Not at all! At 1:30 I gave up and went out for a walk. And took some photos. Black and white. By the coast. Snow showers.
Now I try to catch some sleep. Good night!
____
Not I see, that the 2nd JPEG has quite strong colour artefacts. I may correct that. Later.
Since yesterday evening I am back in my “work town” Tromsø. How I got here after 17 hours of travelling is another story. I only mention that it among others had to do with snow.
And snow we got in Tromsø as well. Round 30 cm of fresh, clean snow cover the ground, the houses, the trees and build fields of slush in the shallow parts of the sea.
These photos are from a short promenade from Telegrafbukta and Sydspissen.
OK guys, it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m too lazy to write long texts. I just show some photos of the last days where our German friend Medi joined Annika and me on various excursions with some notes.
+++ Västermarks naturreservat, 50 km north from Umeå +++ a non-commercial forest made us climb over and under fallen trees that lay across the marked loop trail +++ by the trail a wooden cabin +++ time was too short to fire the oven but lighting candles is cozy, too +++
+++ right next to our postbox (500 metres from our house) starts Spåret, a 3600 metre long forest trail +++ we use back-country skis to ski Spåret in my prolonged lunch break +++ we, that’s Dirk – guest for two nights – Medi and I +++ -12 °C, but my Anorak is too warm +++ I tie it round my hip +++ on the photo it looks like a skirt +++
Photo: Dirk Thomas
+++ grey weather, -14 °C +++ the trees are covered with snow +++ black-and-white imagery +++ after some days of back-country skiing it’s nice to use cross-country skis on a real trail +++
+++ 1 o’clock in the night +++ I check for Northern lights +++ we are lucky +++ Medi and Annika watch the aurora beside of the garage +++ I take some photos from our garden +++
+++ 8:20 in the morning +++ the Baltic Sea freezes over more and more +++ sunrise colours by the sea +++ and then in our garden +++ watching sunrise while taking breakfast +++
+++ just a short walk at one of Annika’s and my favourite places: Strömbäck-Kont +++ looking at the ice ridge by the sea +++
+++ after lunch we are taking Medi to the airport +++ strong and colourful parhelion or sun dogs halos +++ the photo is taken at the airport +++ I am questioned by the security and show the taken photos to prove I’m not a spy +++
Why, oh why was the forecast of Yr right? Already a week ago it forecasted a period of thaw and heavy rainfall. And Wednesday it started to rain. Just now I’m listening to another cloudburst bucketing down on the roof.
The snow is gone and the ways and small streets are very icy. When it continues raining like this even the ice may have thawed and washed away soon.
It looks almost like autumn but with a huge difference: It’s dark. The photos above I made at lunch break on my last working day this year.
It’s a pity! Just today my wife Annika will arrive so that we can spend Christmas time together. It would have been lovely with a lot of snow but even though it shall be colder again soon it does not look like we get some.
On Tuesday we got some snow in Tromsø. On Wednesday it already has melted away. But last night a bit of snow arrived.
Today I chose a shorter tour from my book “På tur in Tromsø” (On tour in Tromsø) because I just wanted an easy hike, not a full-grown mountain tour. The weather agreed with me.
By the sea only a bit of wet snow and sleet covered the ground but already 50 meter higher the gravel path was covered with 10 cm of snow. Deep tyre tracks were carved in the snow. This part of the tour was very easy. Just follow the road up until you reach the radio unit on the Tønsnesvarden (281 m) and try not to slip, because under the snow there are some icy patches.
This summit has a big radio station on its top. Even in the increasing snow fall is was quite visible. Now I walked through 20 cm of snow. After an hour I arrived at the radio station, where I met the creator of the deep tyre tracks: A six-wheeled ATV.
It wasn’t cold but a windy. It snowed more and more and the wet snow glued itself to my jacket. On my way back I left the main road and followed a small path on my digital map on my iPhone. I stopped in a forest of birches with thin and long stems. I loved the motive, but my Nikon camera gave up in this wet weather. The lens was fogged up in the inside and in the dense and wet snowfall I didn’t dare to change lens. One photo worked out ok anyhow:
Soon I realised that some of the paths drawn on the map did not exist in reality (at least not in winter) while others that exist were not part of the map. So I went cross-county through pathless terrain, partly dens forest, partly wetlands with many small streams to cross. It took only 15 minutes until I reached the other gravel road leading down again. Now the iPhone was in charge for making pictures.
I followed the path down. With each metre altitude I lost there was less snow on the ground and the snow fall became more and more sleet. When I arrived at my car my anorak was soaking wet. Having seat warmers in a car is a great feature after such a tour.
For the records: 6.5 km, round 300 metres in altitude. Temperature round 0°C.
When I show pictures of mountain tours and hilly hikes it is easy to forgot, that Norway has not only mountains but the sea, too. This is an iPhone snapshot I took from some metres from my parked car. What you cannot see is the mountains of the island Kvaløya, 3.8 km away. They are hidden in the snow clouds.
What do you do with photos taken with a fogged up lens? You start to experiment. I mean, the photo is spoiled anyhow. But the result of today’s experimentation turned out nice in my opinion.
This article is part of the series “2021-07: Back in Tromsø”.
Two days ago I took a promenade to take some autumn photos. I soon broke of the walk because the asphalt was partly frozen and slippery as hell. It was a mistake to leave my spikes home.
On my mountain tour yesterday I both experienced autumnal and wintry conditions. And I had spikes for my boots with me. While I had been writing the blog article yesterday it had started snowing and that’s how it looked today.
My first snow in Tromsø this season. Yay! 8–10 cm had fallen and while I walked to work it started to snow again. Temperature was below zero and the snow was fluffy. It was fun to walk in the snow.
Looks like winter, doesn’t it? But if the forecast is right it will get warmer again already tomorrow afternoon and rain a lot in the night. A short pleasure.
This article is part of the series “2021-07: Back in Tromsø”.
This article is part of the series “2021-08: Northern Norway”.
This sign marks the only Russian–Norwegian border station. In February 2018 I crossed this border to Russia together with Annika and two friends. This time we stay in Norway and I take just a photo of the sign.
Our destination today (which is 30 August): Grense Jakobselv, a small border village. As the road to Hamningberg the road there is opened only in summertime and we never have been there before.
It starts like a typical car trip. The road goes along the Jarfjorden and a large lake. In Vintervollen the road turns right and we see the barrier that closes the road in winter. It is open. Now the road leads over the mountains. The rocks here are the oldest in Norway with an average age of 2.9 billion years. I’m not a rock expert and so I take a photo of a birch instead of a random rock whose type and age I cannot determine.
We reach the small river Jakobselva. This small and shallow river is special because here it marks the Norwegian–Russian border. The pink salmon (also called humpback salmon) do not care, they are busy to go upstreams and not all fish succeed.
We continue to the village Grense Jakobselv. For me the biggest surprise was the chapel. In my view every northern Norwegian church is made of wood and painted white. Not the King Oscar II Chapel (built 1869) that is made of stone.
While I wasn’t properly prepared about the church I knew something else: There is a sandy beach. It is at the very end of the road. Annika and I take a bath. Water temperature is about 11–12 °C. It feels quite strange to change clothes for a bath while you can hear the Norwegian army practising shooting.
As many minor roads in northern Norway the road to Grense Jakobselv is a dead-end road and so we have to drive the very same road back. After having been back we get something we have missed on the journey so far: an afternoon nap!
This article is part of the series “2021-07: Back in Tromsø”.
Yesterday after work I started the weekend with a “scouting expedition” by car. I drove over the bridge Tromsøbrua and took the way to Oldervik. On the way I stopped several times to get to know Tromsø’s surroundings and to look for photo motives.
Some photos from yesterday: Common cotton grass and some mountains from the Lyngen Alps.
