Yes, yesterday afternoon the snow came back. And since I was awake at night and ten to fifteen centimetres of fresh snow covered the ground – the roads had already been cleared – I took a small night walk. Ski jump – the pond with the lifebuoy – the ski cabin and back. So much nicer (and easier to walk) than this weeks slippery roads.
(Photographers note: I edited this photo more than usual, made it black and white and then colourised it.)
When I woke up this morning another 20 cm of snow have fallen within the last 12 hours. Looking out of the living room window and through the glass door of a balcony showed snowy landscapes amidst the town of Tromsø.
At half past nine I start a ski tour, right from my place in Tromsø. My photo task for today: show at least a human artefact on each photo, not only snowy trees.
The snowploughs haven’t been there so I can ski on the streets.
The gravel road to the ski jump is covered with snow, but the cross-country skiing trail has already been prepared. I however want to ski off the beaten tracks. I follow a snow covered trail to the pond and take some photos. That takes a bit of time because the light is so dim that I use a tripod. Remember: we still have polar night for some days.
Then I leave the trail. I immediately sink into the fresh snow up to my knees – with my skis on. And so it continues. The skis are under half a metre of loose snow and sometimes I sink deeper with each step. My ski poles sometime sink in the whole way despite the large snow baskets. That makes skiing pretty exhausting. I follow a snow-covered stream that leads my to a jagged terrain with small but deep gullies. Some of them are three metres deep and impossible to cross for me. Where am I? Is this still Tromsøya? I zigzag through the hilly and snowy forest looking for possibilities to cross the gullies which involves pulling myself forward by grabbing trees. But at the same time it is marvellous to ski through the “wilderness” and I have it all to myself.
After a while I reach another path, also deep in snow. But at least I sink in only 20-30 cm into the snow now and I’m glad that I can just ski along.
The way leads up and down and ends on the main cross-country skiing trail that seems to be prepared permanently. I step aside to make way for the oncoming snow plough. I take a photo but the lens is a bit fogged up. It is only -1 °C and everything is damp.
I follow the trail north until I come to the steep slope where I chicken out – as usual. Too steep for me. I go back and make my way to the barbecue place with the nice view on the district Hamna. No foot steps, I’m first today :-)
For a short while I follow the trail, then I turn right and take a trail to Skihytta. That’s a cabin that occasionally serves hot chocolate and cake on Sundays. Will it be open? First the trail is well prepared but then I am in fresh snow again and on the ascending passages I have a pulse like a hummingbird. Step by step and with some short rests I make progress and after a while my “private” path meets another trail that leads to Skihytta. Hooray! There it is.
Unfortunately the cabin is closed. But the good thing is: from here it’s only 700 metres to my apartment. First I ski down through the forest, then I unmount my skis because all the streets have been cleared from snow in the meanwhile.
It was only round six kilometres skiing today, but it took me almost three hours, mostly due to the tiring snow conditions and the time-consuming crossing of some gullies. But taking photos with a tripod slowed me down as well.
Note 1: This was not my only workout today. In the afternoon I had to clear another 20–30 cm snow of my parking lot, that I already had cleared yesterday. Then I helped my neighbours a bit. This was a task I had to do today, because …
Note 2: The weekend brought almost half a metre of snow but now the weather will become extremely ugly. Tomorrow it will rain almost 30 mm and in the rest of the week another 60 mm of rain are expected. So I wanted to get rid of the snow before it gets soaked by that rain.
Thank you for the snow, weekend. I really appreciate it. What a pity that we now get a period of rain and thaw.
This evening I was out in the snow. I walked 1.6 km and this was the route:
What happened? Was I disorientated? Drunk? Drugged? No, none of that. The snowfall was the reason. It has been snowed more or less the whole day and in the last 24 hours (22:00 – 22:00) we got 26 cm of new snow resulting in a snow depth of 103 cm.
I am lucky. The front yard beside the parking place lies about a metre deeper and I don’t have to pile up snow but push it more or less straight into the front yard. The garden gets fuller under the winter and so the way gets longer. Today’s snow clearing covered a distance of 1.6 km according to my tracking app. The last metre is the hardest, because there the snow is still soft and if you made a careless step there you might land in hip deep snow. Or in my case after moving my legs up and down a few times even deeper:
Since it hasn’t stopped snowing yet I will have to shovel again tomorrow. To be honest, I like it. I am outside and get some exercise, I can do it in the dark and the front door of my apartment is never more than 20 metres away. But I want to use my skies tomorrow as well. Last chance before the heavy rain arrives.
Annika and I have been in Trollvassbu before. Once in August, once in October. Yesterday it was time for a winter visit by ski. There’s a parking place by the road to Oldervik and from there it is just 4½ kilometres.
It is 4 January and it is polar night in Tromsø. This means, that the sun is below the horizon but not, that it is dark all day. There is light for about four hours and the light can be quite beautiful.
These are photos I took on our way to the cabin. The first one I shot at 10:42, the last at 11:33. The light is dim but bright enough for skiing and both sky and snow are surprisingly colourful.
We arrive at the cabin at noon. There are a lot of people around, but they are leaving. We know, that the cabin with its sixteen beds is almost fully booked for this night, we are just the ones who have arrived first.
I am walking and skiing around to take some photos. My favourite motive is the half open, half snow covered river Trollvasselva.
To be honest – most parts of the river are open and so it is easy to fetch water. When I take photos of the cabin I saw other skiers arrive – most of them parents with small children. I adore them. It must be fantastic to stand on your first skis when you are just two years old.
And then it is getting dark and the cabin is full. Five parents with their six children, three other guests as well as Annika and me. Everyone knows, how a Norwegian mountain cabin works and so the oven is constantly fired and fresh water is fetched by the river. Everyone returning from the outhouse takes some logs of wood with them and used water is brought to a place nearby. Two parents have portable battery lights with them and candles are standing on the wooden tables and in the windows. Outdoors it is cold and clear. Moon and Venus, Jupiter and Mars are visible at the starry sky.
And later – round half past five polar light appears.
Annika and I are incredibly lucky, we have a room for ourselves. Advantage one: we can sleep in the lower beds of the two bunk beds. Advantage two: we do not disturb others when we have to go to the outhouse in the dead of night.
The next morning the weather is as fine and clear as at the previous day and the temperature has dropped to -15 °C.
After having breakfast, packing and cleaning Annika and I leave at 10:15. We are faster because many other skiers had made the trail resemble a cross-country ski trail and it also goes downwards.
Clouds are gathering. What luck we have had with the weather. The very same tour could be much rougher and harder when it is snowing and blowing.
This is me (Photo: Annika Kramer):
It shows me taking a photo with my telephoto lens. I don’t like to use ISO > 800 and so the shutter speed in the dim light is quite long. I have a tripod in the pulka, but it takes some time to set it up. Therefore the photos taken while skiing are hand-held and many of them are blurred.
Another issue is the brightness and the hue. How bright was the light or how dim? The camera itself does not know. It exposes according to my settings. Also: how violet was the sky and was it more violet, lilac, pink or purple? These photos are no standard photos and so the camera is wildly guessing the white balance.
I try to edit the photos so that they resemble the actual light and hue but I have to do it by memory and sometimes it is hard to remember the type of green of a polar light or the intensity of the purple sky.
Photographers: How do you deal with these issues?
Last December I changed my “work home” in Tromsø from a tiny studio to a flat with bedroom and kitchen. First I was a bit unhappy because the studio was near to the beach Telegrafbukta while the current one lies amidst the island Tromsøya.
But then I realised how beautiful nature nearby is. There are hilly forests, bogs and ponds and a zillion ways and paths leading through.And each season looks different. I walked there the whole year, either walking home after work or just taking a promenade. In winter I used my skis.
Here is a selection of photos from this year:
Clouds are moving eastwards where they block the low hanging sun, but here and there the sun peeks through holes giving the whole thing a dramatic touch.
It is chilly and ice fog hovers over the sea. I take a promenade by the icy coast.
It is quite clear and not too windy at temperatures round -12 °C. Yesterday I dug out the kayak from the snow, today it is time to take a tour. It’s a short but a beautiful one.
After the tour the line for the kayak rudder was frozen. The kayak is a bit too large for taking it in so I had to improvise a bit. Well, it worked.
Today is the day of winter solstice. We could see the sun rise at 09:25 while having a comfortable Sunday morning breakfast. Today’s motive: the rowan tree under which Annika and I got married in 2020, taken through the windows of our living room.
After quite some travelling in the last weeks I finally arrived in Obbola, Sweden, my “home home” yesterday night. Today it started snowing a bit and I wanted to go outside to take a break from home office.
I went to the coast by our house where parts of the bay were frozen.
I haven’t been running for four weeks, so let’s go …
I put on my running shoes from Icebug. They have so many spikes that you can run on bare ice. I start on the doorstep and turn to take the trail called Spåret. This will give me a lap of round 5 km. But it was not so easy as expected. A lot of trees lay across the trail. A reminder of the storm three weeks ago.
I can go round these obstacles but soon give up running for another reason. Some parts of Spåret are bare ice but the thin layer of fresh snow glues itself to the soles of my running shoes making the spikes useless. After I slid several times I decide to stop running and go home. Total running distance: 0.78 km :-D
When running does not work, let’s go …
This takes a bit more preparation. But finally I have found the paddle and the waterproof bag for the mobile phone and am dressed in my survival suit – Teletubbie style.
I drag the kayak to the shore and then through the shallow water. Slushy ice is swimming on the sea surface. To my surprise another layer of ice is grounded.
Then I walk on the ice. Will it hold or break? I don’t know yet, but I do know, the water is shallow here.
The ice holds. When the icy layer gets thinner and softer I enter the kayak. Sometimes I use my hands to push myself forward, sometimes ice claws, sometimes the paddle. Anyhow it seems to take ages until I finally reach the open sea.
To my surprise I meet two other kayakers. That have never happened to my here before. They found a better place to set in their kayaks. Will winter paddling get popular here?
Anyhow, I haven’t planned a longer kayak tour and so I only round the small islet Lillskär and then head back to shore. First there are soft ice floes that I can paddle through.
Then I reach some fast ice. It is too thick for paddling and too thin to bear the weight of the kayak with me inside. I exit the kayak and “walk” it while breaking the ice with my knees. The ice gets thicker and I can kneel on it without breaking through. Now I crawl on my knees for a while until I can finally stand up and drag the kayak ashore. On the photo you can see the different stages.
Finally I’m ashore again. Total paddling distance: 0.91 km. :-D :-D
But it was fun!
When I worked in Tromsø on 20 November I took a snapshot through the window panes of the 5th floor. You could guess the sun between the mountains. It would be the last time I’d see the sun in Tromsø this year.
The next day I travelled to Germany to visit friends. I returned yesterday, 30 November and could see the sunset a bit north of Bergen from the airplane back to Tromsø.
In Tromsø we have polar night from 27 November until 14 January next year and it looks like this:
No, it doesn’t! Just kidding.
Polar night (the English term) does not mean, that it is dark all day. Only, that the sun won’t rise or set. The Norwegians – more affected than other countries – have two words. They call the polar night mørketid (darkness time) and reserve the term polarnatt (polar night) for the time where the sun is at more than six degrees below the horizon for the whole day. This applies only to places north of 72°33′ such as Bjørnøya or Svalbard.
Since it is not pitch-black I took a small ski promenade in the forests nearby. And so it looks like on a cloudy 1 December (-4 °C) on Tromsøya:
It took only four days to melt away 47 cm of snow.
Last Sunday I used skis to glide over the snow in the forest. However, the forecast at yr showed already that this pleasure would be temporary. And yr was right. It became much warmer and rained a lot. My way home on Wednesday was wet and so was the jogging on Thursday.
On Monday the snow depth had been 47 cm. On Friday it was zero. Thaw and the amount of rain led to flooding and several roads and bridges were closed. In the forest and on the bogs it looked like autumn was back.
Today I took another promenade through the near forest and felt like being back in October regarding the weather. With a clear difference: Having this cloudy weather it is not longer bright outside anymore.
Sixteen more days and the polar night in Tromsø starts with the absence of the sun for the following seven weeks. The darker it gets the more I’m longing for snow. It makes everything brighter.
After the snowfall in the first half of the week …
… snowfall continued in the weekend.
When I woke up yesterday morning another 10–15 cm of snow have fallen over night and it is still snowing. I get myself dressed, grab my camera backpack and go out. At the kindergarten I follow the way to the ski jumps. The light is still dim and I am quite alone. A strong wind gust blows snow from all trees and for some seconds snow is everywhere in the air.
I turn left and head to the small pond. The pair of Red-throated loons has left long ago and now the pond is frozen and covered in snow.
From there I cross the small grassy bog and follow some of the many forest paths.
I walked here quite a lot last summer but now that everything is covered in 25–30 cm of snow I miss some of the paths. That circumstance gave me wet feet quite soon. While trudging through the snow I suddenly felt my rubber boots sinking in something else. Seconds later I stood knee deep in a patch of mud. Brownish water eagerly filled my boots and the mud was so sticky, that it took me a minute to get free again. The rest of my walk I had wet and pretty cold feet. Back home I praised the inventor of the hot shower. (And that of the shoe dryer.)
Two hours later I go out again, this time to jog. I just have started again three weeks ago and I want to continue in wintertime as long it is possible. This time I stick to the “official” ways – some of them are already packed and groomed for cross-country skiers. Luckily you are allowed to bike or walk on the side of these tracks. It is fun to jog while it is snowing again. And my feet remained almost dry (just a bit of snow came into the Icebug winter running shoes).
This morning even more snow has fallen and I decide to take a ski tour. Not elsewhere but directly from home. I fetch my “fjellski” and poles from the shack and start my ski tour right from the entrance of my apartment. As the day before I pass the kindergarten and the small pond. The snow depth has grown to 45–50 cm and the skis sink in 20 cm with each step. Mostly I take those forest paths that are not too steep, but sometimes I follow the ski tracks where even I am as twice as fast.
Some more snow showers pass while I’m skiing cross-country. But then the sun comes out and colourises both sea and clouds deep orange. While I try to find a good spot to take a photo (I have my DSLR with me) the sun has begun to hide again. Photographer’s bad luck!
I pass the lake Rundvannet, while another snow shower approaches. No bathers today.
While I am heading back the sun comes out again, this time for longer. It is pretty low and soon disappears behind the mountains. In 3½ weeks polar night will start in Tromsø.
The huge ski jump of the Grønnåsen Ski Jump Center is a good landmark. Since it is on top of a hill it is visible from many places. Today I will climb up and finally ski down the ski jump to see how far I … well, just kidding.
From the ski jump it is only 800 metres back home. I ski the whole distance although I always feel uncomfortable skiing on the roads. The snow is so slippery there. After 7.5 kilometres – sometimes on tracks but mostly cross-country I am back home again.
Some hours later – 16:12. It is dark and another snow shower has approached. More snow! Anyhow it is only a temporary pleasure. Next week it will get much warmer and from Tuesday 78 mm of rain are expected for the next seen days. I guess the road conditions can be pretty ugly then. I am glad that I was outside in the “preview” of winter 2024/25. Let’s see when the next snow will arrive.
