Some photos from New Year’s ski promenade with friends. We were lucky – clear sky and -12 °C gave perfect conditions for some outdoor BBQ at Stora Stenen. And when the wind increased we went inside the wooden cabin of this public recreation area and fired the oven.
Have a Happy New Year 2022 all together!
It’s only 15 km to Sommarøya, a beautiful island reachable by car via a curved bridge. Even in snow fall and twilight you can see the turquoise colour of the sea. Everything is closed, even the hotel.
From there it’s not far to the church Hillesøy kirke, that by the way does not lie on the island Hillesøya but on the mainland. We tried to prebook one of the limited seats for the Christmas service but they where all taken. We are there very early and allowed to have a look in. Eye catcher: the tall wood-burning stove.
We drive back to the cabin – time for lunch while it gets dark outside.
This day was supposed to be crisp and clear and it was. No clouds, hardly any wind, -10 °C. Perfect conditions for a small ski tour along the lake Kattfjordvatnet. In coastal Sweden we just would have started the tour, in the Norwegian mountains you must check the avalanche risk first. We got round 30 cm of powder snow the last days and the risk was level 3 which is quite high. So a real mountain tour would have been too risky but the terrain by the lake is too flat for avalanches.
And in the early evening we are lucky and get some polar lights. We just have to step outside the door and avoid the motion sensor for the outdoor lighting.
Everything would have been accessible from my apartment in Tromsø as well. Anyhow it feels more like a real holiday to be on a Norwegian mountain cabin over Christmas, just Annika and I. Perhaps we are allowed to use it again sometime.
After yesterday’s snow fall Umeå municipality sent an SMS to Annika today at 8:28: “Olles Spår 5,0 km, Klassiskt preparerad”.
Olles Spår is one of Umeå’s cross country ski tracks. Annika and I planned to ski there after work today. I was however a bit doubtful, because at home the snow was thawing away the whole day and in the afternoon it even rained.
When we arrived at the parking place of Olles Spår only a single other car was parked there. And that is what the parking place looked like:
We planned to ski at least 1 km no matter how it goes, but the ski track was much better in shape than expected and so we skied 5 km.
Perhaps we ski again this week, otherwise it was probably the last time this year. And then spring shall come!
Apropos spring: On the way back we stopped at Degernäs – a bird’s paradise. At least a hundred common cranes flew overhead within minutes and a several hundred whooper swans had been gathering in the shallow waters of the flooded meadows. Not mentioning the many geese. That’s another clear sign of spring.
… it sounds, when I go outside. After a longer period with frosty winter weather a period of warm period has started today. The forecast predicts plus temperatures for the next ten days, at least in the daytime.
Yesterday was quite windy, -4 °C and it had been snowing a while. Despite the frost temperatures the snow was mixing with tiny rain drops that froze on the outer window pane of my home office room. I took the opportunity for a last “sub zero” tour with skies.
First I had to climb a snow drift beside the house. There I had a look on our barbecue place. Do you see the two benches in the photo below ;-)? Then I entered the sea ice and followed the coastal line until I reached the spot where I saw the open water last weekend. Now the ice floes first had frozen together and then were covered with snow. Now it’s not possible any longer for me to distinguish between stable and weak ice. So, the sea ice skiing season may be over now. The rest of the tour I skied on land until I was home again.
Appendix: That’s the table on our terrace. We had waited for the snow to cover it completely but this place heads to the sea and is exposed to the wind, so the snow drifts were lower than on the other side of the house.
Last Sunday in Kont, 30 minutes by car from home:
Annika and I skied around on the sea ice and reached places we’ve never been before. We were not the only ones. A lot of other people skied, skated or walked and some of them just sat there in down jackets on the ice or used the barbecue areas on land. All of them seemed to enjoyed the wonderful winter weather.
We saw a lot of reindeer tracks, caused by the very same herd that I saw yesterday. And we realised, how near the island Tarv is from there, that’s the island I skied to two weeks ago. So a plan was made: next weekend we shall ski to Kont and back again. That’s about 10 to 12 km.
Now it’s “next weekend”. It has become grey, foggy and snowy with much warmer temperatures round -1 to -2 °C. Not the exiting weather that we hoped for. So we cancelled the tour for today. Instead I skied alone heading for Obbolstenarna , a group of small skerries that we visited with friends last Sunday, also on skis.
When I should turn to Obbolstenarna I hesitated. I looked like the open water had come nearer and that last Sunday’s way over the ice wouldn’t exist any longer. So instead of turning left I followed the coastal line straight ahead.
A good idea.
The open water reached to the southern tip of Obbolaö and it wasn’t longer anymore to go round on the ice. So I stepped up the ice covered rocks. From there I could spot a large rock, that I had skied around several times. Now it had become impossible without taking a cold bath. So our plans were not only crossed by the dull weather (our decision) but more from the wind, that blew from the sea and crushed large areas of last weekends sea ice (Nature’s decision). We wouldn’t have come long.
After taking these photos I didn’t dare to explore further and skied back the same way. I could hear the foghorn of a large ship but I couldn’t see it. When I almost was home again I spotted it in the harbour of Holmsund. It was the Wasaline ferry that goes between Holmsund and the Finnish town Vaasa.
I met some ice fishers, who told me, that this winter has been extraordinary for Obbola. Both the amount of snow and the large area of solid sea ice is not usual for here. I’m glad and grateful that I was able to experience such in my first winter in Annika’s and my new home.
A Covid-19 compatible art exhibition visit.
What’s that? That’s the Baltic Sea off Obbola. When you stand on the ice, you see the frozen surface reaching to the horizon.
Today I take the skis to explore our coast the first time from the frozen sea. I head south and ski along the coast until I reach our beach Vitskärsudden.
From there I can see an apparently higher wall of ice at the southern tip of the island Tarv, 1.3 km away in the southwest. I do not know this part of the Baltic Sea in wintertime. Is it safe? Can I dare to cross the ice? Well, let’s check for tracks or prints.
OK. There is roe deer prints, footprints, ski tracks, ice skating cuts and a snowmobile trail. And I can see skiers on the ice. Doesn’t look too dangerous. Of course I have my ice picks round my neck as a rescue tool in case of breaking into the ice. Spoiler: the ice sings but nothing happens.
I ski across the ski and there it is. This year’s ice art exhibition:
How large are the exhibits? Here, where I took the photos mostly between 150 and 200 cm.
Most impressive is the ice wall along the coast. But some of the ice formations on the solitaire rocks look interesting, too. If you lay down they look like mountains.
I follow the coastal line of Tarv and finally find a place where the ice wall is so low, that I can enter the island. On the sea there was hardly half a cm of snow, here it’s more half a metre. And a lot of forest.
Parts of the forest are quite dense but after a while of squeezing between the trees I find a snowmobile trail that leads back to the coast. Although it is one and a half hours before sunset the light starts to become a bit orange.
Now I ski back quite the same way.
When our House comes into view I see that the front chimney is smoking. Has Annika warmed up the uninsulated winter garden? Yes, she has! A fire is burning in the stove and I even get a hot chocolate. A warm welcome! And a cool tour!
After some cloudy days the sky cleared yesterday afternoon so that Annika and I could do cross-country skiing under the full moon. Beautiful!
This morning was crisp (-17 °C) and sunny. I took a short break from work and skied a bit along the icy coast, just in time to see the sun rise behind the layer of clouds at the horizon.
I stopped working already at 14:30 and directly put on the skis again. I managed to follow more or less the icy edge to the bay Vitskärsudden, our favourite bathing place. The sun was going down already and lit the ice in warm sunset colours. The scenery looked really arctic. And it felt arctic, too. I felt quite cold and was glad, that I had a down jacket with me to put over the touring jacket.
It was mostly the forests that revealed the fact, that it’s not the Arctic Ocean but the Baltic Sea that I ski along. And of course the houses, hardly 200 meter away from the icy shore.
When I arrived at Vitskärsudden I realised that – unless another storm would break all the ice – bathing season is finally over. I posted a picture on Facebook in the Umeå winter bathing group and then returned home, still on skis but mostly following the roads.
Even with taking the photos the tour took less than two hours. But it felt like having holiday. It’s really a privilege to be able to live here!
#justtwophotos
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.
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 …
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