The moon has a halo
Back in Obbola – opening the kayak season
Friday
Two days ago Annika and I returned from our Finnmark and Finland journey. Just north of Umeå there was a low layer of strange clouds. Any of you who knows what kind of clouds this is?
Saturday
We are back home in Obbola in Sweden. The sky is clear and blue. In wintertime this often means that it can be pretty cold outside. Instead we had up to +8 or +9 °C. What a strange winter.
The wind is strong. The waves have already crushed the ice floes. In the afternoon the floating ice has been blown away into the open sea.
There is still some snow around but parts of the ground is free of snow. That‘s early for the season. And so is the arrival of the first whooper swans.
Sunday
The wind has calmed down and so have the waves. Time to fetch the kayak from the garage and open the kayak season. While there was not much of ice left at the shores of Obbola and the island Bredskär there was another highlight today: A 360°C halo round the sun.
Next week?
It looks like we expect colder temperatures, sun and calm weather. I hope, I have more opportunities to do some kayaking.
Backcountry skiing in Finish Lapland
This article is part of the series “2025-02: Finnmark”.
After the gorgeous cross-country ski tour in Saariselkä yesterday Annika and I want to use our backcountry skis today. We take the car a bit south to a place called Kiilopää. Here there are not only cross-country ski trails but also “Nature skiing tracks” suitable for backcountry skiing (though you do not need any prepared track at all for this type of skis). We follow the cross-country ski trail a bit and then turn left, where a path marked with blue crosses leads through the forest.
Slowly we gain altitude and the forest becomes less dense.
You can see the almost barren, rounded mountain peaks of the Lappish tunturi. Twice I take a detour to take some pictures of the solitary snow covered trees.
We reach the mountain shelter Niilanpää and we are not alone. Small and larger groups of skiers, many of them with pulka sleds are on the track, around or in the hut.
Since the small shelter hut is occupied we continue our tour, that now slowly descends to the forest again.
This ski tour was a recommendation of our friends C. and M., who know this region well. As they supposed we use a shortcut through the forest. This old forest is beautiful. It is not very dense but has a lot of beautiful, large trees that make the forest a nature exhibition. After round 1.5 km we reach another cross-country skiing trail where we turn left to reach the shelter and grill place Sivakkaoja.
We could grill sausages, everything is there, but we decide to only take a short break and then finish our ski tour. One of the reasons: at the parking place there is also a hotel with a café that serves sweet pastries :-) .
We follow the prepared trail eastwards. The grooves made for cross-country skis are too small for our broader skis so we use the skating track (without skating) in the middle. After some kilometres through the forest we are back at our starting point again. Distance today 12.8 km. Time for a pastry and something to drink!
I’ve never been in the region of Saariselkä before and really like it. The nature is beautiful, it is not too crowded and there are many possibilities for different types of winter sports. Today – the day after this tour – we will leave Saariselkä, but I can imagine that it was not the last time being here.
Today we take the car to Kuuriuru, Finland. Tomorrow we plan to continue to Råneå in Sweden. From there it is “only” another 300 km to our home in Obbola in Sweden.
A gorgeous cross-country ski tour in Saariselkä
This article is part of the series “2025-02: Finnmark”.
After days of car driving through the Norwegian Finnmark we crossed borders to Finland two days ago. Yesterday we arrived in Saariselkä in the northernmost Finnish region “Lapland”. Saariselkä is a popular tourist destination, especially for cross-country skiers. So we decided to make a cross-country ski tour today despite of the grey and dull weather that the weather forecast showed us for the region.
After breakfast we took our skies, walked to the tent-like starting point and started skiing. Oh my – after using the broader “fjellski” a lot the thin cross-country skis felt like skiing on matches! I had some difficulties and blamed myself but then realised, that beside of my stiffness one of the skins – permanently glued to the ski – started to peel off. We abandoned the tour in hope to find someone that can fix this. So the first ski tour was just 1.17 km – yay!
We were extremely lucky. We soon found a ski rental and got the problem fixed within a minute. The employee even refused getting paid. Kiitos paljon! So – back to the starting point.
Meanwhile the weather that had been ignoring the forecast as usual started clearing up. Temperatures were around -8 to -9 °C and it was calm. Perfect skiing conditions, if you ask me. This time I felt a bit more comfortable.
We unmounted our skis at a short but uncomfortably steep passage, where the trail crossed a stream in a small valley. Last night’s fog had added rime to the snowy trees.
After this short obstacle the trail got easier and was extremely pleasant to ski on. Plus, the trail was perfectly prepared and the sky cleared up more and more. But let the photos speak for themselves:
Was it as empty as on the photos? Almost. There were a few other skiers, but not many.
After about 7 km we reached the first cabin – Rumakuru Päivätupa. We took just a short break and decided to continue to the next cabin – Luulampi, taking a break there. We passed Rumakuru Vanhatupa and after 4 km we arrived at the large cabin Luulampi.
My dreams of eating cake in the cabin were destroyed. The café was closed. So we skied to the small hut nearby were we took a lunch break. Annika grilled sausages in the fire, while I ate two Karelian pirogs. Then we shared some biscuits.
And then? Taking the more advanced ski trail that climbs at least 150 other metres, leading to the road and then hoping for a bus or a lift? Or just taking the same way back? We chose the latter.
As usual I took much less photos on the way back. One of the reasons: it had become cloudy and the sun had vanished. Now the landscape was more monochrome, but still very beautiful.
We passed the other cabins again, and again we unmounted our skis at the steep descend and ascend. And then, after some more descends we were back in town. Here there are a lot of people, that do not ski and you have to remind them, that ski tracks are – well – ski tracks and not open for pedestrians, cyclists or snowshoers. Mostly it helps …
I tracked today’s tour. The second and real tour was 21.95 km, which adds up to a total of a bit more than 23 km on cross-country skis. I guess, Annika and I will feel our muscles tomorrow. I feel them already now.
This was one of the finest cross-country ski tours I’ve made in the last years. Thank you, Annika for the tour!
Finnmark birches
This article is part of the series “2025-02: Finnmark”.
Yesterday Annika and I continued our travel from Alta to Karasjok, part of the Norwegian Finnmark. I connect this landscape with birches and snowy hills. Especially by the rivers it often looks like this:
You may think, this looks quite desolate, but I love the simplicity landscape. I find it much less desolate than the wet and ice snow free meadows that we passed the day before. Sign of a winter that has been much too warm (and still is).
The rivers however can be quite beautiful, when they are partly frozen and snowy and partly open. This is the river Kárášjohka where the road 92 crosses it.
Lyngen mountains
This article is part of the series “2025-02: Finnmark”.
Two days ago – Annika and I have started our journey through the Finnmark and Finnish Lapland. The first stop is in Breivikeidet, where we wait for the ferry to the Lyngen peninsula. Despite the pretty depressing weather forecast we get a bit of sun which makes the steep and rugged mountains of the Lyngen Alps looking even more impressive. Today I edited some of the photos, making them monochrome.
Skiing home from work
Finally it got more wintry the last days and especially today it snowed quite a lot. After work I took the bus to the lake Prestvannet where Annika and I met. From there we skied most of the way home and then walked the rest in the streets.
The skiing took quite some time because snow was warm and so sticky that it glued itself to the skis in thick layers again and again. Anyhow we enjoyed being outdoors and sharing this winter afternoon. It was the very first time that I used skis to get home after my work at the Norwegian Polar Institute, but definitely not the last time.
At home another outdoor activity awaited me: clearing snow in front of my apartment. 25 cm of fresh snow had fallen – surprisingly fluffy for the warm temperatures. Of course the snowplough passed after I had finished. Well, I’ll do that tomorrow …
This night more snow will come but then according to the forecast it will turn more and more into sleet and rain, because another warm period awaits us. Strange winter this year.
Back to winter …
The last days it got colder and new snow arrived. Now everything is white and wintry again. Alas, the next period with warm weather and rain is less than a week away, when the forecast is correct.
Some photos from a very short promenade to the ski jump – with active ongoing training – and Skihytta today.
Wretched, wet, windy winter weather
If you are like me and love white winters with a lot of snow and clear sky – stop reading. The weather in Tromsø the last weeks was mostly miserable. We had hardly any frost days and most precipitation came as rain. A lot of rain. And it was windy. Yes, we had winds.
There is still round about 45 cm of snow, but it is wet, icy and has a lot of holes. It’s ugly and hard to walk on.
So it looked like today when I was walking home from the bus stop Prestvannet:
Luckily it looks like that a colder period starts tomorrow and we even may get some fresh snow until the end of the week.
Strange clouds
When I woke up today at 7 o’clock half the sky was red. It was still dark enough for stars being visible and I considered whether this could be some strange sort of polar light.
When I walked to the ski jump it has become less dark and it was clear, that the colours come from the light of the sun rise (09:17 today). Anyhow there must have been some strange clouds up in the sky reflecting the light of a sun still being 8° below the horizon. Even the snowy mountains were crimson red.
When I took a hike with a friend on the frozen snow near Tønsvik my eyes caught another special cloud phenomenon. These pale clouds were colourful due to diffraction. The effect was weak and delicate and so the photo looks a bit boring. No reason to now show it anyhow ;-)
It is 8 o’clock. The sky is clear and I can see Mars, Jupiter, Moon and Venus in the starry sky. In the north there is a very faint polar light.Will it develop? I’ll check until I’ll go to sleep.