This image was taken with my iPhone SE, not with my Nikon camera that I usually take with me. I just forgot it home today. I don’t think, that the iPhone SE has or is a great camera because I’m quite picky when it comes to image quality. But it’s a great backup if you manage to keep it warm in the winter and some of the photos look quite nice.
Still in the phase of remembering “how did it work” and therefore only 7.1 km, but it’s a start. And both the last snowfall and the great ski trail preparation made the trail much better to ski than the previous time some days ago.
Today I had another day off and since the weather was sunny and nice but too windy to kayak, I opened the skiing season today. It was just 4.3 km but a good start to try out my brand new skis. Oh my, they are quite fast and it will take some time till I’ll get used to them. The snow wasn’t perfect neither but it was fun anyway.
Thanks to Y. in Umeå for her purchase advice and for her professional waxing!
Thanks to Friluftsfrämjandet Skelleftehamn for preparing the ski track in Skelleftehamn!
Let’s face it: The weather in Skellefteå and Umeå has been nasty the last days – temperatures above zero and a lot of rain making the minor roads icy and incredibly slippery. Most of the snow of the days before has been thawing away. So just now there’s much more winter in Germany towns than here beside the coast of the Baltic Sea.
The good thing: winter is not far away. I was in Umeå today and Annika and I drove westwards to catch a glimpse of winter. First it continued raining a good while, the road was dark and wet and the snow was slushy and ugly. But suddenly – just within a few kilometres the weather changed and rain turned into snow. Snow fall increased and anything was snow covered and white: the roads, the trees, the traffic signs, the bogs and the parking place where we stopped to visit the Hägring (english: mirage).
Hägring is an artwork between Bjurholm and Vännäs. It is a church-shaped object built of mirror fragments and stands in the midst of a bog. We’ve been there in May and knew that the bog is wet but safe to walk on. It was funny anyway to walk through knee-deep snow and feeling the bog bouncing underneath our feet with each step.
We continued westwards, Annika was driving and I was navigating and taking some pictures through the windscreen. Right after Bjurholm we took a minor road to Örträsk, a village by the lake Örträsksjön. Everything was snow covered. We stopped at the small grocery to buy something to drink but it was closed due to the “snow storm”. Well, we knew of the level one weather warning but it didn’t seem so severe.
Since days in December are short (and we didn’t find a place to eat in Örträsk) we decided to return to Umeå but on another route taking some minor roads eastwards. Snow fall intensified but still only some centimetres covered the roads.
While we followed the small ways the snow on the road got deeper and deeper until Annika’s Golf ploughed through 10 cm of snow. Where there was a house, people were outside to clear the snow with any available tool – from shovels to quite huge shovel loaders. But we didn’t get stuck.
Finally we reached the European route E12 which runs between Mo I Rana (Norway) and Helsinki (Finland). Even this road was covered with snow but much better to drive than the smaller forest roads before. 66 km to Umeå and it was snowing almost the whole way back. The last part however we came into the more maritim and warmer climate of Greater Umeå area and snow turned back into rain. We however got our winter impressions. Within just in half a day! One of the big advantages of living here!
On a final note, a “making-of” photo of Annika: Me walking to the Hägring:
Today I took time off work. I stood up quite early and at 7:30 I took the car to Långhällan, a place by the coast which I love for photographing. Today I tried out my new Tamron telephoto lens (150 – 600 mm) and I’m very contended. All photos shown here are made with this lens and focal lengths between 400 and 600 mm.
The morning was cold with temperatures round -10 °C and the sky was completely clear beside of a layer of clouds at the southeastern horizon. The locals call this cloud phenomenon “vinterväggen” – the winter wall. Although it was more than one hour before sunrise, the horizon was already of a bright orange colour. The first photo.
As usual the other side of the celestial sphere was of a pale purple colour. The ice and rocks however were still of cold blueish colours. I could have waded to the rock with its shining ice cap, but I wanted to test my new lens. Photo number two.
Långhällan’s shore is partly solid rock, partly round stones of different sizes. Each of the stones, that are partly below and partly above water has such an ice cap as on photo number two. Photo number three – just for the impression.
On one of the rocky salients there’s a small but deep puddle of water which was covered with ice too thin to bear me. I could have tried to walk on it (I wore waterproof chest waders) but probably I would have destroyed the motive: a small ice pane sticking out from the icy surface. Another good argument for a telephoto lens. Photo number four.
While I looked round and breathed the crisp air the sun has started to rise, still invisible since it was behind the vinterväggen but the rim of the clouds were illuminated in a bright glowing orange. I had taken some other pictures of the lighthouse before, but this photo wins. Photo number five.
When waves splash water on the frozen stones long chains of icicles are formed. Some of them were already in the sun (Photo number six) …
… while most others still were in the shadows of other rocks. These icicles had reached the ground and created a row of ice pillars in a ice portal. Photo number seven.
I looked at the sea. Parts of the ice covered rocks were sunlit and glowed orange-colours as if they would gleam from the inside. The good thing with chest waders is that you can kneel down into the water for a better perspective without getting wet. Photo number eight and the last one of today’s series.
Some wintry impressions from a promenade at the beach Sandängesstranden in Piteå.
Tamron SP 150-600/5-6,3 Di VC USD G2: 600 mm · ƒ/10 · 1/30 sec.
It’s the first of December and luckily Skelleftehamn has been looking wintry for some days with temperatures below zero. The backyard is covered with round 30 cm of snow. Many of you however probably know that I’m a winter and especially a snow fan. So I’m longing for much more snow to come.
My personal record in Skelleftehamn is 108 cm in December 2011 which is a lot but far away from extreme.
Tromsø in Northern Norway uses to get at least one meter of snow each season. The record is 240 cm. Would we have that much snow in Skelleftehamn I still could look out of my kitchen window but snow probably would be on eye level.
The Swedish record is 327 cm of snow, which covered the small village Kopparåsen in February 1926. That’s really a lot of snow and most of my house would be buried in the snow. At least I would find it and could dig a tunnel to the door to enter and leave my “cave”.
Norway however has areas with much more snow. Just two and a half years ago, round 15 meters of snow covered the glacier of Folgefonna in Jotunheimen. In June! (Here’s a Swedish article on the website Åka skidor. You can see, that the snow almost buried a whole cable car). In this case I would have to temporarily look for another place to live and probably my house would have been smashed into pieces by the pressure of the snow masses. In this case the dreaming of snow would turn into a nightmare.
(As always: click on the image to enlarge it.)
So, I’d like to have much more snow than now but not without limit. One or two meters would turn out just fine …
I’ve been in Umeå for some days. Mostly I was inside and worked for Once Upon, my current developer project. The weather was mostly ghastly these days. It rained, partly with snow at temperatures round 1 °C on half frozen ground leaving a mixture of very slippery roads and half frozen water puddles. That’s great weather for working inside!
Today however the weather has been completely different. It’s -9 °C outside and the sun is shining. Time to leave work and go for a walk along the river Umeälven. Transparent ice floes are drifting on the surface and at the shore the river has started to freeze over. The low sun shines on the ice and let it sparkle in many colours. What a pleasure after these dark, dim and colourless days.
Tomorrow I’ll return to Skelleftehamn. Hopefully the forecasted snow will come – I’m eager to test my new back country skis I bought some weeks ago.
Today I sold my Saab 9-5 – the first car I ever had in my life. I bought it in March 2011 when I realised that a life without car is quite limiting in Northern Sweden.
Since then I have travelled to many places as e.g.: Abisko · Alta · Arvidsjaur · Bodø · Gällivare · Hammerfest · Höga Kusten · Jokkmokk · Kirkenes · Kiruna · Kusfors · Lofoten · Loma Vietonen · Luleå · Mosvik · Narvik · Nordkapp · Pajala · Senja · Solberget · Tromsø · Umeå · Vesterålen · Äkäslompolo · Örnsköldsvik
Do you know, how many places in the list are in the south of Skellefteå? Exactly three and Höga Kusten is the southernmost place I have gone by car because normally I head northwest or north.
Today however I sold my car to H., a friend, who lives in the county of Kalmar, more than 1000 km in the south. Funnily enough it’s the very same friend who visited me in 2011 and test-drove the car before I bought it. Back then he said “Well, if you do not buy this car, I’ll take it”. Well – now you got it H., with only six and a half years delay.
Since the Saab is a great winter car – it started without any problems in -35 °C – the elements bade it a stormy farewell with heavy wind gusts and squalls plus round 20 cm of new snow.
My new car is a Subaru Outback, which I bought half a year ago. Less comfortable than my Saab and a bit shorter but equipped with All Wheel Drive. Today I could test it and can confirm that the Subaru had no problems with driving through 20 cm of snow and crossing snowdrifts twice as high. I took some photos but soon drove home again since it was so stormy that it was almost impossible to take photos in the snowstorm. In addition to that I considered the weather potentially dangerous, at least near trees or power lines.
Some winter tours are already planned: A trip to the winter market in Jokkmokk and a longer trip to Kirkenes and the Varanger Peninsula, the northeasternmost part of Norway. And there’s probably much more to come …
Some hours later. It still was snowing. 40 to 50 cm of snow cover my back yard. The snow flakes melt on the lens and create funny plankton-like reflections. In Umeå it already had started to rain and here the temperatures were raising as well. A pity!
