Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

Distance 29km | Time 9hrs | Ascent 140m | Descent 380m

Everybody started to stir around 0630 and I got up at 0700. It was a sociable breakfast and everybody was quite talkative. Outside there was a west wind and it was just below zero as the spindrift was blowing about. It seemed all the Finnish girls were going off on differing day trips.

I eventually set of at 0900 and headed east with the wind in my back. Luckily the red wax I had on from yesterday was not causing the slightly below zero snow to clump up on the bottom of the skis. It was quite sunny despite the wind.

A dog sled group with smaller, faster Alaskan huskies came speeding towards me. The dogs were working hard up the shallow incline and their long tongues were hanging out, bouncing with every step.

As I dropped down into the very shallow side valleys the wind dropped off and after a couple of hours it was even absent from the ridges. It was turning into a nice day.

I stopped and chatted with a couple of Germans on snow shoes plodding up the hill. It seemed to be the wrong mode of travel. They would have been much better of with a couple of Jan Kopka’s bicycles. While I was chatting one on the young Finnish girls, Saiga, from Kuonjarjoki cabin caught up. We continued together for an hour to Meekonjarvi cabin. Her on here enormous wooden ex-military skis and Nokia gumboots and me on my fast mountain skis.

It was an interesting chat. She was an student art teacher. Very happy natured and easy going. Her skis were really designed for the forest. Indeed most Finns had huge skis which were about two and a half metres long and quite wide. Almost double the surface area of mine I would guess. They must have been a nightmare to turn.

The cabin at Meekonjarvi was nicely positioned on the valley floor beside frozen lakes and under outcrops of steep black crags. They looked like basalt or gabbro. The cabin was a free cabin and had a sleeping platform where about 8 people could lie. There was also a stove and a gas cooker. Outside was a woodshed and toilet. I chatted here with Siaga over lunch when another two showed up. They had come from Taapmajarvi cabin yesterday and said there were tracks there. This was good as it was where I was aiming for today.

I said my goodbyes and started off west down a chain of beautiful lakes. These lakes were beautiful now but must be stunning in the summer time with the birch trees around them full of insects and birds and the forest floor covered in lush flowers. The crags soon faded behind me and infront was a flat undulating landscape.

The change in the landscape felt significant. I think in front of me was the old unchanged bedrock of the Baltic shield. This is the oldest rock in Europe and covers the northern Baltic tectonic plate. Behind me was the edge of the Caledonian mountain thrusts which had been forced from the sea bed up onto this bedrock some 400 million years ago. I had been skiing through the eroded stumps of these thrust blocks for the last 3 months but I think I was now leaving them behind for the undulating shield.

As I skied down these lakes I passed a whole family of 7 people all spaced out evenly in a line fishing through holes in the ice. I then passed another free cabin at Jogasjarvi but didn’t go in as it was just another 3 km to Porojarvi cabin where I was intending to have another break.

Porojarvi cabin was another beautiful lumber cottage. It was again free. It had no gas but a wood stove which one could cook on and a large supply of wood. There was room for 6 to sleep here on a wooden platform. It was very quaint and an excellent service by the Finnish state forestry department to make them available to skiers and hikers.

I left here at 1600. It was getting warmer and warmer and I was down to my vest. I had to put extra red wax on for the climb. The problem with this is that when this unseasonably warm spell ends and the temperatures go back to minus 10 the snow will stick to the ski until I remove this sticky wax. And removal can be a problem without spirits. I was hoping it would wear off.

It was a very gentle 9 km climb up from Porojarvi cabin to Taapmajarvi cabin. The mountains were fading behind as I headed onto this undulating plateau. There were masses of reindeer tracks as these animals were now migrating from the forests where they had been wintering to these calving grounds and summer pastures. These were domesticated reindeer of the Lapps.

The tracks I was following were largely firm but occasionally where I could see willow scrub poking through I knew I would sink in a bit. Still the going was good and after two hours and nine km the small cabin appeared on a snow covered knoll.

It seemed a herd of reindeer had been here as the ground was trampled and covered in droppings. Soon after I arrived a young Lapp on a scooter with a huge trailer showed up. He had food pellets for the reindeer in sacks in the trailer. He spotted his herd with binoculars and headed off to them.

I lit the fire to cook and turned the little cabin into a sauna. I was too soporific to write or cook so slept for an hour until the place cooled down. It was still plus 2 outside. After supper I managed to write and crashed out at 2230. It had just become dark. The temperature however was still plus 2. I hope it freezes as I have a potentially difficult valley to cross tomorrow called Reisadalen and need firm conditions for this.

It had been a great day. Warm if not hot, nice scenery, good company and quaint cabins. It was also nice to have a cabin to myself this evening after sharing for almost the last month. Tomorrow I would be back in Norway. My foreign excursions to other Scandinavian countries are now over.

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