Fjällsadventyr

As promised, a photo from the Vasaloppet—happy and ice encrusted after my challenge on skinny skis. Seems like a long time ago. This month started with the above, and is packed full with adventure, family and friends…

Soon after my ski across Dalarna, Kerry arrived and we headed out on our long planned ski adventure. It was the kind of trip where nothing went as planned. And not only, ‘not as planned’ but sometimes quite frustratingly very wrong. It started with Kerry’s skis…or the lack of skis. They never arrived. Kerry had trained deliberately at Spirit Mt. with his skis, climbing skins and new boots and really had a ‘system’ down…only to end up spending out entire trip piecing together poorly fitting rental equipment for a very demanding ski route. The worst of this was not Kerry’s efforts to adjust, but dealing with the airlines. We felt like we lost 24 hours…calling, waiting, and unfortunately focusing on the hope of getting the equipment. Delta handled this poorly.

I’m not going to detail every problem, let’s just say that when you are in a downward spiral it is hard to pull out of it…

First stop on the trip was the Winter Festival in Östersund. Our goal was to rent ice skates (långfärdskridskor) and skate the 20 km of plowed track on the lake (Storsjön)…after surviving a very cold morning, we stepped off the train at 7 AM into below zero temps and wandered the town until we found a warm kondititori (bakery) where we waited for the day to warm. Eventually, we made it to the celebration...the festival was indeed festive, hundreds of people down on the ice, sunbathing (yes, lawn-chairs), skiing, skating, eating korv...note the City in the distance from this skating picture.

Little did we know that this would be the last calm day and the last day with sunshine! We continued into the mts. and skied two days at Sweden’s premier mt. resort, Åre. A lovely town and a great ski mt. Unfortunately, rain, heavy snow and strong winds kept much of the mt. closed…we made do and managed to find great skiing.

The next step was into the backcountry, which proved to be much more of a challenge that we had imagined. We caught a train to a small town (Enafors) and then hoped to catch a bus to a mt. station at the end of the road, the problem was the road was closed due to days of high winds and heavy snow…no getting in. We were steered toward a small hotel owned by a biological study unit associated with the Swedish University System and waited out the storm one night, sharing the facilities with a small group of Doc students who were there for an intensive seminar on small mammal genetics…sounds odd, middle of ‘nowhere’ and we find a farm like hotel and full of scientists. It was a bit odd, but friendly and the fact that we had access to a bed and great food was all that really mattered.

We did make it up the ‘closed’ road the next day and into the blizzard…The wind never stopped, the snow never stopped. It is the longest sustained storm I have ever been in (the nine days we were in the mts. and it seemed to be continuing as we caught the bus out to the train...warning, you will see a few pictures below that look like ‘sunshine’ these were taken on one day during the only cloud breaks we saw. Sadly, we never got a full view of the mts.

The trip went from our romanticized dream of mt views and vertical drops on skis to intensive navigation and route management training. Given that we could never see our routes and that we were in mountainous terrain with avalanche danger, we needed to rely on the map, compass and altimeter to know exactly where we were. Imagine following a compass bearing in a white out—you send a skier out front following a rough bearing and the last skier remains motionless to confirm the direction with the compass bearing (human route targets) and then you regroup and do it again; this was especially effective when we were out with a group of mt friends we made.

Lunch in a whiteout is a pretty fun event too—you must eat your sandwich before it gets drifted over in your hand. Ha! Note the obligatory thermos...you don't go into the mts. without one.

The wind was shocking, steady and sustained much of the time (the wind was regularly 40-50 mph), but gusts on passes and mt. tops that could almost blow one over.

Despite the poor visibility, we found terrific skiing. Deep snow, steep drops and fun challenge.

Much of our time was based out of a Mt. Station called Sylarna, a charming mt. hotel with no road access perched just on the Swedish side of the Norwegian/Swedish border. The mt. stations have small rooms with sturdy bunk beds, a sauna, a gorgeous dining hall with views of the wind and snow outside, great kitchen facilities for cooking…it felt very luxurious to be where we where and to be living so comfortably! Here's a picture of the Station in the process of being buried...

The mt. stations and the early recreational routes noted in the picture below with the red-X posts are a part of the Svenksa Turistföreningen (Swedish Touring Association). This organization has a unique role in the promotion of Friluftsliv as a cultural ideal in Sweden...born of the National Romantic, STF was founded on the idea of providing an ever more modern society with access to the wilds of Sweden. The emphasis of the organization is not only on accessing the natural beauty of Sweden, but the cultural riches as well. A great effort is made to present the cultural elements of place for the touring vistors. For example, the reindeer operations of the region are a topic of interpretation at one of the Stations we visited, as we were skiing right through the summer grazing grounds of the southern reindeer herds...

A few more of the 'sunny pictures' as I want you all to know how unbelievably beautiful this region is. If you want a look at this area in the autumn, look back at my pictures from September as I traveled through this area then, quite a contrast...

Last note for this blog post, I write this on the eve of our wedding anniversary. I am missing Kerry pretty intensely today as he just left...but more that feeling his absence, I feel so lucky to have had the time with him here...