Sara på tur: February 2016

Sunday 28 February 2016

Vasaloppet - Kortvasan

Vasaloppet

The skiing marathon Vasaloppet is probably one of the most classic and traditional events in Sweden. By now there is not only one race but a whole week of competition that caters different classes of participants. Since this was my first time, I decided that it would be the wisest to decide for a modest distance, instead of the full 90km race. I had done fairly little training specifically for cross-country skiing, but I had my hopes up that all other excercise I had been doing would be sufficient.

The day before the race we had to drive about seven hours from Jotunheimen in Norway to Mora and I felt everything but fit on the morning of the competition. With headache and unsteady stomach I was waiting on the start line with about thousand fellow excited skiers. All in all, this day of competition, the Kortvasan, had 7000 participants. I had low expectations on the quality of the tracks, after so many others had already gone through them. But fortunately the weather stayed cold and there were still some frozen rails that made coming forward rather easy.

The first kilometers were rather slow, the group of starters were still so close to each other that I could hardly make a move without having another ski stepping on mine or a skiing pole almost stuck in my face. After about half an hour the whole situation loosened a little bit- the faster skiers were already far ahead of me and the slowest ones were left behind. After some more kilometers I even started to overtake some skiers that had started in other groups earlier than me. That was easy to see by the system of startnumbers. everybody with 11xxx had started at the same time then me, 10xxx a quarter earlier, and so on. After two hours I had even spotted some 4xxx, which means they had started almost two hours ahead of me. That was a nice motivation of course. But I also needed motivation: I still had a annoying headache and my stomach hurt with every movement.

But in the end, after some pretty long 30km, I came into Mora. My time was not really worth talking about, but it was a nice start into the exciting world of cross country skiing competiton and I'll be back for sure, maybe even with some more training and perhaps even on a longer distance.

Some meters to the finish line, picture taken from a live video stream of the event. Since I was busy skiing as fast as I could, of course I didn't take any pictures on this occasion.

After this adventurous month, now, I'm finally at home, watching tv with the cat.

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Jotunheimen - home of the giants

Jotunheimen

This norwegian National Park is home to the 29 highest mountains of the country and has thus received it's name 'the home of the giants'. I was really excited to come here for the first time and see the landscape. Even though we have only been in one part of the region, I can say for sure that it's really the home of the most impressive mountains in Scandinavia. For the past days we have stayed in Gjendesheim, a hut by the Norwegian Trekking Association DNT. There is plenty to do around here, mostly on skis of course.

It was overall a pretty nice experience, I must admit though that I feel more at home in some other parts of Scandinavia. The mountains in Jotunheimen are big and impressive, the distances between the huts are long and there are no apparent 'cozy' spots, just rugged rocks and steep cliffs. As amazing it is to look at this kind of landscape, it's not the type of terrain that I really feel comfortable in. It might be for a reason that the swedish are considered 'valley crawlers' (dalkrypare) compared to the norwegians, that move higher up in the mountains. For a trip where I spend a longer time outdoors camping and hiking or skiing, I really do prefer places with a good mix of interesting peaks and cozy forests where you can find some shelter against the wind. Probably good I'm living in Sweden and have all those lame little mountain areas in reach ;)

Here are some impressions!

Early morning over lake Gjende

Trying to get through the 40cm thick ice to catch some fishies.

Me, freezing inside my windsack.

There are two persons inside this picture...

Digging a hole for a shelter

Lunch inside our self built shelter, away from the biting wind

The first sunbeams hit Besseggen

Same perspective at night

View from the way up to Bessvatnet

Another lunch, another wind protection

Here are two of the day tours we did.

Thursday 18 February 2016

Winter Solitude

'Winter solitude-

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.'

Matsuo Basho

The Mountains - grow unnoticed

Their Purple figures rise Without attempt

Exhaustion Assistance or Applause

In Their Eternal Faces

The Sun with just delight

Looks long and last and golden

For fellowship at night

Emily Dickinson

When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Monday 15 February 2016

(Not) getting cold feet.

Tuesday 9 February 2016

The Basque Country from above

On our trip to the spanish Basque Country, from which we returned just a couple of hours ago, we got the chance to climb some lesser known peaks. The Basque Country has an absolutely stunning geography- there's steep cliffs by the sea, rolling hills all over the place, with the occasional pointy mountain, randomly thrown in.

The mountains aren't famous or especially hard to hike up but it was an awesome experience and I can't wait to get back there and see more of the Pyrenees and the Basque Mountains. Here are some impressions:

Ernio/Hernio 1078m

Ernio has for centuries been popular amongst the locals and has a lot of christian traditions and pilgrimages to it's name. On the peak is not only one but more than ten big metal crosses.