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.

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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

Winter! Winter?

Snow, rain and a weird colored sunset. This afternoon.

Yes, what's happening to the winter weather? Today and yesterday were more like days in late spring: rain, melting snow,... Way too warm temperatures. 

So I decided to drive home already tomorrow, one day earlier than planned. Simply because skiing or any other outdoors activity simply sucks right now. 

Yesterday I still went 25km on my backcountry skis though and today I was out in the darkness and had a nice fire with another girl who stays here. 

Oh, and I also built two amazing snowmen (one is a snow girl, the one with my hat on,) 

As you can see from the stats I'm a terrible skier and I will have to change my technique radically if I want to participate in next year's Kortvasan, which is 30km. 

For all non-swedes: Kortvasan is the short version of the 90km skiing race Vasaloppet, which takes place in Mora, every year in March. I signed up for the shorter version and now I'm going to have to bite my way through it. 

Sometimes I don't even know why I do these things and put myself in trouble ;)

And here norwegian adventurer (and my personal idol) Lars Monsen with my last words for today: 

A windy day in the forest.

I'm still amazed places like this exist on earth.

This morning I woke up to the sound of the trees swaying around and small branches flying against the window. It was definitely too windy to try to go higher up on the mountains, above the treeline. In the mountain station there is a cool weather station and some information about wind chill factor. For some reason I'm a real nerd when it comes to weather oberservation and I love the automatic calculation of the felt temperature. 

(The minimum temperature doesn't show on this picture. It changes between the measured temperature and how long ago this was measured)

Here's some more about the effective/felt temperature

I tried some x-country skiing, but the tracks were ruined by the wind and melting of the last days. 

great.

Later on I went backcountry skiing in the forest and tried to take a little video of it. It's not exactly action sports, so consider it a relaxation video ;). My skiing, which is otherwise of course perfect, got a little bit worse by holding my phone in one hand all the time. I had both skiing poles and both gloves in the other hand and basically nothing to push or balance myself. So all mistakes or any whacky style you see is of course only due to that. 

So here it is, my first (shaky) video: 

And some more pics of the amazing midwinter light! 

STF mountain station

Everything on the other side of the lake is Norway.

Another untimely sunset at 14.30 pm. 

A lot of reindeer and a bit of skiing

This morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise and no cloud in the sky. I got ready quickly, to not miss any of the daylight and got my equipment from the car. Such a nice feeling to stand on the skis again! 

As soon as I got away from the cross country track though the snow showed it's true face and it was a crust of ice with some melted slush underneath. Needlees to say it was very very hard to go uphill in these conditions. I have no skins on my skis (because I don't own any) and it felt a lot like going on an escalator that goes the wrong way. After about 45 minutes I looked back and I realized that I wasn't going anywhere. So I decided to drop my plans of getting to the top of Jakobshöjden for today. The way down took me about three minutes.

As I was already rushing downhill, I continued to the nearby lake and then up again to the mountain station. 

I drove to Idre, which is 40km away, to look for some skins, fuel the car and do some shopping. On the way I encountered at least a hundred reindeer that were licking the salt of the street. They are completely crazy about the salt that is used by the snowplow in order to make the road less slippery! Some moved away as the car approached, others couldn't resist and continued to lick the asphalt, even as I was half a meter away. I got out of the car several times just to look at them. One even came to me and sniffed on my hand. Unfortunately for the reindeer my hands were not salty.

would you guys mind to move a little? 

Nipfjällsjugan

"Got some salt?"

Sámi flag, as Idre is Sweden's southern most part of Sápmi

Storsätern Kapell

3 pm sunset over the STF Fjällstation

The first snow!

...At least the first snow for me this winter. 

After some 8 hours of driving I came to Grövelsjön Fjällstation, where I'll stay for some days enjoying the cold and the snow. So far the weather hasn't been all too winterly. Along the way it was mostly storm, rain and melting snow. Even up here, on 62º North and 800m over sea level it's 3ºC positive right now, and that in the middle of December. I hope for it to become colder soon. 

Here are some first impressions:

On the way the street conditions were not really fun. It was actually kind of terrifying. I have aboslutely no problem with driving on snow, but slushy ice and a lot of rain falling on top is not really in my comfort zone. Saw a guy putting on snow chains and I think it might have been a good idea. At least my car has some studded tires that make it a bit less slippery. I'm already dreading the way back home next friday :P

But now no more driving and enjoying the coziness :)

Plans for tomorrow are to make a topptur. It looks like it should be sunny and depending on the snow conditions I will take my backcountry skis, or maybe just winter boots. I might put crampons in my backpack, in case it gets really icy and steep. Thinking about Storvätteshågna (1204 m, Dalarna's highest peak), or alternatively Jakobshöjden, which is closer and about 1100m high. 

It would be awesome to get a view over the snowy landscape on my first proper day here! I hope there will be no clouds or fog. Doesn't look impossible, maybe just a little bit windy.

Packing for a week in Grövelsjön

While I'm unfortunately having a cold and not feeling really fit, I'm already preparing for my next trip. 

On Saturday I'm going to leave for a week in northern Dalarna, where I'm going to do some 

cross-country skiing, backcountry skiing and possibly hike up some little peaks. I hope the weather will be bright, so that I can make the maximum out of the six hours of daylight, that there are. 

As I'll go by car, I don't have to be so careful about every item that I can bring. I just pack everything I could need. 

Here's what I'm bringing: 

I also have my x-country skis, of course, but they're in the car - and it rains so much that I just don't want to go out to get them ;)

On my packing list:

•  Hilleberg Akto tent
•  Mountain Equipment women's classic 750 sleeping bag
•  Exped Synmat 7 M
•  Grivel 12 point crampons
•  Black Diamond hiking ice axe 
•  Trangia kitchen with liquid fuel stove
•  snow shovel 
•  map and compass
•  first aid kit
•  Mora knife
•  fanny pack with water bottle for x-country skiing 
•  Exped syn pillow
•  Black Diamond spot headlamp 
•  Black Diamond tent light
•  a lot of warm clothes, thick socks, long underwear, gloves, wool hats
•  Alpina Alaska backcountry skiing boots 
•  Salomon Pilot women's skiing boots
•  Fischer E99 backcountry skis 
•  candles, stuff to light a fire,... 

I'll still have to pack a ton of food and something to read. There's 18 hours of darkness every day...