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

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.