04:11 Sun.
22 Dec, 2013

It was -15 degrees

Day 136 , 11 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-1 °C
Partly Cloudy
9:53 am
1:03 pm

Two weeks ago there was a Christmas market in the old town (Gammelstad). We decided to go there by foot like in the orientation week. The only difference was that now there was snow everywhere and it was around 35 degrees colder (it was -16 to be exact). We decided to start at 10 o’clock since sun rose at that time. In the summer it took us about 2 hours to get there, so timing was perfect, since market was open from 12 to 16 o’clock.

Tree tops showering in sunlight
Tree tops showering in sunlight

Once we started walking we didn’t feel cold anymore, though exposed long hair froze up, to a nice white shade. Thankfully I don’t have long hair, even so, I put on both a warm hat and a hoodie, from my jacket. Because I thought path was going to be flooded with people, I wore normal pants, since I wasn’t expecting much snow on the road. Later this turned out to be a grave mistake.

First hour went by fast, while were walking through the forest. To my surprise we were first to go there, as there were no other tracks in the snow.

When it’s this cold, snow doesn’t stick together when it falls on the ground (at least I think it’s because of this) instead it’s like light dust and if you kick it a snow cloud goes up into the air. It looks amazing.

When we reached the bird tower we decided to take a “shortcut” over the frozen lake. Shortcut is in quotes because even in theory it isn’t shorter. But the fun part was that we could go over the lake, so we took it anyway.

As we were making our way toward the lake, we found just how hard it is to walk on the marshy land that surrounds lakes and rivers up here. For some reason ground doesn’t freeze and snow builds up, so when you step onto it you go knees deep and there is a lot of swamp vegetation that you have to navigate in order to reach the lake.

After we were on the lake, we were making good progress again. Sun was already (well it’s like this all the time) low on horizon, it was more like dawn/twilight, despite being only 11.30 AM. Fun thing with a sun so low is the length of ones shadow. Our shadows must have been at least 15 meters long, on a flat lake surface.

After crossing the lake, we found out, that there is a highway separating us from the other side, where the old town is. Here we could have turned around, but instead we decided for a more exciting option of continuing down the highway until we would cross path with the “real” trail.

Our progress slowed down dramatically, we weren’t on a lake anymore but were walking through a deeply snowed marshy land. For some reason, despite not wearing waterproof pants, I was leading first through the deep snow. As I later learned (nah I actually knew this before :P), it is much easier to follow someone on such terrain, since he flattens the snow and makes a path in it. After about half an hour of walking we reached a small shaft under the highway connecting lakes on both sides. The shaft was small, maybe around 0.5m in diameter and half of it was filled with frozen water from the lakes. After much deliberation, whether we should go through it or not, we split into two groups, one continued beside highway, mine decided to go down under.

Preparing to cross the highway through the underground half frozen drain pipe, connecting both lakes.
Preparing to cross the highway through the underground half frozen drain pipe, connecting both lakes.

Again I was the first one to go, the tunnel was so small I had to take my backpack from my back, lay down on my belly and push it in front of me. After first few meters of really careful movement and intense listening if ice was cracking I got more courage and continued faster. A friend passed me a flashlight so I could better evaluate depth of ice. When I turned it on I found myself face to face with frozen fish just about 5 cm under the ice (my face). I almost screamed, but there was not much I could do but continue. Even with the flashlight it was hard to tell how deep the ice was, I have a feeling that it was frozen through and through. After about 5 minutes I was on the other side. It took me 5 minutes to crawl through a 50m shaft. Ice was so slippery that it was impossible to push yourself forward, that’s why I had to cling to the ceiling and walls, really weird to see, like a Spiderman.

On the other side we were greeted with another lake and about 0.5km of marshy land in the direction of the town. After about 15 minutes of struggling through the snow I suddenly felt my leg sink deeper than usually. The snow came almost to my waste and as I was trying to pull my leg out when I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my leg. It was water. For some reason water wasn’t frozen on that spot, probably because of deep snow cover providing sufficient insulation. As soon as I freed my leg out, pants up to my knees went stone hard as water froze instantly on a -15 degrees cold air. And like if that wouldn’t be enough icy cold water also went into my shoe. Despite them being waterproof they can’t prevent water from going in from the top.

But wait, there is more. Like if that wouldn’t be enough… Just after few steps the other leg followed. So there I was in the middle of nowhere, with freezing cold water in my shoes, frozen pants and with sun already gone. I felt like I was in the middle of Antarctica.

I have never experienced anything like it, the pain didn’t go away as it normally does, when you touch something cold. It was burning like someone spilled boiling water on my legs. The worst part is there was nothing I could do, except continue toward the old town (the closest civilisation). Even after 45 minutes, when we finally reached the market, my legs were still in pain. It was then, when I got really scared, that I would get frostbites from all the cold.

Frozen pants up to knees.
Frozen pants up to knees.

At the market, I got a chance to take the shoes off. Despite expecting water to pour out, everything appeared surprisingly dry. Even socks were only moist at worst. I’m still thankful that I bought the best shoes I could find, they probably saved my feet from a nasty frostbites.

The market was much smaller than I expected. Merchants were selling all sorts of stuff, from trinkets, statues of dwarfs and elves, some kind of sweet Swedish bread, moose meet and many more.

Christmas market at Gammelstad
Christmas market at Gammelstad

After short trip around the market, we decided to take a bus home, since it was already pitch black, my legs were frozen and we had a farewell dinner to prepare for.

Despite market being disappointingly small, the journey was one of a kind and like usually it’s the about the journey not destination.

15:57 Thu.
21 Nov, 2013

So cold your tears will freeze

Day 105 , 42 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-14 °C
Fog
8:32 am
1:59 pm

First an old news: I finally bought snow shoes. They are warm, look kind of cool and if it is to believe the salesmen (multiple of them for what matters) they are the best you can buy here. I also got a haircut at a Turkish barber, who isn’t part of barber’s cartel, so I “only” paid 25€. The haircut isn’t the best one I’ve gotten but it’s still better than the long hair I had before.

Today I woke up to an ice-cold, blue-sky morning. As soon as I stepped outside I was smacked in my face by a -15 ice cold air. It’s weird but other than face (which was unprotected) I didn’t felt much cold, I’m sure that when it was -2, the other day, I felt colder with same amount clothes.

On my way to school my bike chain broke as I started to climb a small hill. It took me around 10 minutes to repair it, since I didn’t want to touch any metal without gloves.

On my way back from school I decided it has finally been cold long enough for lake to freeze deep enough. As I approached the lake I saw some people skating on it, so I felt pretty safe that it will hold my weight.

Frozen boat in the lake.
Frozen boat in the lake.

This was first time I ever walked over a frozen lake. To my surprize it wasn’t as slippery as I imagine it would be. After few stapes I got a really big adrenalin rush as I saw quite deep crack in the ice. After much deliberation I decided to examine it a bit further. Ice wasn’t cracking as I approached it, and when I was finally close enough to see it clearly I saw its only 5cm deep. The surrounding ice was more than 20cm thick, so I think it was quite safe. Nevertheless I did try and avoid cracks later on.

Walking over frozen lake.
Walking over frozen lake.
There were some cracks in it. It was a bit scary walking over it.
There were some cracks in it. It was a bit scary walking over it.

As I reached other side I decided to go take a picture of some bushes near the lake. I went over something that seemed like sewer drain. After few steps ice under one foot gave and I stepped into shallow water (I hope it was only water -.-). Thank god I was wearing my new shoes so my feet didn’t get wet, but my pants got soaked around ankles part. Needless to say pants froze in 1 minute. It was actually funny, I could break them in half.

I could literary broke them in half. Look at the right foot. Shoe isn't that wide and round :) .
I could literary broke them in half. Look at the right foot. Shoe isn’t that wide and round 🙂 .

After this, I decided it would probably be a good idea to go back. On the way back I took some pictures and while looking toward sun and through camera viewfinder my eyes watered a bit. This normally isn’t a problem unless your tears freeze each time you blink and therefore glue your eye lids together.

Long shadows over flat surface of the lake. Note how long the shadow is, this photo was taken at 12:13.
Long shadows over flat surface of the lake. Note how long the shadow is, this photo was taken at 12:13.
Sunset over the lake.
Sunset over the lake.

All in all it was a fun day.

12:39 Tue.
8 Oct, 2013

Lofoten islands

Day 61 , 86 remain
Lulea , Sweden
10 °C
Fair
7:01 am
5:32 pm

We gathered at LTU on Friday evening. Despite light rain we were all cheerful and looking forward to the trip. I decided to only bring my backpack, so somehow I had to cram all my clothes, bed lining, food and camera in it. Backpack isn’t that big so I ended up sacrificing my clothes, only bringing with me 2 shirts. Mobile phone charger, toothpaste and shampoo were sacrificed as well. Luckily others brought big suitcases full of stuff, so I was able to borrow toothpaste etc. from them.

When entering a bus I was pleasantly surprised. Bus was equipped with free Wi-Fi (even in Norway) and electricity sockets. I was kind of sorry I didn’t bring my laptop with me. When we all boarded the bus, driver greeted us (in surprisingly good English) and told us some info about the trip. Soon after the ride began, he put a movie – Inglorious bastards, on bus TV. I really wasn’t expecting to ever see this move in such a place.

After 4 hours of driving we stopped for the first time in Kiruna. We raided toilets in local gas station and some people bought something to eat. Shortly after we continued. In about 2 hours we reached Norway’s border. The landscape changed dramatically, from wilderness with forests everywhere, to landscape full of fjords. Downside (although I don’t see any upsides) of riding only at night is that you don’t see any landscape through the window. We did another short stop near islands, where we picked up our guide. I didn’t quite understand the story but I think she is Icelander doing I don’t know what in Norway, but lives in Lulea … it doesn’t really matter.

The ride on the islands continued for about 4 more hours. Sadly I couldn’t fell asleep during bus ride, at least not until very end. And that’s a pity, Last hour of ride sun started to rise up. It was the most beautiful sunrise over the islands and untouched nature, I’ve ever seen. Sadly I fell asleep in next second, just to be woken up in 20 minutes when we reached our apartment area (I’ll refer to it as camp side in the future).

Total driving time (with stops included) was exactly 12h, from Friday 7PM to Saturday 7AM.

Cabins where we slept in Lofoten
Cabins where we slept in Lofoten
Cabins were overlooking the nearby lake. The views were breathtaking.
Cabins were overlooking the nearby lake. The views were breathtaking.
View from the cabins
View from the cabins

When we disembarked we brought luggage to our cabins. And I must say cabins looked great. They were all made from wood with enormous windows (whole side wall was a window) and great view over the lake.

There was no time to rest, when we unpacked we had a “Norwegian” breakfast in main building and then we were off to town centre. Oh I forgot to tell in which town we were staying: Svolvær.

I’ve decided to make a lot of smaller posts instead of a big one in favour of optimisation and faster webpage load time. So To be continued in next post.