A cabin trip

Oh for fucks sake, it's almost a month since my last post. Not good, not good...
So in the spirit of being late, here's pics from a cabin trip I tagged along on some weeks ago.

Gorgeous weather, very little snow, one little ski trip where I skinned up and walked down... Evenings spent swing dancing and keeping the fires going. Ended up with +35 degrees celcius inside while the outside kept a snug -20 degrees.

Oh! And a stunning northern light popped up the second evening! Though by the time I scrambled in to get the camera, it had gone away. Doesn't matter, other trip participants managed to eternalize the moment.

The cabin: Vekvessætra....

....and the little toilet house

Easter - part VI

After a bad night's rest in the icecave (note to self: inflate sleeping mat more, waking up with arse touching ice cold rock is not very comfortable), we all went for a ski. As far as I can figure out from maps, I think we skinned up Ottofjellet. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Mari and Elena skinning up.

Katja and Amanda sporting their Aklima wool nettings (very much recommended form all of us). I think that should be Tellbreen in the back left there...

Myrull:

Curtis:

Mari:

Getting ready to telemark down. And I'm making faces as always. And btw I don't actally know how to tele. Amanda did teach me some very useful stuff the day after this, but this day I mainly just came down by falling.

Now, that's me on the right there, and about two seconds after this photo was taken, I managed too fall as well, straight from where I was standing.

Easter - part II

It's Norway's national day today, I've walked in the parade, I've eaten cake and hot dogs and I've slept for four hours this afternoon. At this moment don't really know where to put myself, but I found some wine in the kitchen, and I'm just going to end up in front of my laptop ayway, so let's blog.

Easter part II, right. The following pics are from the beginning of easter when me and three others snow scootered to a UNIS student cabin close to Svea, one of the two Norwegian coal mines on Svalbard.

I can never decide whether the story of a picture should be under or over it. Any opinions?

Let's put text above for now.
So, this is Niklas,hacking up coal into smaller pieces that we could actually get to light up.

The cabin. No water, no electricity. Going for a piss in the night was interesting. Rifle over shoulder, long jons and down jacket, carefully looking around for polar bears when peeing.

Oh, and that mountain in the middle on the pic below, called Aspelintoppen, that's where we skied the next day. Didn't get all the way to the top though. It's about 1200 m high, we wen't up to about 900 m or so.

 Old, windblown polar bear tracks on the side of the mountain. From a mum and cub.

As far up as we went this. Mind you the last bit took forever! And my stamina is non-existant compared to everyone else on this arcipelago. I was so tired as we were to go down again, and the snow was hard packed, I lost my grip and ended up sliding sideways/backwards/forwards down half the mountain before I finally managed to stop. Felt like scary stuff at the time of sliding. Though got away with only some scratches on my skis. I need to learn how to ski better. I'm getting there mind you.

Anyway, back down on the sea ice we found this! That wasn't there when we went up. Fresh blood, like three metres of smudged blood.

And tracks! Polar bear tracks! No bear though. Anyway, it would have been a non-hungry bear which, naturally, makes them slightly less dangerous than hungry bears. Or so I would guess.

 Drove a bit further, and what did we find?

 Half chewed baby seal!

Lastly, scooters, skies, (relativelly) flat sea ice = Katja on skies behind scooter. Think she got up to 50 or 60 km/h. I'm sitting behind Amanda on the other scooter with the camera going click click click click click click having no idea of what I'm actually aiming at.

Winter in retrospect

Several posts were planned months ago, but I'm lazy, at times. Skiing is however a vital part of winter, both cross-country and downhill. I suck at both compared to most Norwegians, but I'm brilliant compared to most Brits.

 All four pics above from cross country skiing. Pic below: Just managed to get off the t-hook lift, ready to set off down hill on my carving skiis with my right-legged tibia in pain. I had just had a rather nasty fall. But notice my cool Oakley goggles and Fjällräven anorak. Yes, don't I look dashing!