Up north

We did our almost traditional january trip north this week. Out of the original five, only two (craziest?) decided to go this time. The two were my good friend Jani and myself. We headed out at about eight on monday morning, with about 800 km of driving ahead of us. I took a couple of quick snapshots along the way:

As can be seen from the lower picture, there were some nice scenery along the way, but the dull gray weather did not do them justice. After about 11 hours on the road we arrived at our destination.

Our first day out in the wild was gray and foggy:

Jani took this picture of me just before the slight drizzle coming down froze on my camera and forced me to stop taking pictures:

We managed to ski quite a bit during the day and even saw some birds. Didn't catch any though. After a sauna and dinner, I had no trouble getting to sleep. As soon as I put my head on the pillow and pulled the blanket over me, I slept until the alarm clock woke me up in the morning for another day of skiing.

Our second day started out with clear skies and a nice crispy -17 C

We skied thru a few small swamps and headed up the hill that can be seen on the horizon in the picture above.

 The view from the top was spectacular:

At the top, we stopped for lunch:

With the sun low on the horizon, the trees and the sky had blue and purple color:

This time we didn't even see birds, except for one black grouse that flew across the road just as we got back to our car. Eventhough we didn't catch anything for the second year in a row, I still want to go out again in the future.

Up north

My blog has been on hold for way too long. I just haven't had the time nor inspiration for photography and even less to write. In january I was up north with a few good friends for some x-country skiing in the boonies. The whole trip was four days, two days for travel and two days of skiing with rifles on our backs. This time our accomodation was in Finland and the hunting areas just accross the border on the swedish side. Didn't catch anything, but I had great time with good friends. Below are a few pictures I took during our trip:

Skiing in Sweden II

We took off again nice and early in the morning. As usual we started the day with a heavy breakfast before going out, couldn't go about all day in the woods with skis without one, could we?

We drove the car to the same parkingspot I had used the day before and headed out in the direction where I had seen the capercaillie. Again we skied along the edges of swamps and clearings in the woods. The crust on the snow carried nicely and we moved along nicely eventhough we did take our time observing the treetops along the way. As we crossed the dirtroad we had a short tea break. Then we followed the edges of the swamp to the place where we made the fire on our first day, lighted up again and cooked some sausages for lunch.

After our break we skied back to the dirtroad, crossed it, and proceded in the direction where we had left our car. We found some old skitracks that were heading in the same direction we were going, so we decided to follow them. We climbed a rather large hill, at the top of which was a large swamp area. Following the swamps edges we eventually came to the road we had started from.

The longest skiing trip of the week, but the weather was great with a good crust on the snow that carried our weight nicely and temperatures ranging from -17'C when we started to -14'C when we returned to the car. The sky was overcast with some fog tossed in too, but visibility was good enough for us. We did see a few trees that had been used for feeding along the way, but no birds.

On the way back to the cabin we stopped by the local shop to fill up the tank in car and to do a little shopping. I bought a little hunting knife for Nea and a "kuksa" (a traditional wooden cup) each for the twins. The smaller girls have been wanting a kuksa of their own ever since they saw that Nea had one when we went out to the forrest some time ago. Now that defect in their camping gear got fixed.

At the cabin we heard that the other team had gotten a sighting of a black grouse, but didn't get close enough to take a shot before the bird fled. Our head chef had been on his final approach towards the bird when it took off.

Our evening meal consisted of a meatloaf prepared by the chef, with potatoes and grave done by me. After dinner we cleaned the cabin before calling it a night. We'd be heading home early in the morning.

capercaillie

Up at 8 and started the day with a heavy breakfast again. This time we fried some bacon and potatoes on the pan. I think there was some onion tossed in also. After eating, we packed our gear and drove off towards the hunting areas. This time we took the main road in the opposite direction and after a short drive we turned off to a secondary road, which we followed up the side of a rather large hill. We parked along the roadside and hopped on our skis. We skied down a small slope from the road and got to a swamp.

The weather was foggy, visibility was down to minimums, so we decided to light a fire and wait and see if the fog would burn off as the sun came higher. When we finally managed to get the fire going, (I have never in my life seen such a antagonistic fallen spruce) we came to the conclusion that the fog was not going to clear and decided to head off to see what was hidden in the foggy landscape.

We followed the swamps edges and stopped to look at treetops for birds. On one of our stops I looked at one pine a bit longer. I looked and looked, even turned my binoculars to other trees, but I kept coming back to that one tree and one branch just below the top of it. After some time I even asked my partner to take a look at the pine in question. After looking at it long and hard we agreed that the black lump on the branch had to be a bird.

I started to ski towards the patch of forrest nearby, slightly away from the bird. I thought I could approach the bird using the cover from the spruces at the forrestpatchs' edge. My partner remained in place to observe and try to capture the whole thing on video. As I was skiing, I kept taking quick glances at the bird, just waiting to see it flee. After what seemed like an eternity, I got to the cover of the trees and turned to approach the bird. I was aiming for the tip of the treeline protruding towards the tree the bird was sitting at. Just before I reached my destination, I stopped to remove my backpack, rifle and skis. The last meters I approached in a low crouch until I was behind the small spruce I had noticed on my approach. I lay in the snow and ever so slowly moved sideways until I had the bird in sight. I removed the muzzlecover from my rifle and chambered a round. I shifted myself to get a good steady position. For a moment I thought I had blown it and the bird had fled when I lost it from my sight as I tried to find a good position in the snow. Finally everything was good and I took the shot.

After I fired, I saw the bird fall straight down, indicating a perfect hit. A loud "yeah" from the direction where my partner was observing the situation confirmed my observation. After doing a "little hiawatha" -style "captured game dance", I gathered my gear, put on my skis and headed across the clearing towards the bird. I found the capercaillie right underneath the tree.

After gutting the bird, taking a few pictures and a few other compulsory rituals we headed off again. Every now and then the thin crust on the snow even carried us, but for the most part we kept sinking knee deep in the snow, despite our skis. At a small lake between two swamps we discovered that water had risen on top of the ice below the snow. We turned toward dry land immediately, but our skis got wet enough to turn into lumps of ice in a matter of seconds. Wet snow and water freeze solid rather fast at -17'C. Using our knives we scraped the ice off and got our skis back to working condition again and we were able to continue our journey. I took a few quick snapshots when we stopped for a break to have some tea and sandwiches.

We continued skiing from swamp to the next until the sun started to set. Eventualy we came back to the same road along which we had parked our car and skiid along the road back to our startingpoint. In the evening we again had a heavy dinner and did some celebrating also.

Skiing in Sweden I

Wake up around 8 in the morning. Our head chef made us an hefty omelet, real "big boys" breakfast. It was so good that I just had to scrape the last little bits off the frying pan after everyone else had gotten their share. The morning turned out to be a beautiful one, with the rising sun painting the sky above the ridgeline and the river behind our cabin in different shades of purple:

While I was admiring the sunrise, I took a quick snapshot of our cabin, mainly as a memento of what our housing looked like:

We paired off and headed out. My partner and I took a short drive and then we were at our area, looking to find a place to park our car along a small dirtroad with high snowbanks on both sides. We even gave the snowbanks a try with a showel, but realized soon enough that showeling would take far too long. We found a good spot to park the car along the main road and skiied along the roadside to the dirtroad. Following the dirtroad we got the edge of the swamp that we had been aiming for.

We skiied along the swamps edges, stopping to look at the treetops thru our binoculars, but there were no birds to be seen. Along the way we stopped to light a fire, cook some sausages and have a cup of tea. As we were circling back towards the road and our car, the wind picked up. We decided to follow a snowmobile trail back to the road.

We drove back to the cabin where the rest of the crew had just arrived from their days skiing. In the evening our head chef made some garlic potatoes and sauce to go with the steaks I as the "assistant chef" cooked. I think I kept the steaks on the pan a moment too long, the order was for them to be medium but they were more in the line of medium+. Sometimes things just don't go right,especially when you think you know how things should be done. The head chefs sauce saved the day and with some good red the meal ended up being excellent.

Weather for the day? -2'C in the morning, heating up to 0 during the day with clear skies.

Oh, yes, almost forgot. We did see one bird during the day. There was a female grouse feeding at the top of a tree next to the main road as we parked our car.