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.

The road to Slussfors

We started off on January 11th at 5 am, five friends in two cars. Our first stop was after a few hours drive when decided it was time for breakfast. The pitstop was held at a place called Hirvaskangas. The foods from the buffet went down well and we were back on the road again. Our next stop was several hours later in a town called Kemi. We stopped at the local supermarket to load up on foodstuffs, eat and fill the gas tanks of our cars. For some reason we attracted peoples attention with our four shoppingcarts full of stuff. After a brief drive north we came to Tornio and took a steep turn to the west, crossed the border and continued our drive towards the setting sun:

The drive continued, without any real breaks, hour after hour. Finally we reached our destination, the small village of Slussfors. The drive, including our stops, took us over 15 hours in which we covered a distance of just over 1100 km. Weather was on our side the whole way with -16'C and clear skies when we started, -10 and sunshine at Kemi and +2 with cloudy / drizzle at our destination.

Our local contact, Eric, came to meet us at the local shop when we arrived and led us to our cabin. At the cabin Eric showed us the places and went thru the hunting areas from the maps. The thoroughness of Erics' review of the hunting areas was a positive surprise, he gave us a full picture of the areas and their features. That is, to those of us who understood swedish, I personally had to wait for the translation on many items that were covered. In the days to come this area proved to be the heart of our cabin, we spent hours at the kitchen table, talking, plannind the following days treks, eating, drinking and laughing:

Our head chef cooked us a evening meal of hash. After eating we discussed the hunting areas and decided who goes in which direction in the morning. Got to bed around midnight.

Christmas

A few pictures taken over x-mas period:

Christmas coming

I ordered a christmas present for myself. It will not arrive in time for x-mas, but anyhow. My previous snowcamo-outfit has mysteriously disappeared somewhere in the past years. In fact, it might be even a good thing that it's gone, because it most likely had shrunk over the years, at least at the waist. So, now there is a new one coming in the mail. Nice to head out to our little trip in january when the gear is in order.

Pictures after a long break

We took a trip to visit relatives out west. I went along to watch a kids floorball tournament, managed to take a few pictures also:

Damn

My second shift after a long time off from work and I'm feeling that what Jon Lajoies video is all about is not such an bad idea after all:

Autumn

I could feel the silence this morning, the grayness of the fog muted the last sounds away. It felt good.
I took a few hours walk-about this morning. Took down the hide and brought it home to dry and wait for some minor adjustments.