4 days on a mount.:
I've been doing nothing for my vacation, as you can read more about deeper into my diary, so I decided to join my mother and littlebrother for a mountain-tour.. and I am not in a good condition:)
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we're going to walk from the Signal-valley to Gappo, then to Golda, and then to Pältsastugan in sweden. alltogether a walk about 5,6 miles. [NOTE! when I speak of miles in this entry, do not care about the english miles. These are metric-system miles, which means 10 km's or 10.000 meters] |
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I packed alot of stuff, and then I had to unpack to pack again, 'cause my backpack was too heavy. We had to share the food among each other, so you really had to plan the luggage you wanted to carry on for four days. I decided not to take along the book I was reading (2001: a space odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke), but I did take with me my notepad and pen.. so here I am again to bother you with my life's small events:
16.08.01, about 10:30 pm (Thurday)
So, today we've walked about 1,2 mile. About 6pm we started trotting along in thick, alive forests. Then we begun to rise in the terrain, and sweat covered all our group's 17 bodies. Heavy backpacks containing sleepingsack, this journal, clothes and food for me, my brother and mother for three days. When we reached the forest-border (where the trees stop growing) we all witnessed the beauty of free, wild nature, nutured by God of all God's - mother nature.
(Then we take a little commercial break to tell you that this report was brought to you by Troms Turlag. Thank you.)
Talking about Gods, the weathergods delivered acceptable, beautiful weather. we also had some sun, and cold, magic fog. Speaking of fog; I could swear I saw little faeries dancing in the mist, not at least concerned of the 17 sweat, norwegian tourists with Kodak cams and tired feets. As soon we reached a little pond, we camped for half an hour, n' gave us a chance to catch our breath an' feed. And we fed. After approximately 4 hours we reached the Gappo cabin, where we'll stay over. The cabin is 100 yards from the swedish border, and we've all taken all eatable food and non-eatable food inside, expecting swedish bears to scavenge for norwegian food.. No need to be a nationalist (Heil Hitler?). |
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this is a picture I took of a cave we passed on the way up.... really medieval.
we continued the day after to reach the Golda cabin.. Would it be as nice as the first part?? read on.
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17.08.01, ca. 9pm (Friday)
Hello there! Gosh, I'm fatigued, so fucking fatigued! Inside I hear roomates wash up the dishes while I sit outside writing this and enjoying the freedom of nature and nicotine. Maybe 1 km from here there's one of the two points "in norway" where you can stand in three different countries at the same time, this being the borders to norway, sweden and finland. This very day we trotted along since 10 am and walked about 1,4 miles. Luckily it wasn't cold, but rain kept pouring down till you couldn't see more than ten feet in front of you. Now it's nice though, and how ironic - it's been that way since we reached our destination, the Golda cabins. I witnessed some beautiful scottish-like scenery and also a canyon (like the grand, only smaller:). Tomorrow we'll go to sweden and the destination is even further away than today, so the stakes have rised. One of the group members had to turn today due to bad or no shoes.
When we settled in, we chopped some wood and got some water and made a fiest like nothing else. Some women had brought wine and some (perhaps) got a little too much of it. Now I'm cold and there's rain coming. I can feel it. So I'll have to move my ass inside to escape the cold and wet, and the death of mosquitos. My brother's already fast asleep and maybe that's not such a bad idea ...... I got something crawling up my back!!! ARRGH!!!
- sigge
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By the way, I hope till tomorrow that my terrible knee gets better. I was carrying water when I ended face down (of course) in the mud, and I busted my knee caps. Good I had foreseen it:)
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18.08.01 (Saturday)
Today I was the victim of nature's version of hell - repetative hills beyond hills beyond hills and then some more hills... Well, let's do this the classic way and start with the beginning. At 10:00 am we were all lined up in ol' military fashion, the wind was blowing hatefully hard and we're all in a good mood. Myself I was anxious to get started, 'cause after a nights good sleep, all I could think of was getting to use some of my energy. We reached the three-nation-border-point (which I mentioned above), but the wind kept me from running through norway, finland and sweden three times a minute due to the lack of wanting all my clothes soaked. After having visited Finland for a couple of minutes (man, they had some great tasty water!), we proceeded further in the the realms of sweden, and with all do respect - it sucked, or at least the first bit. As mentioned above, I went through hell but came out clean on the other side (of the mountain). A lot of curious-looking reindeers were following and we looked curiously back @ them, maybe one or two of us asked ourself the meaning of all this well aware that the question had to be asked: "is there intelligent life on Earth?" Noone did, though, maybe just as well. Later on we stopped (this was for the second time actually) and had ourselves a decent meal, still followed by the superior reindeers. A good smoke has never hurt anyone, at least not a single one, so I had one and tried to relax in the chilling center of all the wind. I tried.
Nevertheless we were only half way there and we trotted along again, spirit as low as always....! To save you alot of boring details; I managed almost to drown in mud, die of beauty of the scenery and get cancer from the single cigarette, and soon we were there. We met with this guy from London, saw a seagull really long way from home and soon we're off to have a real swedish sauna and eat.
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a real swedish (or really it's finnish) sauna is something you do to relax and torment/serve your body and health. You sit in this little room of wood, and have this really warm wood-oven. that's all, really! ya no c it? Ok, it's really hot (near or above the boiling point of water) and there's a lot of hot moist in the air, and this really worns out your body.
this was taken near this great waterfall 1 km from the Pältsa cabins. Underneath the waterfull, to the right, there was this bronze-statue of a water goddess made by a swedish art-student. He'd wanted to honor this beautiful place from where he'd grew up. (I'm to the left)
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All you do is sit there and sweat (and some prefere some good old fashioned spanking, that's why the english and french dudes didn't have one) and it's really great. you get really tired afterwards, and your body repairs it's faults and so on, it's just the ultimate thing to do when you're ten thousand miles from civilization and want some spanking....:) Gotto love it!
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Drink wine, and you will sleep well.
Sleep and you will not sin.
Avoid sin and get salvation.
So, drink wine to get salvation!
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20.08.01 (Saturday)
Had a great time in Pältsa, but next day at 9:30 am, we were once again on our way to see Gappo. But before that we made our way through some special scenery.
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With Northern Europe's biggest dropzone of sand following the glaciers under the ice-age. It's hard to describe, but imagine
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this really broad valley. In the middle of the valley, instead of a running river, there's a snake (maybe 200-400 meters tall) of sand with moss, lyng and stones on top. We followed the path on the top. It was really special, untill the rain came and I entered a grumpy mode. From Pältsa to Gappo you walk 1,1 mile and we reached Gappo at 11pm, all rainsoaked but glad we'd left the rain in sweden.
We stayed there to eat some food, pick up the missing teammember and get dry. Praise the lord for making me NOT bring cigarettes on this tour. The three other smokers came to me when they were all out. I had 50 grams (34 oz) of Eventyr (or adventure) tobacco.
At 2:15 pm we moved along, me a bit cold and a great deal wet, but with spirit as good as Pernod - 'cause we were all going home. Then sun came up, putting our existence in a new light. The way down was really fast and though my feet ached for a rest, I pushed on through. Halfway down the forest we all helped Helge (a good guy and photographer) eating up his hotdogs. Reaching the flat bottom of the Signal-valley was kind of strange, being used to the fact that flat places were on top of mountains or a marsh. But this was the really heavy part. My feets were on fire, my back screamed in pain and my heartbeat was unrythmic. Untill I - in the horizon - saw a manmade building and.... CARS!!! I started singing, humming and trying (but not succeding) to run. Soon I was there, as the last one down the mountain, 4 days after I'd gone up.
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We decided to eat a dinner (as a farewell) at Vollan's grillbar. I ate a greasy, lovely chicken with some good tasting pommes frites on the side, supported by a diet coke and a smoke afterwards.
Lovely!
Later on I've been realizing that things like a WC or an RV really made me happy. Because we'd successfully walked about 5,6 miles (56 Kms or 56.000 meters), three countries, exiting the civilizations on the mountaintops and entered the wilderness of usual everyday life.
I'll do it again sometime.
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