Easter Skiing

Skiing at Easter is a kind of tradition in Norway. Outside today there is a constant heavy snowfall, but yesterday the sky was cloudless. We went 13km, give or take. That's not too bad considering I've never gone cross country skiing before.

E6 to Finnmark

Last weekend we drove to Alta, the largest town in Finnmark, which is the only Norwegian principality further north than the one we live in.

The first part of the journey took us over Kvænangen mountain. Marthe drives that way to work sometimes but I had never been up there before. It was a sunny day and once the road leveled out towards the top we stopped the car and I ran out into fields of snow. In no time I was almost knee-deep. There is no sound up there at all. There is wind all around, but somehow it seems noiseless.

Further on we found a small road which turns off towards Øksfjordjøkulen. That's a glacier which calves directly into the sea and which we saw on the map before we moved here. Until recently it was too dark to make the trip. We ran out of road and parked beside what appeared to be a fish factory closed for the day, then we walked along the side of a fjord until we came to a tiny collection of houses, some boarded up toilets and a sign telling tourists that they were a four hour walk from Øksfjordjøkulen. We climbed up to a natural observation point. The glacier was imbedded in the mountain on the other side of the fjord, a translucent blue under a cover of snow. You can see it in the picture below, up in the background to the right of the yellow house, though the light it holds is a little lost in a photograph.

And so we retraced our steps and drove on into Finnmark, but it was a busy weekend, so I'll follow this post up with two more soon.