Tour North of the Arctic Circle from Abisko, Sweden
March 2011
By Neil Smith
On the way to the station I met one or two friends I was able to say "I’m off to the Arctic Circle." It was a good line.
This was to prove one of the more dramatic tours that have done Keith, Susan, Jonathan and Neil,. The drama started even before we had landed in Narvik. The photo that Keith took from the plane as we were leaving can only give a hint of the beauty of the jagged mountains and islands that surround Narvik. When we arrived the sun was setting and this added greatly to the scene as the plane swooped in over fjord to land.
View from Plane.
The taxi drive to Abisko was another bonus. It was good looking out across mountains made more striking by moonlight sparkling off the ice – whoops! However, we needn’t have worried, ice proved not to be a problem. Abisko Turiststation was to be comfortable and large, although technically a hostel it was as more like a hotel, and overlooking a large white frozen lake. We were to see and ski a few of these.
The first day we did a loop near there that took us above the tree line. It gave a taste of conditions to come. For most of the tour the temperature was usually about -10 C. The Swedes kept saying that was not cold. It was interesting talking to them about the pleasures of -40C. There are not many. At that temperature it is difficult to breathe through your mouth; the air hurts you lungs, and it is even dangerous to drive. The snow was not that deep, about 2 feet, not the 2 or 3 meters you get further south. This snow, both lying and falling, had the quality of spindrift. It sometimes felt like marzipan. All this is interesting and awkward if you use waxes. There is an infinite variety of types of snows it seems.
Before setting off on the tour proper we were able to take advantage of the fact this route was circular and leave things at Abisko, a big plus.
We skied through the small birches, all the trees were small due to the short growing season, till we reached a lake leading to our first hut, Abiskojaure. Being on a popular route, the weekend and only one day from the main road, this hut was very crowded; lots of interesting chatter and people but not much peace and quiet.
On the first day there, we did a loop that took us into rocky mountains where a problem with Jonathan’s boots finally came to a head (bad metaphor). The ever ingenious Keith was able to improvise a repair that got him back to the hut. However it proved an expensive problem to fully solve as Jonathan had to return to Abisko by skido Taxi and hire some skis there.
The day after he returned we set off into the mountains proper. After spending the morning skiing through some craggy white terrain the weather closed in and we had to ski across a lake in whiteout conditions. The last hundred yards was the most awkward. The weather cleared for 20 minutes of sunshine then a blizzard very quickly set in. We had to side step up the last hundred meters to hut. However we were greeted with hot orange drinks by the warden before fighting our way through the spindrift blizzard to our hut. There were some dog sleigh teams there and the dogs seemed happy to spend the night out in a -15 C blizzard.
Alesjuare Hut.
Sleigh dogs resting in the snow – not skiers who can not afford the hut.
The next day was another dramatic tour. Do I keep using that word? There was a little sunlight filtering through the clouds and we were in the clear but the mountains were swept with spindrift. We caught a glimpse of a herd of reindeer grazing - on what I wonder! That night the sky was clear and there was a faint hint of northern lights but what was most interesting was the number of stars sparkling in the cold clear air. So many that it was hard to distinguish the constellations.
Keith, Susan and Jonathan above Alejuares.
The next day we set off on what was to be the most dramatic, again I am using that word, leg of the trip. After 10k through a pass we descended (Jonathan almost skied onto frozen waterfall) for lunch. After that lunch we followed a glen that whose sides were more precipitous and craggy than Glen Coe. The 40 mph gale that was forecast arrived, - 10 C and a wind chill factor of 35 C, we were glad we had it at our back. Both the mountain sides rising 1000 meters, and us, were swathed in swirling spindrift, all very, very dramatic (oops, using that word again). The Vista Hut was the best of the tour, small and quiet; it made a nice cosy two day stop.
Sientagas at Vistasaugan
The day tour from there should have been through a craggy U-shaped valley with sharp, conical mountains but whiteout conditions forced us to cut that tour short. The trip look the same back as out!
The trip from Vista to Nikkaloutka was the longest day of the tour, 32K as the crow flies, but longer as we had to follow a meandering river, however the weather was clear and we has some good views of the mountains we were leaving and frozen waterfalls along the way. We were glad that we had decided to leave such a long day till the end of the tour. Although the prevailing winds for the area are from the south, we were lucky to experience the worst of them behind us, from the north. We were rewarded by a comfortable (and affordable) hotel at the end; good food, good beer – and the first hot shower since Abisko – lovely!
After a short tour the next day, we moved by taxi and train back to Abisko. We were able to squeeze another 20K on our last day. That night we finally saw the northern lights – a green band across the sky that slowly changed,
We left early. It was sunny but -14 C. After a brief stop in Narvik we arrived in Edinburgh where it was 12 C, a difference of only 26 degrees!
Susan worked out that we had skied 112 miles. Were any of us tired?