Alta

I've been waiting some days in Kilpisjärvi for my friend Laurent, and I had a very good time there. Laurent was coming from Tromsø, where his plane was landing, and he had to find a way to reach Kilpis with the sledge, because there were no busses driving as far as there! He was able to hitch some cars, and was there on saturday afternoon. We had lots of things to tell!

We left Kilpisjärvi on sunday morning, we had to reach Kautokeino within five days, because Laurent's plane was leaving Alta on friday!
We didn't get up so early, because we wanted to take a last tasty breakfast at the hostel, then we went down on the lake, and began to follow the skiløype.
But after some kilometers on the lake, Laurent was hurting his feet so much that we had to stop and find a solution. He had come with quite the same gear as I used to have until mid-april, that means heavy alpine skis with skins, and big boots.
First we tried to exchange our equipement, to see if I felt better in his shoes. It was not really working better, and we really thought we had to find some other gear!
We first took a look at the supermarket, but they had no ski gear. Then we tried to hitchhike back to the sport shop that was near Retkeilykeskus (the hostel were I stayed), but no one took us, so we had to walk all the way on the road. The sport shop was only selling snowmobile stuff, and they told us to go back to Retkeilykeskus, where they were supposed to have some equipement.
So we came back to exactly the place where we had been taking the breakfast some hours ago. First they took us upstairs to have a look and choose a pair of skis and shoes. But when we explained that we wanted to hire them to Kautokeino and send them back by the post, I looked at their expression and thought they wouldn't agree. They didn't... Then we asked if we could buy some old pair of skis instead. They had to think for a while, give phone calls, and they took out some kind of eighteenth century wooden skies and wanted to sell those for 80 euros!! But we didn't even have telemark shoes to go with, and they didn't want to give away the shoes.
Finally, we gave up and went out. We were somewhat angry, but there was no reason: just imagine that too mad belgians come into your hostel and want to buy your pair of skis immediatly... you would't be so keen about it.

We hitchhiked back to our pulks near the supermarked and thought about some solution.
Finally we glued some skiwax under the alpine skies, they were gliding very well and that did the trick to Kautokeino!

The landscape was beautiful, quite flat, we followed the scootertracks all the way, because the snow was so rotten and wet. We had to get up very early to get freezed snow.



On tuesday, we went near a flock of reindeers. At that time, they all came down from the mountain toward us and started to follow us. We had 200 reindeers in a straight line in our back and it was impossible to unstick them. I was feeling like we had done a big mistake, because we were moving the animals all the way, and that would make the reindeer keepers' work even more difficult. We tried to go faster, they went faster, then we tried to stop, they stopped, but as we started again, they followed again!!!
Finally we went outside the reindeers' area, and they stopped following us. Pfff.
Made us laugh all the week afterwards, but at that time, we were not laughing at all!!
If you see reindeers, don't go through the flock!! Go around!!!

The next day, we reached the Finland-Norway border. There is a strong fence all along the border. It is not difficult to cross, but we were following a snowscootertrack, that was the only way not to drown in the deep snow. Of course, the scooter had been following the fence on a very, very, long distance, and that was not at all the direction we had to follow. But we followed the track for a very, very long distance too, thinking, each time we reached the top of a hill, that there would be an opening in the fence the scooter would had been gone through. But there was just another hill, and so on...
At some time I got bored of that little play. We pitched the tent, still on the finnish side, using the border as a rest for the back while cooking our meal. On the next morning, the snow was harder, so we could cross the fence just after breakfast and go offtrack.
Getting out of Finland has not been an easy task.

Then we came to Kautokeino, we were wondering why everything was closed and we noticed that it was the first of may! We pitched the tent on a parking ,and could find some food at Statoil. Believe me or not, Statoil hamburgers are not so bad...
Laurent went away with the bus early on friday morning. I managed to find a way through the snowfree roads in the village, to the "snowmobile highway" that is running on the frozen river toward Alta.

There is an old road between Kautokeino and Alta, and it is nowadays used as a snowscooter track. That was perfect for me, as I needed hard snow. I was quite annoyed not to have the maps for this area (they didn't sell them at Statoil, and waiting for the shops to open would have meant loosing an entire day, as the snow gets very bad when the sun begins to shine on it). But I only had to follow the signs, that was easy.

It was so hot that day and the sun was kicking so much on my head that I had to try to find some shadow and make a stop every kilometer to allow myself to cool down. But just imagine how much shadow you can find in a country where the only trees are tiny leafless birches... I missed bitterly the good old days in Sarek when we used to have -25C.

I had to pitch the tent and thought about going only at night henceforth. The nights are bright now, and I can even not remember when I had to take out my lamp for the last time.

I got up at 1am, there had been a light refreezing, and skiing was magic, I was flying above frozen lakes with a beautiful, endless reddish sunrise...
At 11am, I reached Suolovuopmi, that is the place where both the old and the new road cross eachother. There is a camping, I could buy the maps I needed, and asked for some meal, but it was too early to get anything. I thought also about renting a cabin, but that was nonsense as I wanted to get up at 11pm... The camping was very unpleasant, smelling mud and crazy snowmobile drivers.




I went away and pitched, once again, the tent in the burning sun. The snow was more rotten than ever, that kind of snow you fall so deeply through that you sometimes think you will have to lie there until the night's refreezing to have a chance to get out of the trap...
I could hardly sleep, trying to forget the heat and the bright light...

I skied all the next night on a beautiful plateau, the trail began to loose altitude and I had less and less snow. Two times, I had to go through a little torrent, when I got my package on the shore, it was no pulk anymore, but a bath.
It was suddently spring, and I felt I would soon have some troubles...




Indeed, as I came to the bottom of the valley, the track stopped suddently on a snowfree parking. There was grass and torrents all around, impossible to go any farther, because of the pulk that I can't carry. It was 4am, I took all the soaked things out of the pulk and spreaded them all around the parking, thinking they would dry... After half an hour, while I was trying to sleep lying on the road, it began to rain.
There was an old abandoned VW minibus on the side, I got all the things including myself inside and took a deep sleep...

I was awakened by some noise and saw that a couple had come down from the mountain and were putting their snowmobile back on the trailer.
They were so kind and took me to their house down toward Alta, where I spent all the afternoon. They offered me to dry my things, take a shower, and we had a good dinner... I can't tell how many nice people I met in this country, it is fantastic. Then they drove me to Alta in the evening, where I am staying by a french friend, who is working here as a landscape architect... Thanks also!

Right now I have to prepare the trip to Nordkapp, that is not far away anymore. This will be an interesting thing, I will write about it in a next post!

Nico