From Kilpis to Rostadalen #1

It is nice to get visitors, and even better if the weather is good so we can show off the beautiful country we live in. And this summer the weather has been excellent, a nice change after the very wet and cold summer in 2010. At the end of July we joined our visitors for a 3.5 day walk from the Finnish border near Kilpisjärvi to Rostadalen, staying in the Troms Turlag huts Goldahytte, Gappohytte and Rostahytte along the way. It wasn't particularly busy and at both Golda and Rosta we had one of the huts for ourselves. During the day we didn't see anyone else. It was easy walking in nice warm and sunny weather, sometimes even hot!, and the mosquitos were only really annoying around Goldahytte. I can't believe how many lemmings we have seen, they were everywhere, dead or alive, it really is a lemming year! But there was also quite some birdlife in the mountains: above the tree line mostly water and wading birds, golden plovers, ringed plovers, arctic skuas, ruffs, but also golden eagles; lots of small birds in the forests, of which the bluethroat was one of the less common ones. 

We have mostly been in these areas in winter as summers are often occupied with fieldwork in the coastal areas. In the winter it is magic here, a quiet snow covered landscape and cosy huts. But it is also stunningly beautiful in summer and this trip was a good reminder that we really should spend more time exploring these areas in summer too.

our route

Start of the trail from the road near Kilpisjärvi.

an old (dog)sled

the first day's highest point

Mining relics of old copper mines.

beautiful weather

Lots of golden plovers on the mountains.

Goldahytte is very close (3 km) from the triple country point where Finland, Sweden and Norway meet and we had never been there. So at the end of day one, after having our dinner in the hut, Tony and I made a little side trip and walked along the lake to the triplepoint and visited both Sweden and Finland.

The triplepoint: we are standing in Sweden, Finland is straight ahead, and Norway to the left.

A stoat was living in the wood shed at Goldahytte.

The second day, walking to Gappohytte.

Major river valleys cutting through the side of the mountain.

Lemming!

Gappohytte is right next to the border with Sweden. Note the red crosses marking the winter route in Sweden, it is impossible to get lost there. Fortunately there are no such markings in Norway.

The Gappo huts, the old hut to the left, new hut in the middle, and woodshed/toilet to the right.

BBQ in Ersfjorden

An afternoon in Ersfjorden with kayak and packrafts and a slightly chilly BBQ with freshly picked cloudberries. It is clearly a lemming year and the lemmings were running around our feet when we were eating our dinner, we have never seen anything like it.

Heading out from Ersfjordbotn

BBQ in lemming territory

 Impressive mountains around Ersfjorden

Happy visitors

Blåtinden

Another ti-på-topp tur on a warm Sunday, this time we chose a proper mountain, 1180 m high. Blåtinden, or better known as the 'sovende soldat', the sleeping soldier, at the southern end of Lavangsdalen about 30 km SE of Tromsø. There were very few people here and most of them were going down when we went up, so we had the top for ourselves. Blåtinden is one of the mountains with a nearly flat top plateau, a relatively common but not well understood landscape feature that I am interested in. This particular plateau is virtually parallel to the bedding/layering in the quartzitic rocks, there is little evidence of glacial erosion, and the stones appear to be more or less in situ.

A common 'bad' habit many geologists have is to pick up interesting rocks. On the way up we saw some very rounded out of place looking rocks that I picked up and the top plateau is littered with flat quartzite rocks that would be perfect as stepping stones in the garden. So we both filled up our backpacks with quite a few kilo's of rocks and the walk down the mountain took therefore nearly as long as the walk up. Good exercise I guess ;-)

Blåtinden looks like a sleeping soldier when approached from the south

Looking W over Balsjorden

Halfway

Stony top plateau

View W: low hanging clouds over Lyngen

Large cairn on the top

Looking NE

Gjømmerdalen

Late night trip to Movikhammeren

It was such a beautiful warm evening that we decided to do another ti-på-topp walk. We started around 21 h from Kroken on the mainland and got back to the car around midnight. A beautiful short walk, very quiet, beautiful colours; we spent nearly an hour on the 'top' having a late dinner and enjoying the view and midnight sun. On the way back we watched a dipper in one of the lakes on the plateau, I don't think we have seen one here before.

Looking back to Tromsø; it is nice to be able to get into the mountains so close to town 

Rundfjellet 

Nearly a sunset, in a few days the sun will go down again

Skjelnanvatnet, the lake where we saw the dipper

Another warm weekend on Divielva

Five beginners gathered for a weekend of river paddling on Divielva. It turned out to be one of the warmest weekends this summer, with 29 degrees C on Saturday and 24 C on Sunday. 

weather forecast!

We were of course all dressed up in drysuits, which were way too warm, so every now and again we just had to go swimming to cool down and combined this with some rope and rescue practise. We tried both the river kayaks borrowed from the club and our packrafts. A very relaxed and fun weekend.

our campsite

swimming and rope throwing

Tony having fun in his packraft

going down some small rapids one by one

Grønnlibruna by bike

In Norway there are a number of incentives to help encourage people to be more active and get outside. In Tromsø we have the cycle to work, ti-på-topp (ten mountain tops), ti-på-skjæret (ten islands, for those that prefer seakayaking), orienteering and probably several other incentives. I guess these are the Norwegian variations of the 'wandelvierdaagse' (4 days walking), 'fietsvierdaagse' (4 days cycling), 'zwemvierdaagse' (4 days swimming) that are popular in The Netherlands. A couple of weeks ago we stumbled on a ti-på-topp box on top of Nordtinden and, as we stay in Tromsø this summer, we decided to buy the pack with maps and descriptions and see how far we get this year. There are actually 15 tops, 5 easy walks, 5 medium and 5 proper mountains. Saturday we decided to try to cycle one of the easy ti-på-topp walks, Grønnlibruna, to make it a nice roundtrip. We first cycled to Straumsbukta, found some good tracks to cycle up Grønnlibruna (with some pushing on the steeper parts for me), down to Håkøybotn and back home. First mountain bike trip here, we should do this more often.

Tisnes

Halfway, nice track for cycling

Top of Grønnlibruna

River kayaking and packrafting

We have been paddling on rivers for 2 weekends in the last 2 weeks: first a river kayaking course, the same we took last year but now on local rivers. We didn't do any river kayaking after the course last year so wanted to refresh our technique and get some confidence back. We paddled on the rivers Målselva and Divielva. The second weekend was a river paddling gathering, a gathering to try to get local river enthusiasts together; a very good way for us beginners to get more experience. Unfortunately I don't have a waterproof camera (yet), so I don't have any photos from the paddling itself, but only from the (lunch) breaks and evenings. But a good account of the river kayaking course, in Norwegian, but with some action photos, can be found on the blog of one of the other participants at http://oddsvend.blogspot.com/2011/06/urs-i-elvekajakk-pa-malselva-og.html.

River kayaking theory lesson in camp

Theory lesson

At camp after the first course day

Tipped kayaker helped ashore

Last weekend there was a 'padlesamling', a river paddling gathering, in Målselv. Eighteen people turned up, while another 8 were doing a river kayaking course and joined us the second day on Divielva. There was a good mixture with 5-6 canoes, 5-6 river kayaks, 3 Alpacka packrafts and 1 swimmer with a riverboard. The first day we paddled a relatively quiet stretch of the upper Divielva and stopped for lunch and rescue training at a gravel bar. The second day we did a shorter section on the lower Divielva, but with some more interesting and challenging white water for us beginners. Great to try out our packrafts on these rivers and nice to know that there is at least one other packrafter in Troms! A very pleasant and instructive weekend in beautiful summer weather. One of the participants made a great movie summary of the weekend for the local newspaper the Nordlys: http://www.nordlys.no/web-tv/article5646476.ece

A colourful collection of canoes, river kayaks and packrafts

lunch

rescue training

playing with rapids

lunch on the second day