Mekicevica's Crew on the Equator

There is more to life than sailing, although not a lot more. So we try to alternate sailing holidays with travels to exotic places. This time with decided to go to São Tomé, a tiny island off the west coast of Africa, right on the Equator. Since Mekicevica is too tiny to take us there and time not unlimited, we opted to fly.
Once it was the pearl of the Portuguese empire. It was also the producer of the highest quality cocoa, and probably still is, but production is so small is goes unnoticed by all except a few connoisseurs of good chocolate. In 1975, shortly after the fall of the Portuguese fascist regime, São Tomé and the neighbouring island of Principe formed the second smallest nation of Africa.
Economic progress has been slow and the islands are poor, despite the flashy 4-wheel-drives that belong mostly to high-rank politicians and aid-workers.
In spite of this, the natural beauty and the friendliness of the small population make them close to paradise.

Providing you know some Portuguese, it is easy to travel around. If you prefer to just see the beautiful beaches with the occasional guided tour of the jungle, there are also high-end resorts that cater for that type of tourism. But you will miss out a lot of what the islands have to offer...
Here is a link to our slideshow.

Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 8. Back to Civilization.

Sadly, the last day of this trip. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for running water and clean underwear...
Today we just have to get down to Røkland, a small town on the E6 and railway. Mostly, we followed a forest path, at times narrow and steep. We repeatedly crossed fresh traces of an elk, bit unfortunately we never saw him. As we got lower, we passed more and more private cabins. Finally, with Røkland already in view, there was no more snow. We had to walk the last 2 km.

Røkland is a really small place, but it has a petrol station and a garden centre! Both irrelevant to us! More important, it has a supermarket, a fast-food joint, and even bathrooms with a shower!
Anyway, it is rather too small to spend the eight hours to our train back south, so after scoffing a huge kebab, we decided to take the train to Bodø. There we will probably find better places to wait for the train. Such as Peppes Pizza, where we stuffed ourselves with pizza and beer (or the watery, yellow, fizzy drink they call beer in Norway).
But the best was not the pizza or the beer; it was the wiew of the fjord during the train journey.

Eventually we rolled our full bellies the short distance from Peppes Pizza to the train station and collapsed in the very confortable night train to start our long but uneventful journey back to rainy, miserable, West Europe.

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Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 7. Day Tour to Kvitberg.

On this trip, we were so fortunate with the weather that we are reaching the end and still have one reserve day. So we are going to use it to do a short day tour to the base of Kvitberg, about 6 km up the valley. We are now at low altitude, around the 450m. No more of the nice powdery snow we had in previous days. Here we have icy conditions in the morning and slush in the afternoon. Going slighly up through the forest on icy snow was hard work, but our destination was well worth the effort.
We found a few nicely kept cabins, grouped around a small river, just where it flows from a mountain lake. Over the river, there is a pretty bridge and on the background, beautiful mountain scenery.

After a break on the porch of one of the houses we skied by cabin where there was an elderly couple chatting to two other tourers. From previous tours, we know that on the Norwegian mountains it is good manners to stop and exchange a few words whenever you meet someone.
For the return, we decided to follow the summer path on th other side of the valley. We were rewarded with another encounter with reindeer, and the perfect stone for a break: conveniently shaped, warmed-up by the sun, and covered with a carpet of soft and dry moss.

The only problem was that the river is already flowing nicely, and finding a place where there was enough snow over it to cross was not easy. Eventually we managed and made our way back to Jordbruhytta, which felt much warmer that the day before.

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Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 6. A Well Hidden Cabin.

In the morning it was snowing lightly, but a hazy sun and a few patches of blue sky promised better weather to come. We climbed out of the lake by the way Sandra had spotted the day before, the "Turconi pass" and then continued a mild ascent to a huge cairn marking our highest point for the day.
Both the weather and the landscape were a bit dull. Even the reindeer we met looked a bit bored and totally uninterested in us. At least we start feeling more in control of these skis on the descents, even enjoying the effortless downhill progress.
After a break on the porch of a private cabin, we continued the somewhat tricky navigation to find the way down to the Russåga valley where our destination, Jordbruhytta is situated.
By then the sun came out in full force, and as we were getting lower, many snow free patches started to appear. The game was then to see how far we could go before we would be forced to walk. Shortly after another encounter with reindeer, we really reached the end of the snow, 2 km south of the cabin.

We were lucky that we only had to walk a few hundred meters and then reached terrain that was less exposed to the sun and we could ski again.
After several days above the tree line, it was pleasant to ski in the forest. Especially as it was not very dense and let the sun shine through.

However, it was dense enough to hide Jordbruhytta. The GPS was telling us that it was less than 300m away and we still could see it. We had to go around until we found where to cross the river and found a forest path. The distance decreased to less than 100m and still no sign of the cabin. Finally we almost bumped into it!

Jordbruhytta (or Jarbruhytta in some maps) is small and charming. It is also rarely used; the previous visitors had been there in March. It was really cold inside, and took a strong fire in the stove and a lot of time to warm-up!

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Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 5. A Great Day.

In the morning the storm had passed and there were even a few sunny spells. A herd of reindeer were really close to the cabin.

When we started the visibility was poor and we were grateful for the traces of the reindeer that provided some contrast on the snow allowing us at least to see if we were going up or downhill.
The weather kept improving and it turned to a brilliant tour: sunshine, rolling hills, beautiful landscape, and reindeer and ptarmigans for company.
Than came the loooooong crossing of Bjøllåvatnet: six kilometers of skiing over a lake.

Luckily there is an old hoise that serves as emmergency shelter half-way. This offered a place for a midday break.

As we were approaching Bjøllåvasstua on the North end of the lake, the sky suddenly became overcast creat, the wind completelly died down and it became very warm. The diffuse light, the muffled but clear sound of our skis cutting through the snow and the stiffling temperature created a surreal atmosphere.
All this lasted but a moment. By the time we were in front of tha cabin it had become very sunny again. So much so, that we decided to make a small tour to check the route for the next day.
On the return to the hut, the Skipper demonstrated the Kamikaze technique to take a steep slope on skinny skis: press the skis into snow-plough and take a straight like. Banzai!

During the evening we had the visit of a couple from Bodø (i.e., locals) but they decided to stay in the other cabin. Once again we had the whole cabin for ourselves.

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Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 4. Up to Midtistua.

Time to head North again. We retraced our path to Saltfjellstua (the reindeer were not there this time) and after a break, started on our way to Midtistua, the highest cabin we will stay in during this tour. Luckily the weather is holding well, much better than forecast.
First across the lake and then a gentle ascent. Located above the tree line, The cabin was easy to find, visible from the distance.

After the luxury of Krukkistua, Midtistua seemed rather modest. Cold as well, as it is high and exposed, but a good fire in the stove soon changed that.
In the evening the weather changed and we started to worry about having to sit out the bad weather.

Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 3. A Five Star Cabin.

After the long trek of yesterday we needed an easy day: a short 5 km tour to Krukkistua. Soon after the first ascent we had another close necounter with reindeer.

Than another steep-ish descent on wobbly legs, and soon we found Krukkistua.
To our delight it is a small but new and absolutelly immaculate cabin. We liked it so much that we decided to stay there for the night.

We spent the afternoon on an easy tour along the valley, with day-packs only.

Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 2. Over Lønstind Pass

After a breakfast of oats offered by Simon we set off for the hardest leg of our tour: a 23 km hike to Saltfjellstua over Lønstind pass.
We started on old snow climbing up through trees and then finding our way avoiding rocks and steep terrain to descend to Kjemåvatnet. On this difficult terrain progress was worryingly slow. But at least the weather was fine and we had the fist sighting of reindeer.
Then started the gentle ascent, on much better snow. Before reaching the pass we saw two more herds of reindeer.

At just under 1100m altitude, the Lønstind pass would be unremarkable in the Alps. However at these latitudes, it is a cold and windy place. Luckily we had the wind nearly on our backs, making it tolerable. Even so, the ascent seemed to go on forever.
Eventually we reached the saddle and started the long descent to Bjøllåvatnet. Still wobbly on these skinny skis, with a heavy pack an on snow that changed suddnly from wind-packed to powder and back, I had a bit of a struggle and lost count of the head-plants. First-Mate seemed to be doing much better.
After crossing the lake, started the search for Saltfjellstua. It is well hidden among the trees, but luckilly there were lots of old traces leading to some private cabins in its vicinity.
In Saltfjellstua we found a German couple (who live in Trondheim) who had also come from Lønsdal, but taking an easier route: driving to Semska and then skiing the valley route, this way avoiding the ascent to Lønstind pass.
That night we slept like logs.

Mekicevica's Crew North of the Arctic Circle. 1. Travelling to Lønsstua.

An old idea of ours was to do a hut-to-hut ski tour in Northern Norway. This year, with the Winter lingering in West Europe and forcing a late start of the sailing season, gave us the perfect opportunity. Our goal was Saltfjell, just North of the Artic Circle.
The journey From home to Lønsdal, our starting point, was a long one: over 27 ours, most of them within Norway. It is a big country!
First a flight to Oslo, than more than six hours by train to Trondheim where we had time for dinner at burger joint, and finally about eight hours on the night train, alighting at the small village of Lønsdal.

The Bodø touring club has a cabin just a few hundred meters from the Lønsdal train station, and that was our immediate destination to have breakfast and change into ski touring gear.
At the cabin we were greeted by Simon, a Brit on the last day of a three week tour and very eager to share the food he had left. We reciprocated his generosity with the latest issue of The Economist, for which he was very grateful.

Close of the (Alpine) Skiing Season

Easter was the close of the Alpine skinng season for The Crew. We made a trip to our favourite region: Berner Vooralpen. This time we were based in Simmental, in the hotel of the same name. Nice, friendly place with huge rooms.

Only the weather played up. On Good Friday, after having carried the skis up a muddy, steep forest path we found a desolate picture of poor visibility and wet snow. We just turned back and saved the day by skiing on the pistes of Zweisimmen. Saturday and Sunday were not much better. An attempt to escape the rain by skiing on the glacier of Les Diablerets failed because the lofts were closed due to avalanche danger. Or could it be that the staff just had enough of this season?
Finally on Monday the sun ame out with vengeance! We almost messed it up by getting stuck with the car on an icy road trying to access the starting point for a tour to the Niederhorn from the North side. Not even snow chains would get us past a badly iced patch.
Finally we had the inspiration to drive to Jaun pass and make a tour from there. What a treat! Sunshine, untouched snow, beautiful views and a great descent. A short tour that saved the weekend and closed the alpine skiing season in great fashion.

Bit we still have plans for a tour in Northern Norway...

Back to Diemtigtal

Three days of ski touring in one of our favourite regions: Diemtigtal in canton Bern.
Our base was the charming hostel Bergli, just above Diemtigen village.

Two of the tours - Abendberg and Hoejegg - started right from the door step.

Lots of sunshine, and great views. The snow was old; in places difficult to ski, but in others it was just perfect.

On Saturday we planned to get to Puntel from Rossberg but took the wrong way and wasted a lot of time trying to find a way through the trees. Finally we gave up, and saved the day by spending a couple of hours enjoying the sunshine on the Rossberg groomed slopes.

Floppy Heel Skiing

While First-Mate was travelling for work, the Skipper set up a tent at the base of the small ski resort of La Bresse-Hohneck and spent four days practising telemark turns.

Finally it clicked in, and I can now call myself a free heel skier. But I am not putting away the alpine skis yet...

The Vosges on Nordic Touring Gear

First-Mate has been too busy at work to be able to do extended weekends, so we have been doing tours on the closest snowy hills we have: the Vosges. Alpine touring gear is a bit of an overkill for these (mostly) gentle hills, so we have been practising Nordic touring.
Last weekend we did a tour from the Col du Calvaire to Le Kastelberg.
The whole week was warm and rainy even on the tops and most of the snow vanished. We decided to give it a try anyway and were well rewarded: During the night from Friday to Saturday the heavy rain turned into a massive snow fall and on Saturday we had more snow than I have ever seen on the Vosges. It stayed cold as well, so the snow was beautifully powdery.

We started by the groomed tracks of the Route des Cretes. At the Col de La Schlucht, skins on and climb along the alpine skiing pistes. After a break at the Refuge des Trois Fours, we headed for the wilder part of the tour. That was when we entered the cloud and the visibility dropped to some 20 meters. Knowing the area well is a mixed blessing, because it means we didn't bother taking a GPS and tended to underestimate how quickly you can be disorientated in such conditions.
The short-cut we intended to take was impossible to find and we ended-up going by the longer and more arduous route via the Hohneck summit. Eventually we made it to the Ferme Auberge du Breitzhousen, our home for the night. Nice place, but not half as nice as the CAF hut of the Trois Fours (which was fully booked).
The return was nearly a replay in reverse: difficult navigation until the Col de La Schlucht and then easy going along the groomed tracks.

All in all great fun, excellent exercise, and a good preparation for a planned tour North of the Arctic Circle. Watch this space...

Opening of the Skiing Season

Somehow, Mekicevica's crew managed to survive the hard times between the sailing season and skiing season. This year we opened the latter with a trip to Zermatt/Cervinia over the Christmas and New year break.

It must be the most scenic ski resort we have ever visited.

The skiing is also great. Too bad that what once must have been a beautiful mountain village has been transformed into a sort of Disneyland for the super-rich.

In order to avoid the stiffling atmosphere (and the high prices) we stayed lower in the valley at the down-to-eart town of Taesch. This is where the staff of the restaurants of Zermatt live, almost all of them Portuguese. So I found out that the highest Portuguese town is not Guarda at they told me at school, it is Taesch! Come on guys, when are your kids going to get the first medal for Portugal in the Winter Olympics?