The Long Haul – Part 2

Shortcuts, in my experience, are rarely a good idea in the mountains. I was stood on the edge of a ravine, the boundary to the Finnmark county. I’d found a place on the map I thought I could cross the valley, but in reality I was greeted with steep drops and cornices. The options were a 20km detour, or attempting to find a way across: the other side tantalising close. Peering over the edge, it looked difficult to negotiate on fjellski, and reckless with a pulk.

It felt like my entry to Finnmark was barred, but tiredness and the length of detour won the argument. So in the frigidly cold morning, with a biting wind, I set off to try find the least dangerous route across. I found a possible way down: it was steep and intimidating, but I figured I could manage the descent, and make it up the other side.

I took a few steps back and built up momentum, I dropped off the lip of a small piece of cornice on my skis. I landed, kept my balance: I was aiming to traverse diagonally down the slope to limit my speed, and clear any potential danger. But the pulk had its own ideas.

As I built up speed, it followed me off the cornice. But instead of landing it bounced high into the air, and flipped. Weighing the same as me, the force threw me off of my feet and suddenly I was also in the air. A quick moment of realisation, but there was nothing I could do.

I summersaulted down the slope, head over heels. It felt like I was falling for an eternity, but eventually everything slid to a halt.

I was pinned down by what was left of the pulk drag (tow) system, it was snapped and contorted in a horrible mess. But legs felt okay. Arms felt okay. Head okay. It seemed I’d survived. But I had to get the harness off, it was painfully tight.

After a few minutes untangling myself I inspected the damage: both fibreglass rods had shattered into sharp pieces. One had stabbed its way through all of my layers of clothing. Pointy splinters of glass fibre, longer than my finger, were littered through my baselayers.

I stood up and looked at the mess. First disbelief, then annoyance, then laughter. The stupidity of what I’d just done, becoming comical. I’d gone from smooth sailing to a big mess, in an instant.

But although I’d escaped uninjured, I had broken some vital, expensive equipment, and run a pretty big risk of injury: perhaps it was a miracle, but I hadn’t even sustained a scratch. Dropping a cornice with a pulk is not something I would recommend, or plan to repeat.

I picked myself up, dragged what was left of the pulk up the other side of the valley. I rigged a temporary system to pull it, and pressed onwards to Kautokeino. The temperature was dropping now, rarely getting above -15°C during the day, and the wind a biting menace as I limped the sad looking pulk along. Welcome to Finnmark.

Entertainment that night consisted of watching the action replay on my camera, and fixing the damage. I cut the drags shorter with a snow-saw, a few other tweaks and all was well: the engineering degree getting put to good use. Kautokeino, here we come.

Asides from this episode, in many ways the trip became very similar day in, day out. Nordic skiing, especially with a pulk, can be very slow-paced; camp duties taking up a lot of the remaining portion of the day. Melting snow in particular was my least favourite: I had to constantly mind the stove to avoid the risk of a burning tent and, truth be told, it felt a bit like watching paint dry.

To be pretty blunt, as a bit of a thrill-seeker, the first phase of the trip started to feel a bit monotonous. Instead of big adrenaline rushes, it was a game of patience, slowly plodding along, the goal seeming untangibly far away. The lack of company and conversation also probably amplified this feeling.

Notably, another reason for the lack of excitement was that I had (for once) done a good job of planning, right down to the tiniest details: zip-loc bags that can be opened with mitts; the right insulated flask; etc. A few small things aside, the equipment and techniques all worked exactly how I wanted. This meant almost no disasters, excluding cornices, and the trip never felt in jeopardy. Of course this is a good thing, but perhaps not what I’m used to. And although I did crave excitement, the cornice episode was admittedly a little too much.

And things got a lot better as time went on: I became faster at skiing, more efficient around camp, and the amount of daylight increased dramatically (from start to finish changing from 9hrs to around 20hrs). I started to have more free time to relax and enjoy things. I also settled more into the routine: I’d always known it’d take a week or two at least to get used to this radical new lifestyle.

A Day in the Life

On the topic of routine, here’s a quick breakdown of the typical day.

Breakfast would be the first business of the day, still hiding from the cold in my sleeping bag. Then up, and a quick tear down of camp. Bedding stored on the top of the pulk in a special bag, so it didn’t need to be packed away. The tent would also be rolled up with poles still in place to save time, and strapped on top of the sled. These were little things that saved chunks of time each day: not having to inflate or deflate sleeping pads, unpack a tent or loft a sleeping bag.

Around 8 or 9 hours of skiing was next. 22km was the aim, but I limited each day by time rather than distance: the terrain, snow conditions, and weather meant the distance covered changed vastly, as did the effort required. It varied from 14km to 32km each day.

Once I’d finished skiing for the day, the duties would shift back to camp: unrolling and erecting the tent, cooking food and melting snow to make water. The roar of the petrol stove was the soundtrack for over an hour each night in the tent. I was running the stove once per day, another time (and fuel) saver. I’d then store hot water in insulated flasks for the morning, or keep bottles in my sleeping bag to stop the precious liquid from freezing. Finally I’d clean feet with snow, deal with blisters, then crawl into my sleeping bag to pass out for another night.

Food was a mix of dehydrated, as well as a lot of fatty foods (butter and cheese). I split each day into rations before leaving, so had 30 bags, each about 5600kcal and weighing about 1.2kg.

I’d taken on an engineering approach to food planning, crunching the numbers: the aim was to get the most calories for every gram of weight, while spending the least money possible. This ruled out expensive dehydrated “ready” meals: instead I made my own concoctions from dried supermarket foods. In the end, a lot of noodles, couscous, dried potato, powdered soups. Muesli, dried milk, and rye bread were other staples. And butter, butter everywhere. I added it to almost everything, even eating plain butter when bread ran out.

But as I neared Kautokeino, I changed the plan a bit. I needed a break, to refocus on what I wanted out of the trip, as well as my body longing for a day’s rest. I hadn’t planned any rest days, but at this point I figured to make things enjoyable, rather than just a sufferfest, it was necessary. I opted to take a break for a day, and get my brain in gear when I reached town.

Continue Reading: The Long Haul – Part 3