Rain, Taxi, Roof Jump & Northern Lights

What a horrible day - lashing rain and the puddles in the field outside our hut threatening to join up and form a lake around us. The plan was to catch the 13:00 bus to Junkerdal then ski to Trygvebu, but one that doesn't appeal in the rain and two it might not even be possible to ski.

A phone call to Junkerdal Turistsenter established there was plenty of snow to ski up, but as an aside it was mentioned that the road further up the glen was actually open to traffic to Skaiti - a car park only 500m away from our destination Trygvebu. Given the miserable conditions outside I immediately wondered if there could be the possibility of a taxi!

A check at Saltdal Turistsenter confirmed the bus didn't run tomorrow, so we had to travel today, but there was the possibility of a taxi - £90 to take us virtually all the way to Trygvebu that's only £12 each - done deal!

Arriving at Skaiti car park the difference in conditions was amazing - it was only lightly snowing and there was loads of gorgeous snow to ski on. There was also a volunteer in the car park who'd just arrived to clear the snow off the hut roof. Of course we couldn't just stand by and watch and soon we were all up on the roof helping out. Once he realised we were up to the task, he left us to it, heading off for a weekend with his girlfriend. His dismount of the roof was interesting - simply jumped off into the piles of deep snow - of course once we'd finished we all followed suit.

That evening after a trip to the loo Philip returned saying "I don't suppose any of you guys would be interested in the Northern Lights show that's going on at the moment" - the hut emptied rather quickly.

I played around a lot with the settings on the camera to get a decent shot - it was all hand held, so six seconds at f3.3 iso1600 was probably pushing it a bit, but the results are okay.


Rain lashing
Puddles forming
Into a lake our hut surrounding

Departure planning
Not inspiring
Bus then ski uphill while raining

Plans changing
Taxi hiring
Chauffeur driven to the hut - outstanding!

Rancidand's version of the day.