Pulk placement from Bolnastua

7 km, 120m Ascent, 120m Descent.

With Bolnastua being situated fairly close to the main E6 Mick had stored a cache of food there for our second week on his reconnaissance trip a couple of days before the rest of us flew out, so it's back to full heavy pulks.

The original plan had us skiing from Bolnastua to Virvasshytta, another long day but with deep snow and heavy pulks this was no longer a viable option, so instead we planned on an allegedly short ski to Krokstrand which had a couple of benefits. Firstly it's a hotel - hot showers and beer - luxury! and secondly the route from there to Virvasshytta although still long, 28km, would make use of the service road to a dam which at least would give good uderski conditions and reduce any navigational problems, only the last 5km being cross country.

Basically today was a rest and repacking day but we gave ourselves some light exercise by taking a heavy pulk 3.5km up tomorrow's route to Krokstrand.

That evening we were joined by a lone skier Timmy, an Australian living in Oslo out on his first ever cross country ski trip. He was in fact doing the reverse of our entire route alone!, but the bad weather and deep snow of the last few days meant he was now behind schedule and would probably try and hitch a lift on the E6 tomorrow to catch up. We were certainly impressed that he had made it this far, a serious undertaking for a lone skier. We subsequently heard he eventually made it to Lønsdal sitting by the side of the road for 6 hours trying to get a lift with no success but the following day tried the other direction and ended up back at Mo i Rana then took the train up - definitely the long was round!

Today's photo courtesy of Philip is of the daily ski waxing routine. Getting the right wax on the skis is critical to getting sufficient grip on the uphill sections and good glide on the flat and downhill. Today it's the ladies hard at work. Fiona on the right is applying the wax while Kathy on the left is burning it in.