Day 6 – Arrival to Simo and dinner in Kemi – We did it!

01/03/201703/03/2017Pepe 2 Comments

Today is our last day. We are planning a take-it-easy 25km from where we slept to Kemi, where Alex will be, hopefully waiting for us.

Our legs are tired and we have few blisters but the spirits are high because we can see the coast from were we are. Although visual distances in the baltic are relative – as we discovered soon after the start of the adventure, our GPS final waypoint is located at 22km in a straight line.

Kemi peninsula at sight. It took us 8 hours to reach.

Yesterday night we had some snow showers and we are all in deep s**t because it takes an enormous effort to keep the balance with the tick pieces of wet snow stick to the bottom of our skis.

This is a very slow way to progress because we are doing 2.5km/hour -half of what it should be – with a tremendous energy consumption because the effort of lifting the whole ski, boot and the piece of snow underneath. With the skis not touching the surface it takes double to make any progress.

Next time would remember to wax out the equipment before setting off…

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Day 4 – Somewhere in the Bothnian gulf… and moving slowly

27/02/201703/03/2017Pepe Leave a comment

Last night was cold and wet inside the tent. Minus 15 to be more specific and of course it took us nearly 2 hours to get moving this morning. Everything it wasn’t inside the sleeping bag was frozen, so the first thing we did was to sort out the MSR petrol stove and melt some water to drink something hot.

At around 10:30 or 11 we left the site heading north towards the next waypoint.

Pako Crestas

Today was a bit cold today but snow conditions were ok to progress. We managed around 16 km in the day and we decided to stop and recover, dry the stuff properly and have an early start the next day. And we did that – we found an island there protected from the wind where we set camp in a small hut we found over there.

Drying up the wet stuff

Confort of the stove

We had some dry food and noodles and went to bed at around 8 pm. Tomorrow we’ll need to catch up with the miles we cut short today.

We still have around 80 km to go and the pace is not right there yet…

A quick thank you to our sponsors:

And collaborators:

Polar Guide Logistics

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Spanish Ham Master

Bienvenida UK

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We Love Mountains

Day 2. Rovaniemi – Arctic circle – Rovaniemi

25/02/201703/03/2017Pepe 1 Comment

The remaining members of the group -Albert and Pako – arrived yesterday evening and we are now ready to start the adventure.

Today was about finalising the purchase of food, getting an update ice and wind report from the Finnish Meteo and do a bit ot tourism as well. We started our day with a walk to the town from Alex’s cabin – a 4.5km of icey road and after breakfast and initial shopping we went to visit the Official Artic Line located in a town 15 km north west of Rovaniemi.

Kemijoki river

Pako and Albert

Walking the Kemijoki

Walking down to town

Tomorrow we will depart early from Oulu for the initial 20-25km of the traverse. The ice thickness varies from 10 to 45 cm in some places so we will need to keep an eye on water patches and holes. We are carrying a small but strong tent and one petrol cooker for the 3 of us, in order to save weight to sail through the fine ice.

In the Arctic

Lapland tipi

Direction in the forest

For the traverse we are using special Finnish home made pulkas – provided by Polar Guide Logistics.

The real adventure starts in 12 hours.

A quick thank you to our sponsors:

And collaborators:

Polar Guide Logistics

Toallitas Plus

Spanish Ham Master

Bienvenida UK

ADN digital

We Love Mountains

Equipment for a Polar Traverse: Skis, bindings, skins and boots

08/01/201708/01/2017Pepe Leave a comment

Part 1: The baltic

In this section I’ll try to cover as much as possible about the gear required for a Polar Traverse and in particular an activity in the Baltic region where there are no massive hills to climb and the main challenge is always the low temperatures from a constant wind over the frozen sea.

Traverse is usually using telemark skis and pulling a pulka. Sometimes we use kites to progress if the surface allow and winds are constant. In other instances dogs are used to pull the sleds and pulkas, but I personally prefer traverses done without any mechanical or additional help.

For a winter traverse of 10 days (150 Km) in the Baltic, this is a comprehensive list of gear to pack. The list is based on my own experience and I don’t have any incentive to promote certain products over other.