First day of our expedition. I’d departed London this morning with the Norwegian 05:50 direct to Rovaniemi. In about 3 hours and a bit you are landing in the frozen capital of Lapland.

Rovaniemi is a small but interesting town. They claim is the official home of Santa Klaus and every years thousands travel here to spend some time with Father Christmas. There are large number of tourists around (mainly asian) wondering around the streets and the high season means local businesses doing well with bookings of Snowbike safari tours and Northern light experiences.

We are staying with Alex Casanovas, one of the most experienced guides in the area (there is a peak in Livingston Island – Antartica -named after him). Alex is originally from Catalonia and lives in Rovaniemi. The famous winter race Rovaniemi is organised by him.

The Rovaniemi 150 race. Fat bike, skis or by foot.

Today I spent a couple of hours testing skis and boots in the frozen river near Alex’s house. I did a couple of legs of about 3.5kms each and the sensationals are good. Tomorrow we will give it a go again before buying the food and rest of material we will need for the traverse.

This afternoon I took it easy enjoying a long walk by the river in Rovaniemi and stopping for coffee in some of their local places. Temperature today weren’t that bad at -12C because Alex told me they had a couple of -30C a couple of weeks ago.

The rest of the party arrive tonight at around 22:00 and after the greetings and a couple of beers we’ll hit bed for an early start tomorrow morning.

A quick thank you to our sponsors:

And collaborators:

Polar Guide Logistics

Toallitas Plus

Spanish Ham Master

Bienvenida UK

ADN digital

We Love Mountains