Thursday 27/3

A noticeable but not very chilling wind was blowing as I ascended beside the ravine, following the tracks out onto lake 1078 where I broke off to the right, tracing the fall of the land upwards. From my continuously higher vantage point I could see that the sky was an unbroken blue all the way to the horizon in all directions, and I skied unhurriedly in the fantastic weather and surroundings. I passed west of lake 1235, finding my old tracks from my previous passage, but this time I went a bit higher towards the Bossos pass. From there I maintained a higher course eastwards, descending slightly to avoid the steepest parts of the slope, during which a helicopter passed by overhead. Here the snow had been more affected by the wind, but going was very easy, and I quickly reached the shallow furrow which in the summer holds a small stream.

There I found several sets of fairly fresh tracks which judging from their quality and shape were made by randonnée skis, and my frog-perspective view of Šielmmáčohkka revealed more of those on its white slopes. I proceeded diagonally upwards across a slope the slant of which bordered on the risky, in the end coming at the moraine ridge below the little Šielmmáčohkka glacier from the east. I went up a bit onto this ridge, where the wind had grown rather keen, and sat down against a medium-size rock at 11:15.

Setting out again

Šielmmávággi ahead

Vaktposten behind

Čeakčačohkka laterally

Nállu straight on

Kugghjulskammen and the northern vale

Lake 1235 plus fjelds

Čeakčačohkka, 1750 and my tracks

Going to Šielmmáčohkka...

...and its little glacier

Just then the helicopter reappeared and after making a drawn-out turn it landed on the top of Šielmmáčohkka, dropping off a group of five skiers – and thus the source of the other tracks was uncovered. The flying machine then took off and left its living cargo on its own; the constituents of this were choosing what I thought was a much sub-optimal route, but after a while the objective of that route turned out to be the entry of one of the marked grooves reaching down from the summit.

The group then split up and made runs in two separate grooves, reuniting about a quarter of the way down. They passed by my position one after another, but as far as I could tell only one of them actually noticed my presence, and when they were out of sight I dug into my lunch pack. The wind was far from constant, but on the whole it was unnecessarily strong, and I had also started to perceive that the sun did not give as much warmth as it should. The combined consequence was a growing chill, so I arose again not too much later.

I started out by going to the top of the ridge, from where I saw a thitherto unnoticed group of reindeer in the bowl behind it, and then I went down into said bowl before rounding a significant snowdrift and then setting off downwards. The first part was slightly challenging, but then I followed the others' tracks past the ridge to the start of the lower furrow, where the snow was pretty good but the other tracks had cut deep enough to serve as small obstacles. Towards the end I veered off in the direction of the small easternmost lake, and since I now found myself in the shadow of Nállu the sudden drop in contrast made judging the surface of the slope somewhat difficult. During the descent the wind had died down, but it picked up again in the form of a tailwind on the lake.

I skied out onto the edge just south of the stream falling from this lake, since I 1) did not trust the very inviting look of the course of that stream 2) had seen the ravine of that stream from below, and did not wish to find myself at the bottom of a precipice all of a sudden. This action was, of course, perfectly correct – the lateral perspective revealed the presence of an impressive overhang with rather a sharp drop below. I left my skis and walked downwards a bit along the ravine to have a closer look at both the wrong way and what was hopefully the right way, judging the latter to be passable. I also found a set of older wolverine tracks – as usual – and now the wind had increased in intensity, giving rise to a bit of drifting snow over the edge.

I returned to my skis, which had not blown away yet, and started off down the quite steep slope beneath the spire of Nállu. The snow was pretty hard, but I progressed nicely enough, making long glides back and forth between the turns. When I had almost rounded the spire I saw a group of people a bit further up beside the central stream, and since I was expecting a group of eight from Friluftsfrämjandet I skied over to see if this was it. They turned out to be only seven, but they were in fact the group in question – one participant had fallen ill earlier. They were in the process of digging a place for a lunch break, taking advantage of the gash in the long ridge of Reaiddáčohkka which now let the sun through. Speaking of the sun, it was now perfectly clear that there was a high veil robbing its rays of power, with a weak halo to prove it.

After a "see you later" to the others I skied on, almost immediately meeting one person with two dogs coming down at speed, followed by one other. After a while I reached the main track, which showed some signs of drift, and there was a fair bit of headwind now as well. It was not too bad, however, and I kept a moderate tempo for the remaining portion back home.

Perilous!

Easternmost Stuor Reaiddávággi

Looking back west

Reaiddáčohkka glacier and sun

Rounding Nállu

Čeakčačohkka in full view again

Solar halo

Cottage arrival

« Return to Nallo report