Vatnajökull 2012 blog online!

Not so long ago I published an announcement about my future skiing trip to Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland. I promised that there would be more info online by end of the week. Well, it didn’t quite happen during the last week. But now the plane tickets are booked and most other things are also squared out. It took an extra week but now the info is public and online!

The Vatnajökull 2102 blog is mostly in Finnish but there is also a brief info in English. The updates in the blog will be in Finnish but I’ll write about my personal preparations and maybe something general about the expedition to my blog in English. We plan to send daily updates from the glacier to the blog but also these will be in Finnish. I am still looking for a volunteer to translate the dispatches (from Finnish to English, dispatches in text, about 1-3 SMS messages per day) and publish them in English in my blog. Volunteers, please feel free to contact me with a comment or e-mail!

A skiing trip back in time

Just a short post from a short skiing trip. A skiing trip back in time. And a lot of nostalgia. Well, nostalgia from a 26-year-old if such thing is possible.

I have learned that I have to write when I have the inspiration to do so, so here we go…

The weather on Saturday was awesome with clear blue skies, sun shine, no wind and warm temperature. Unfortunately I had to be indoors sitting in a meeting but at some point all meetings end and I managed to get out skiing with the Altai Hoks before sunset. I took a short drive to a field side, donned the skis and headed to a little swamp on the other side of the field. The sun was about to set but there was still plenty of light.

The days are already pretty long...

The swamp looked and felt a lot smaller than many years ago and the ditches were freshly re-dugged and forest had crown on the previously open areas. But the surroundings were still very familiar.

A super highway across the swamp.

On that very swamp I had gotten really lost for the first time in my life. I guess I was 6 or 7 back then. I was exploring the little swamp with the pockets of my cotton camouflage jacket full of lingonberries. I took a spin and walked full 180 degrees to a wrong direction, came to a road and started walking – again to the wrong direction. There were no cellphones that time so I think I walked some 4-5 km stopping to ask advice from a house on the way before my father came driving down the dirt road looking for me. At that point I actually knew which way the home was but it would’ve been nearly 10 kilometers of walking back home. A long walk for a little kid.

Since then I’ve spent numerous days skiing and walking on that little swamp and probably walked or skied along the field side for hundreds of times. Sometimes hunting with my father, sometimes looking for moose or deer and most often going for a trip with my friends.

Passing woodpecker's dining room on the way across the swamp.

Skiing across the swamp didn’t take too long while following the wide ditches and soon I came back to the field. A right hand turn and a few minutes of skiing would have taken me back to my car but instead I took a left hand turn. A little bit of skiing and soon I saw it: a little cabin on the field side next to a little stream. I skied across the field, crossed the little stream and I was soon at the cabin door. On the field there were some fresh fox baits for sit-and-wait hunt accompanied with a lot of fox tracks but the cabin was just like I remembered it.

The little cabin.

In that very cabin I had spent my first night in the woods with friends (no parents involved). That was at the end of 1997 and I was 11½-year old. Since the first over-nighter me and few of my good friends spend probably dozens of nights in that little cabin. Biking, walking or skiing there to escape the little mundane responsibilities like school and homework, to observe the surrounding nature, to have good time and to grow.

I opened the door and stepped in. The furnishing had changed a little to serve better the sit-and-wait hunting but there was still the same rusty stove, the same holes in the corners, the same soot-blackened pot and kettle and the same guest book.

From my second over-nighter in the cabin.

I sat down, lit my torch and opened the book. My mind was overflown with good memories from the past. A lot of good memories. A lot of nostalgia. Dozens of entries by me from short visits or over-night trips with friends. Some entries by my old friends, some entries from the times when we crammed 10 people into the three-people cabin…

My last entry was from year 2006 when I had given a ride to a friend (Whose leg had been operated and who was still walking with sticks!) who wanted to spend a night there. The last time I had spent a night there was in winter 2005. I thought I had stopped going there a few years before I went to army but apparently I hadn’t. I had spent several nights there every year between 1997 and 2005. The foundations of my outdoorsy lifestyle were built there: in and around that little cabin. Following the stream, walking the surrounding woods and skiing on the little swamp. The dozens of nights and daytrips gave experience and self-confidence that have led me here.

I owe a lot to that little cabin and to my old friends. I should pay the cabin another visit, this time with some food and a sleeping bag.

The familiar field side...

After little searching I found a pencil and wrote few lines to the guest book as there were no entries since 2006. When I left it was already getting dark and Vega and Deneb were twinkling on the deep blue sky. The same stars had been there for ages watching me coming and going and growing. I felt sad. Sad in a happy bittersweet way. It was an exceptionally good skiing trip.

Deneb and Vega. (Or Jupiter and Venus?)

Monthly highlights of January: -38,5C!

“Monthly highlights” is a series of post concentrating on a 10-month wilderness guide course I am taking this year at Niittylahden opisto near Joensuu in Eastern Finland. These posts try to summarize the best parts of each month and are naturally published at the end of each month (or few weeks after…) Hopefully you enjoy it!

The lesser highlights of January: snowmobile course and hare hunting

The school started in the mid January after a six-week internship period (of which I spent four weeks at a small husky farm at Taivalkoski). The first week was filled with entrepreneurship lectures and exercises in the classroom that didn’t get especially good participation. On the second week we had two days snowmobile course in Nurmes but as I see snowmobiles as tools and don’t support leisure driving and the course wasn’t especially good either, it didn’t make it to the highlights of the month. The course was more like a short snowmobile safari followed with a longer safari with no special emphasis on teaching how to use the snowmobile as an efficient tool in different situations. But after the snowmobile course things got better…

Early start for the longer snowmobile safari.

The snowmobile course was followed with a hunting course that gave enough the information to participate to a Finnish hunting license test on the following week. But as I already had a hunting license I was just hanging on the lectures and learning some new things and recalling a lot of things I had already forgotten as I haven’t been actively hunting. The information about animals and legislation was very useful even if one is not intending to get the hunting licence. On Friday, at the end of the course, we went for a hunting trip to hunt some hares. Our teacher, few local hunters and one of the students were equipped with shotguns while the rest of us skied through forested areas driving the hares out of their hideouts. We didn’t get any hares from the first three drives but from the fourth one we got two big European hares. We disemboweled the hares on spot, skinned them on the following week, put the meat into freezer and prepared a tasty dinner later.

Our teacher returning with the first European hare.

Preparing dinner...

The highest highlight of January: My coldest trip yet

On the last week of January we were to have a four-day hike in the woods. The hike or course is known as “Talvierätaidot” meaning winter wilderness skills and concentrates on hiking in forested areas in winter. I was very excited when the meteorologists were forecasting temps below -30 C. Then it changed to much milder but luckily it changed back to even colder just before the trip. And cold weather was what we got!

The hike took place near Patvinsuo National Park near the Eastern border of Finland. To be able to build fires (which are big and important part of the Finnish hiking and wilderness tradition) we didn’t camp in the national park but did a round trip from the North-Western edge of the national park. The plan was to ski a little bit every day and spend most of the time in camp concentrating on surviving in the cold and having good time. We skied about 2-3 hours every day covering about 3-5 km in the soft snow and occasionally dense woods. Everyone was hauling a sled and everyone else was skiing with traditional Finnish “metsäsukset” (I was using the Altai Hok 125 fastshoes).

We started the trip with sun shine, blue skies and relatively mild temperature of -24 C or so. After few hours of easy skiing we got to our planned camp spot on a small lake. The first night was to be spent in tents. Most of the people pitched their tents on the ridge as the air up there is slightly warmer because of inversion. Me and my buddy T pitched our tent on the lake ice to get most out of the cold weather as the first night was forecasted to be the coldest night. Most of the people spend their time sitting and cooking by fires while me and T spent most of our time in my Hilleberg Keron 3 GT warmed with white gas stoves in the expedition style. We had hearty dinner followed with some Ben&Jerrys icecream and generally had good time. Surviving in the cold is easy with the right kind of equipment. We also participated in fire wood gathering and hanged out with the other people before retiring to our sleeping bags. While going to sleep the temperature was already below -36 C on the lake ice and -32 C up on the ridge. To make most out of the cold we opened all the tent doors making it effectively only a tarp. During the night I woke up being uncomfortably warm and sweaty and decided to check the thermometer which was showing -38,5 C! I removed two pairs of woollen socks and went back to sleep.

We woke up at 07:00 and started the stoves to get the tent warm. I had a little problem with the pump of a MSR XGK as it was too cold for the standard O-rings (they fail around -40 C) but I got the other stove (MSR Dragonfly) running without pumping and when the tent warmed up the other pump stopped leaking and we got on with our morning chores. It also became obvious that in temperatures near -40 C you can’t work for long periods in thin fleece gloves. Morning chores outside were executed in 30 second intervals of working nad then warming fingers on the neck or groin. After breakfast we got news that two students were to be evacuated because of the cold (no cold damage  and we would stay in the camp untill noon. After the two students were evacuated from the road side we continued with a short skiing with sun and -25 C or so. The second night was to be spent under tarps by a fire so we pitched our 3×3 m Erätoveri tarp and found a good place for fire with plenty of firewood available nearby. During the evening the thermometer crawled back towards -30 C and below. We made a big pot of popcorn to share with the group and went to sleep after some chatting by the fire.

In the morning we got the fire going ans started to prepare breakfast in -32 C. Me and T were acting as the day’s guides with me orienteering in the front and T skiing last checking that everyone stays with us. We departed from the camp a bit after 09:00 and saw fresh wolverine tracks just after few hundred meters of skiing. It’s a wild place! Maybe it was bad navigation or just simply bad terrain but the terrain was occasionally challenging until we arrived to snow-covered gravel road and as the hares and moose were also using the road, so did we. We continued along the road to a sunny lake ice were we had lunch break in relative warmth of about -24 C before crossing the little lake to our next camp.

In the camp we piled snow for quenzees and while the snow settled we learned to make a fire from fresh birch. This was new to me and though I knew the technique in theory it was nice to see that it worked also in real life. it’s good to know that usually when you make fire you’ll get warm: you walk around in snow gathering and chopping fire wood and then you get a big nice fire. You stay warm during the whole process. When making a fire from fresh birch you sit on your butt snapping and sorting little twigs and in the end you have a smoking and hissing pile of twigs that can boil water… But it works!

After the fire making exercise we gathered some first class fire wood for a proper fire, carved the quenzees, had dinner and made some improvised brownies on frying pan. I walked to the lake ice to admire maybe one of the best full moons I’ve ever seen. Standing there alone in the bright moonlight breathing crisp cold air under the starry sky was quite an experience! Then it was time to retire to the quenzee for the night. Inside me and T had cups of tea and ate the rest of the ice cream. Outside the temperature was once again plummeting  below -30 C but the inside temperature was around – 10 C meaning that it was nice and warm.

We had decided that we’d make the breakfast inside the quenzee instead of getting out and making a fire. After good nights sleep we punched a hole to the side wall and placed the roaring MSR stoves under it and prepared breakfast. Not very smart if you’re going to use the quenzee for several nights but in this case with cold outside temperatures it was a good move in my opinion. After packing all gear we tested the durability of our quenzees. The roof hold over 100 kg weighting T easily. He went through the roof on his first jump but only made a whole to the roof and was not able to collapse the thing.

After playing destruction derby on our shelters we started the last short skiing session back towards the road and the cars. We ended up in some pretty fucked terrain with dense woods and little rocky cliffs, generally a bad place to be with a pulka. The progress was so slow that my toes got cold despite wearing Sorel Caribou boots and I didn’t get them warm until we got on easier ground and I got to ski in the point with good pace.

When we arrived to the cars everyone was probably very warm but the cars were not. It took some time to charge the car batteries and warm the cars with a generator we had with us but after an hour or so we got both cars running and headed back to civilization. It was my coldest trip yet but very enjoyable none the less. I would have liked a bit more skiing but who cares when you have great weather and beauty of nature surrounding you.

Few words on gear

For this trip I had mostly my typical tried and true winter kit. It was mostly the same stuff that I had for the Ultima Thule 2011 expedition. Few things were different or performed differently so here are couple word about them:

For the whole trip I wore military surplus synthetic fill puffy bib pants instead of the typical Goretex. They worked very well: warm enough for the camp and not too warm for the short daily transitions because of good ventilation options. And I started to think if a synthetic buffy overall with good venting options, good hood and a drop seat would actually be near the optimal shell clothing for this type of trips…

I was using the Altai Hok 125 short skis, or fast shoes, instead of the 2,5 meter long traditional Finnish “eräsukset”. The Hoks were a lot more maneuverable and doubled also as snowshoes in camp but they were slower on easy ground. More of my initial impression here.

Because of the X-Trace universal binding I could use my Sorel Caribous, the warmest footwear I own but even they were not warm enough towards the end of the trip when energy levels were low and progress was slow. They also caused small blisters to my heels. The good thing is that they doubled also as camp shoes. Maybe I should have tested vapour barrier socks with them.

The 168 cm long Fjellpulken pulka was a bit of a trouble in the dense woods just as I had expected. Probably the optimal system for long trips in dense woods would be the Altai Hoks (145cm long ones for soft snow), a small pulka with crossing shafts (or an incredible rulk?) and a small backpack if more capacity is needed.

Just before the trip I had changed my incredibly warm Cumulus Alaska 1300 based down bag to lighter Marmot Couloir bag. I wasn’t sure if it would be enough when combined with my Carinthia Explorer Top MF XL synthetic topbag but the combination was easily warm enough down to the -39 C we had. But because of changing to thinner sleeping bag the 10 mm CCF and regular Ridgerest combination wasn’t warm enough anymore and I had to use my puffy pants as an extra insulation between the pads though that wasn’t a problem when recognized and fixed.

Even though sitting by a fire in the middle of a silent forest lighten up by the pale moonlight is an incredible experience, I prefer the expedition style warmed tent in harsh winter conditions. Nothing prevents you from sitting by the fire even when hauling the tent and stove with you but having them makes life a lot easier. And for prolonged trips and expeditions in challenging winter conditions I see it as the best way to go. Not ultralight but ultra-well-working.

Technique regarding snow shelters

I have few posts about building snow shelter from the last winter. They seem to have quite some typos and the series is still missing the posts about building a snow cave (the superior snow shelter if snow conditions are favourable) and an igloo. The posts seem to be full of typos and I’m planning to polish them at some point when completing the series. But as I consider snow shelter building as an essential winter skill (and training it to be a lot of fun!) I’d recommend checking them anyway before I get them polished for “re-blogging”.

- For fun and safety
- Quenzees
- Simple emergency shelter

Please, share your experiences and ideas about snow shelters!  I’m very interested in the topic, especially about experiences about building an igloo (not the one with the box-tool but cutting the block from hard snow).

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There are no overnight trips or hikes for February but we already had a nice animal tracking trip in school and we will be doing some winter fishing on the next week which should be interesting… I’ve been quite busy with the preparations for the Vatnajökull expedition and by working hard you get results so things are looking quite good. But there might be some quiet time in the blog because of preparations and upcoming exams. Hopefully you’ll tolerate it and I can make it up later with nice photos from the Europe’s biggest glacier.

Announcement

Dear fellow armchair adventurers, I’d have an announcement to make. Those following me on Twitter might have already spotted the reason for the blog being a bit quiet, a lot more quiet than I’d like it to be… This is because I’ve been busy organizing my next project and my main trip for this winter:

I’m going to Iceland to ski across the Vatnajökull.

Training Z-pulley building and use for crevasse rescue.

Vatnajökull

Vatnajökull is located in South-East Iceland. It is the largest glacier in Europe (measured with volume of the ice, Austfonna in Svalbard having slightly larger surface area) and it could be even considered to be a small ice cap. Here are few facts about the Vatnajökull:

- 8100 km² of icy surface to enjoy
- 3100 km³ of ice
- Average thickness of the ice is 400 m reaching 1000 m at maximum and soaring up to 1800 m above the sea-level in some places.
- Distance from the Western edge to the Easternmost point is about 200 km as the crow flies.
- There are things like the volcano Grimsvötn and the Iceland’s highest peak Hvannadalshnúkur (2109 m) on the glacier.
- The weather at the glacier can be really shitty: cold, rain, snow, white outs and winds well over 100kmh.

The plan

There are still some uncertain things and lots of things to do but so much time and effort has been put into the planning of this trip that I feel confident to tell about the plan in public.

The planned route

I’m going to do the trip with my long time girlfriend Nina and two friends (Jouni and Heini) from the last year’s Ultima Thule 2011 expedition to Svalbard. The trip will take place in March-April and we are going to spend around two weeks on the glacier. The plan is to:

- start the skiing from Jökulheimar near the Westernmost point of the glacier
- ski to East up to Grimsvötn, the volcano at the middle of the glacier
- ski South to Hvannadalshnúkur and climb to the summit (weather and schedule permitting)
- ski a bit back to North and then turn East and ski to Lambatungajökull, one of the Eastern most outlet glaciers of Vatnajökull
- descent the Lambatungajökull and walk from there to the village of Hoffel
- ski a bit over 250km of skiing and have great time!

We are just hoping to have good weather (better than Alex Hibbert had on his try), no volcanoes erupting near us and not having to negotiate very bad crevasse fields.

Training for crevasse rescue: climbing rope with prusiks.

Coming up soon…

Even though this is not a ground breaking expedition we are still going to put up a separate blog for the expedition and send short updates from the glacier during the trip. The blog will be in Finnish but I’m working on getting translations of the updates to this blog. If there are voluntary translators out there, please leave a comment or send an e-mail for details!  (Finnish to English translation, few SMS each day for two weeks in March-April.) And of course there will be some posts in English here related to my personal preparations and some analysis after the trip.

Stay tuned for more info…

Altai Hok 125 – Initial Impressions

Generally I’m against initial impressions and support thorough long-term reports but occasionally there are good reasons also for writing about initial impressions. And I think, this is one of those occasions as the Altai Hoks are relatively new product and the best season for using them is under its way at the moment. So, here are my initial impression of Altai Hok 125 skis with X-Trace universal bindings.  As I weight nearly 100kg I wished to test the 145cm long version but none were available for test (and I don’t think any are available for purchase either, at least not from Finland).

The tools of choise for the initial testing.

The Skis

Well, they are not exactly skis in the traditional Nordic meaning of the word but the Hoks are closer to skis than to snowshoes so lets call them skis for a while.

The Hoks are 125cm long, erm, short and about 12cm wide and relatively light making them very maneuverable. Those interested in numbers can check Dave C’s posts: Altai Hok: by the numbers, Tools; choices (for comparing different options) and The 145 Altai Hok (for those interested in the longer option providing more floatation). The skis are built with wood core covered with fiberglass mixed with organic materials. The bases are smooth sintered polyethylene (the typical ski base stuff) and have a large glued-on skin insert in the middle and are finished with 3/4 steel edges. The skis have metal screw inserts for the standard 75mm Nordic Norm bindings (with three inserts for a heel pad) and thus also fit the X-Trace binding and there is an adapter plate for NNN BC and SNS BC bindings.

There is not much camber and it might not even work with very short skis like these. The tip has a generous amount of rise that lifts the ski on top of snow by just pushing it forward (no need to “walk”, it’s more of a motion of kicking and gliding but without much glide because of the skin) and there is also some rise in the tail. The little side cut and raised tip and tail makes then turn super easily on down hill!

The skis and the sled in camp near Patvinsuon National Park.

The Bindings

The Hoks are often sold as a package with the X-Trace universal bindings. The word “universal” means that you can use them with about any boot or shoe that has relatively flexible sole (so a no go with plastic ice climbing boots and similar).  The X-Trace is a Finnish design binding that uses snowboard binding style straps and flexible base plate. The toe strap is mounted on a fixed front piece and another strap wraps around the ankle and is mounted on a heel piece that can slide on the flexible plastic plate to adjust the size. The size i.e. the length can be easily adjusted on 8cm range which wasn’t enough for my size 46 Sorel Caribou boots but there was plenty of extra space on the flexible plate so making extra notches for adjustment wasn’t a big deal. I recognize that the binding should fit size up to 46 hiking boot without any problems (manufacturer claims fit with EU sizes 35-47,5) but the big Sorels were a bit too much and felt lined Sorels larger than size 47 or 48 are simply too big even with extra notches. The straps were barely long enough for the Sorels but for even bigger boots, there are extra-long straps available as accessory. I’ll write more about the bindings when I have more experience with different footwear.

The Use

I’ve had the skis only for a bit over a week now. I’ve used the skis on a short test run in the backyard forest and on four-day winter trip near Patvinsuo National Park in Eastern Finland. On both occasions I was wearing size 46 Sorel Caribou felt lined boots. On the short test run I was looking for the wort possible ground without a backpack or a pulka. I crossed blown down trees, ditches, climbed over some big rocks and pushed through dense forest.The skis proved to be very agile and maneuverable and on steeper down hills they glided nicely and on safe speed but on subtle slopes the skin inserts prevent real down hill skiing. Floatation was quite good but there wasn’t that much snow for a real test, maybe some 30cm.

A swift little down hill on the test run: easier and faster with the Hoks than with snowshoes or traditional long Finnish skis.

On the four-day trip I was pulling a Fjellpulken Explorer 168 sled weighting something over 30kg fully loaded. The terrain was varying but mostly we skied on small lakes, swamps and in woods. There were no big hills but occasional little slopes, banks on the shores, ditches to cross and one fucked up boulder terrain. Other people on the trip were using 225-280cm long traditional Finnish forest skis and the Hoks turned out to be a lot more maneuverable in the woods and the skin inserts provided plenty of grip for pulling the pulka and tackling little obstacles on the way. The down side is that on good open terrain they are slower than long skis because of the skins but they are still a lot faster than snow shoes. The floatation was decent even though there was occasionally over half a meter of snow. The tip rises really nicely on top of the snow by just pushing the ski forward. I recon that the 145cm model would have been better for me providing more floatation. The weather on the trip was also frigging cold with lowest skiing temps being -36C. It is advised that the bindings should not be used in temps lower than -30C but not skiing wasn’t an option and the bindings coped the use well.

Fucked up place to go with a pulka. Here shorter skis make easier going.

The Impressions

They work and they are fun.

They are very maneuverable and provide decent floatation.

The Hoks seem to be sort of go-anywhere-do-anything tool but such things come with compromises. In my opinion the biggest compromise with the Hoks is the permanent skin insert which slows them down though also adds to the agility of the skis. It might be the only sensible option for skis like this but I’d really like to see a version with fish scale base and detachable skins (like the Madshus Intelligrip but a lot wider) or skin inserts (like the ones Åsnes has). The bindings are also quite a compromise. I like the ability to use any kind of footwear with the skis but they were not especially convincing, convenient or light weight. But untill I get to use something better I’m happy with them. The Icetrek Flexi bindings seem like an interesting option but they are quite expensive.

I’d personally rather have the 145cm long model to get more floatation as I believe it would be just as maneuverable as the 20cm shorter version. I have a trip plan for the next winter where the 145cm Hoks might be just the perfect tool…

Judging by the limited experience that I have with the Hoks I’d say they are killer tools for certain conditions and I see the Hoks suiting well for:

- Traveling in dense woods, especially with lots of soft snow. The maneuverability is invaluable and floatation good enough.
- Shoulder season trips when there is still some skiable snow left or you are expecting year’s first heavy snowfall during a walking trip.
- Hunting, photographing and doing other things that require agility and maybe occasionally going without poles.
- Having fun! Hoks are fun and provide a good way to have some exercise in the backyard woods or to tread trails in the deep snow around the house or a cottage and so on.

As I saind the Hoks are not skis in the traditional Nordic sense, neither are they snowshoes. Based on the snowshoe = slowshoe word play the Hoks are often called fastshoes which is very apposite name in my opinion. My friend translated fastshoe to “vauhtikenkä” in Finnish and I’ve called them “pätkäsukset” (shorty skis).

In my opinion Hoks do good job replacing snowshoes unless you are heading to very steep hills with hard packed snow (say hiking up for some off-piste snowboarding or climbing a mountain). They are agile enough for gathering fire wood, moving in and around camp, for hunting in woods, etc. From my point of view the Hoks could also replace long traditional Finnish forest skis if loosing some speed and ease of going in easy terrain is tolerable. The floatation is good enough and when hauling a sled the extra grip is nice. The Hoks could even replace steel edged fjell skis but that would mean loosing a lot of speed so I wouldn’t personally go there.

But if I could have only one pair of skis… I might nor have skis at all. I’d have fastshoes, the Hoks.

Availability & Price

The 145cm version seems to be out of stock every where in Finland though I heart that there might be some available at Kalevan Prisma in Tampere. The 125cm version is readily available from the usual suspects like the Varuste.net that sells them with X-Trace bindings for 295 euros.

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Disclaimer: The nice people at OAC Finland (the importer and distributor of Altai Hok skis and X-Trace bindings) lended the skis for me for test on request but with no obligation of reviewing them.