" ...though we travel the world to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us, or we find it not "
Emerson (1803-1882)

Monday, May 04, 2015

Spring/Winter weather & Lyngen plateau

 The day started calm and still in the pine-forest - and hot! hot! hot!

 A bit of leg-work and grunting through scrubby snow-patches and forest to get up high....
 Then... it was pretty smooth going, still weather (er, and hard work still!)
I think they call it 'picture perfect' (mind you, it was still blinding hot at that stage of the day)
Yes, that is a person on the horizon! sweating up the, er, mostly flat plateau...


Hello views! It all got very, very pretty, with the low cloud ceiling creeping in on us.



Not lost, just setting the GPS and compass-course ;) 



Plateau where we had been shrouded in cloud behind me there.

 No, I was not REALLY that happy about descending into Midtdalen... seemed steep and narrow..
Helen lives!  Here I am, pointing out my so-called 'Death Valley' (which actually wasn't really: transformed snow and good weather in the last while making it a pretty safe haven, even for someone used to the Durdham downs... which are very flat, but very beautiful also)

(these are the beautiful Durdham Downs in Bristol, by the way ;))


A long trip, some nice views, and a beer and a fire waiting down at the tent :)

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...and a few days later, feet firmly back at sea-level :)

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And a medley of memories driving homewards:

(*if I was at all computer-literate I would stitch these together*)






A deserved beer...

...there is NOTHING, I say, NOTHING like the taste of beer by a fire in a pine forest in spring on a sunny evening after you have skied in virtual solitude in fantastic good weather - so still that you could hear a pin drop - 30 km across a 1000m plateau... 

(even if it is a lager beer ;))







But you know, a pancake breakfast the day after and another wee summit is also rather nice ;)... definitely on a par with the beer!