We woke on Wednesday and the forecast on my phone and laptop (Google and Apple have slightly different views of these things: it’s worthwhile to check both) concurred that while the morning would be clear, a snow storm was coming in for the afternoon. This boded ill for the aurora photography excursion that we had booked for the evening. Sure enough, just after breakfast the guide contacted us to see if we were OK to move the meeting time up from 7PM to 5PM, to improve our chances. Of course it was OK!
The morning was clear and cold though: a bit of wind blowing but a cloudless sky. Cath and I decided to have a bit of a hike up the hill behind the lodge to see how far we could get, and what there was to see. We retraced some of my path from the day before, and went up the hill to have a closer look at the sled dog kennels. They were quieter this time, but still doing their doggy things: barking and jumping at passing birds. We happened to be there as their handlers were feeding them, which probably explains some of the excitement.
We continued up the hill as far as we could: the path was soft underfoot and quite hard going without snow shoes or other aids. After a while Cath called a rest to catch her breath while I tried to scamper up to the ridge to see what was on the other side. The ridge turned out not to be any kind of top: there was more hill behind it: just kept going up. So I rejoined Cath and we retraced our steps back to the helipad and continued a way North from there. We saw another hiker approaching, and as he reached the middle distance he was passed (very closely it seemed) by three moose: one adult and two smaller, younger ones. The things that happen when you aren’t carrying your telephoto lens!
Back to the lodge for a rest and to get ready before dinner. When our guide arrived he suggested that we go out to the helipad straight away, as there was some light aurora activity and that way we would be sure we had some photographs from the excursion. A wise man, as it turned out.
We went back in to have dinner with him and another of our expedition team and her mother. After dinner we rugged back up and got into the van to collect the last group from another hotel, down the hill. There followed a change-room scene where we were offered cover-all suits for extra warmth, which Cath and I both declined, as we thought that we were well enough protected as we were (we were wrong). The guide had been on the phone to his friends and colleagues who were with other groups at various places from Kiruna to Narvik and (as we had expected) Abisko looked like the best, clearest chance and so we drove down to the lake. Where we would have walked ourselves. An extra wrinkle though: fearing crowds of people down at the jetty, we pulled off the road back behind the first dune and set off to a secret spot where we could light a fire and sit in exclusive silence. Trouble was that the path to be taken was significantly less-traveled than he expected, and Cath and I made very heavy going of it, not being used to scampering about in the snow. Many falls after footsteps going down past the knee, and laboriously and cautiously getting back up were sapping our strength and our enthusiasm. We got to the picnic spot eventually, freezing cold and a bit wet from snow and sweat, glad of the fire that was being built, but which didn’t appear to provide any significant warmth. The wind was getting stronger and we were getting colder. It was -20 before wind-chill. We set our cameras up, but there was no aurora activity. So we were treated to the usual guide-picnic of thermos-hot lingenberry juice and waited. And froze. A stronger gust of wind blew Cath and my cameras and their tripods over in the snow. Luckily they weren’t damaged, but Cath’s eyepiece filled with packed snow that we couldn’t dislodge, and which prevented the sensor that controls the rear display from working, so we weren’t sure that it was or would be OK.
After a long time of listlessly taking time-lapse photos of the scenery (which was lovely), we packed up to head back to the car, to go to another spot: still in Abisko, but up in the hills behind the village. Of course as we were making our way back a massive “corona” display erupted overhead. It was so quick that there was no chance of setting either of our tripods up for it, but I took one shot hand-held as “proof”. It was all over inside of a minute. Spectacular to see though. I chose a more direct route back to the road, that also turned out to be much firmer than the outward path and we both made it back in a couple of minutes: a massive difference from the seeming-half-an-hour disaster of the way there.
The spot up in the hills was a clearing near the fenced yards that the Sami were expected to coral their reindeer the following day. Some cars and trailers came and went, doing fencing-work, but the previous group of photographers left as we arrived, so we were on our own. The view of the mountain was lovely, but again: no aurora. It happens.
Late back so the lounge was closed. We just climbed into bed and gradually thawed to sleep.
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