He also has a hiking style that can best be described as aggressive. With Stefano, we would set out, meandering around, as Stefano would stop frequently and tell us about the history or the natural aspects of the area. Kasper fires off, never looking back, assuming everyone is right with him. Every so often, he’ll stop, tell stories, and wait for the stragglers who were either taking pictures, or slow up hills (both describe me), and then fire off.
So, after walking along the shoreline with magnificent cliffs towering over us, we headed up a steep, snow covered hill. I’m straggling along, using the excuse of stopping to take pictures to try and catch my breath. It was a pretty solid climb, but we were rewarded with staggering views. The ship was now tucked out of sight, as we were up behind the cliffs. Meanwhile, reindeer were doing what they do, which is play reindeer games. Well, okay, they were eating and paying us little mind.
As an exercise in silence, Kasper had us stop and do nothing for five minutes. No talking, no picture taking, no movement. Just soak in the sound of silence. Before we started, he noted that there are not many places in the world left that are so quiet.
As Kasper closed up the five minutes, he said “thank you everyone.” I noted to him that next time, instead of saying that, to signal the quiet time was over, he should fire off his gun. That earned a chuckle from him.
We turned right and headed up across a slick, snow covered hill with deep pockets of soft snow. Occasionally we were able to stay atop the snow, although at points, we were going uphill and sideways on an angle, so there was the risk of sliding down without strong purchase on the ice. I envisioned myself skidding off towards a cliff, and having to self-arrest with my hiking poles. It never came to that, but I think I could have done it if needed.
But that was the easy part. The hard part was breaking through the snow crust and going down up to your shins and even knees at places. Going uphill was not so bad – it turns out the harder part was later.
A little before the top of the cliff, we saw a solitary reindeer run by, just a bit below us. No one thought anything of it. (Foreshadowing).
At the top of one of the cliffs (we attacked it from the back and side, as a straight on assault would have been impossible) we posed for pictures high above the ship. And, we took in the pack ice that crowded in the small fjord below. At that point we had climbed from sea level to a height of 564 feet. I know, I know – that doesn’t sound like much, but in muck boots, knee-deep snow, and going from zero to 564 in a relatively short stretch is still work. And, come to think of it, the gain was probably more, as iPhones consistently had us 30 feet underwater when we were on the ship.
We were continuing up, when, back in the pack of the group, someone said, “look at that.” Many of the group had passed right by a little, scared baby reindeer. Kasper judged that it was less than 24 hours old. The mother was the reindeer who had run past us just a bit ago.
By the way, I gotta note sprinting the same day as giving birth is a pretty impressive feat of nature. I haven’t seen too many moms of newborn human babies doing that. (Editor’s Note: Now you’ve done it! Blogger: Oh, women will know I’m kidding. Of course I’m kidding. Ha, ha, aren’t I funny! See, I bet women are laughing right now! What guy would be dumb enough to mean something like that. Editor: Most of them. Blogger. Thinks for a moment. Oh shoot, please do not hurt me!).
All kidding aside (and it IS kidding!) women of the human species will forgive me when they see the picture of what is the cutest animal you will see on-line all week. And to help them move on from their righteous anger, here it is:
Anyhow, we then cut short the hike (up around 600 feet up), so as to hasten our departure and give the mother reindeer a shorter wait before returning to her fawn.
The way down was hard. Going downhill through knee deep (actually deeper) snow was hard work. People were falling, as you not only fell through the snow, but you carried forward a bit down the hill. You don’t fall every time you break through the snow – it seemed like ratio of one fall to every one hundred breakthroughs though!
I’m pretty certain the reason I broke through the snow so often was not my body weight, but the extra weight added by my lightweight camera. (Editor’s Note: Uh, he’s in denial folks, just keep going.)
Your trusty blogger went down twice. The first time was wild. I had stepped in someone else’s tracks (that was the smart way – let someone else break the trail) except their feet were smaller. Mine slide forward, down under the thick snow crust, so I landed on my butt. No problem so far. Except getting up was impossible – my feet were trapped under the crust.
I flailed away it the crust with my hiking stick tips, but to little avail. I had no leverage on it, so I must have looked like a drunken overweight middle-aged guy smacking away at an imaginary snake near his feet. The less success I had, the more I flailed. Finally, two guys came over to help, using their fists and leverage to punch away the crust. It’s possible if they had not rescued me, I would have been a polar bear snack, which would have caused all sorts of paperwork for the expedition. Poor folks.
The second fall was nowhere near as dramatic, and does not require two paragraphs of modest exaggeration to write about.
We finally got down to a hillock with no snow, and a clear path a ways down. Except, as you have probably figured out already, there was a nesting white ptarmigan about half-way down the snow-less section. Obviously we couldn’t go that way, so, that meant more snow!
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. I thought it an odd place for a snow-white ptarmigan to nest, as it stood out like a Giants fan at an Eagles home game. Thankfully it will molt soon, and have its summer brown feathers. Kasper said that ptarmigan is the traditional Christmas Day meal in Norway. Then he told the great story of how, to impress his girlfriend, he went hunting to get two ptarmigan to make for Christmas dinner. The only problem was, he had to cross country ski for four days before he came across the ptarmigan. Apparently it is not supposed to be that hard.
We finally stumbled our way back down closer to shore, and headed back to the boat. Another leader pointed out some polar bear tracks right down by the shoreline. We walked back along the shoreline, tired from the effort and marveling at the wonder of it all.
Our zodiac driver took us a circuitous route back to the ship, as we went right past the edge of the pack ice, the brilliant blue ice looking up at us from underwater. It was a special moment.
Carol had wisely skipped the hard hike (her injured ribs would have been in intense pain during and after it, probably causing a setback). Instead, she got to see swimming walruses pretty much up close. She noted she doesn’t know if she saw upwards of ten walruses, or if she saw the same two popping up continuously. Either way, it was pretty cool.
After lunch, we napped. And it was good.
No comments:
Post a Comment