Long live the north!

At our last Skype meeting, our project suddenly became twice as long. Not only will we wait till next year to cross Greenland, but we'll also try another epic trip this coming spring. Closer to home, but probably in much colder conditions than Greenland. The idea is simple, meet up in Tromsø at the beginning of March, and ski east. Sooner than you know it you're on Finnmarksvidda, one of the coldest places Norway has to offer with chill-out temperatures of below -30oC rather common.

So why northern Scandinavia and not Greenland? There're plenty of reasons, ranging from the need to raise 50 000EUR for the budget (we've got a little under a tenth of that so far) to the very real need of experiencing how our group of energ-icers handles itself in snow. Not to mention testing every single piece of equipment, whose functionality may well mean the difference between life and death (or fun and frostbite to be a little less melodramatic) in Greenland in 2010.

So what's in Northern Norway? A quick look at Google Maps tells us it's only 6 days and 12 hours by walking from Tromsø to Kirkenes. Well, since it's just short of 800 km I really wonder what steroids Google-boy is using. But for us distance is only one part of the journey, the other is the adventure of being in the snow, enjoying the wind blowing on the face and trying to find the fun of camping in conditions when your eyelids freeze together if you close them for too long...

So long, greets from dark and cold Tromsø!

Kim