Went up to a Czechpoint

09/10-08-12

Left Wroclaw and drove through the Karkonosze or Krkonose mountains crossing the Czech Republic border at 1046 m (i.e. about 40 metres lower than Snowdon) at Przl Okraj. Drove downhill to Pec Pod Snezkou – a small ski resort. 

Obri Dul valley

Further up the Obri Dul

Walked up a very well engineered  blue marked path along the Obri Dul  valley and up to the main ridge of the Karkonsze (means giant hills) and then in a hailstorm walked along the ski trail that forms the Polish/Czech R border up to the top of Sniezka (1603m/P1202) the highest point in the Czech R.

Border trail on ridge

The mountain is very popular  and there were hundreds of people there or on their way up or down. Many of them would have used the chairlift half-way up – but not the second chair lift to the summit as it is out of action and being replaced. 

Sniezka

Polish cafe

Czech post Office

The summit has a chapel, two cafes (one Polish, one Czech) and, incongruously, a Czech post office. In my haste to get out of the rain I dashed into the Polish cafe, even though I only had Czech Crowns that I'd got before ascending, and when given change in Polish Zlotys it       meant wasted effort.

Plaque on the trigpoint

Sniezka means ‘snow –covered. So, after Snohetta in Norway, that makes this the second snow hill of the trip. Although it couldn’t have been more of a contrast.  It was more like a walk using the tourist path on that other snow hill, Snowdon.

I walked down the yellow marked path – the first section consisting of steps that were set at a distance apart that made it impossible to get into any kind of a rhythm. Resisted the temptation to use the chairlift down from Ruzova Hora and then had the green marked path to myself  through the pine trees to Pec. Typically, as is usually the case with Sod’s law, the weather cleared soon after I left the summit.

 

 

Slept nearby to Pec.

Spent a major part of the next day trying to sort out the gas bottle for the van*, so did not get round to tackling my next hill. However, did have a pleasant 20km cycle ride on the ski trails around the resort of Spindleruv Mlyn and then slept in the Autokemp campsite alongside an upper-reach of the river Labe/Elbe which further on flows through Dresden and Hamburg, amongst many other towns and cities – and is the fourth largest river in Europe.

Greatly amused the campsite owner as I used the English pronunciation of wi-fi (i.e. rhyming with fly) which she pronounced as wee-fee.

*There has been no explosion, as of yet, so my efforts worked.

Hotel Martin, Spindleruv Mlyn

Polish plains

08-08-12

Poland

It is plainly plain that there is very little for hill baggers on the plains of northern Poland. It wasn’t until I reached near Wroclaw in Lower Silesia that there was any evidence that the earth is not as flat as my feet. The other contrast with Scandinavia is there are far fewer trees – lots of big farms (collective farms of the Soviet era?) growing grain or corn.

Wroclaw Town Hall

Wroclaw seemed like a big working city with a lovely tourist oriented centre and rather grimmer surroundings  with rather poor road surfaces at times consisting of uneven setts* and a lot of tramlines. Although I did like the way the traffic lights gave a count down to indicate when they would change colour.

*Many people mistakenly refer to setts as cobbles or cobblestones – setts are flat, whereas cobbles are rounded.

  

Spent a few hours wandering around the tourist centre and found Wroclaw’s nearest equivalent to Stanfords or the Cordee mapshop – the Swiat Podroznika on ul. Wita Stwosza.

Bouldering

Slept in a quiet side street off the Rynek square, with no hassle.

Down the Swedish coast and across the Baltic

Gamla Stan island/holm

National Museum art gallery

Stockholm - or is it Stockport?

Street scene in Gamla Stan

03/06-08-12

And then there was Stockholm with A – and a few days of me being a tourist and a chance for us to see Bjork (and Buffy Sainte-Marie, anyone remember her?) at the Skeppsholmen festival. 

Bjork was great – cannot say I recognised everything that she played. Pity we missed Patti Smith and  Antony and the Johnsons on another day of the festival. 

A  joyous Gay Pride carnival also added to the Stockholm atmosphere.

Giraffe crane

Gay pride

07-08-12

The previous evening there was a quick dash to Karlskrona*  to catch the Stena Vision ferry on a ten hour journey across the Baltic to Gdynia in Poland. Bet there were no other Britons on board.

Spent the night in a Tesco’s car park – somewhere unpronounceable in Poland.

*In keeping with my apparent but not deliberate obsession with World Heritage Sites I attempted to visit the Karlskrona Naval Yards which are similarly endowed with the same status and nearly caused an international incident by entering the gates and being stopped by two guards. They asked me to wait and I thought they were asking their superiors for permission for me to have a look around. Turns out they were asking permission to let me go!

Going up high on the coast at Höga Kusten, Kvarken Archipelago

View from Skuleberget

Steps on Skuleberget - perfect solution for Mow Cop?

 

01/02-08-12

View from Skuleberget

Isostatic uplift following the ice age means the High Coast/Höga Kusten in Sweden is still rising 10,000 years after the last ice age glaciers pushed the land down. The evidence includes raised beaches on tops of the local hills. Another example of geology in the making. And, yet another UNESCO World Heritage site as part of the Kvarken Archipelago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Coast

 

Skuleberget (School mountain) summit

So, for me, a perfect place to take a break from the long drive through Lapland and explore. Especially as the sun was shining - at times.

I started with the rather popular Skuleberget from the Naturum visitor centre. I confess I did not use the Via Ferrata route - on the other hand I didn't use the ski-lift from the other side of the hill either. As it was late afternoon I had the summit to myself .

Slattsdalberget

Slattdalsskrevatt

 

Next day I went to have a look at the ravine Slattsdalsskrett in the Skuleskogen national park and then up onto the hill summit. Much of the route to the ravine was on slippy wooden boards - I think I would have preferred stumbling over the mix of tree roots and boulders underneath.

First time I have seen a picnic table on a 'Marilyn' summit – Hogklinten

The SOTA (Summits on the Air) website lists a number of 'Marilyns' in the area - although suspiciously their prominence figures are all rounded to the nearest 10 and there seems to be quite a lot of P150s. I decided to go for one of the highest if not the most prominent, Hogklinten (281m/P150) - mainly because there seemed to be a track all the way to the top.

Bouldery beach high up on Hogklinten

Lapland days

 31-07-12

It was time to cut my losses and look forward to some gains. The weather did not look like it was going to improve. Ideas of going to Nordkapp (the furthest north you can go on the European mainland), bagging Halti (Finland’s highest point) and/or Kebnekaise (Sweden’s highest point and another Ultra) just did not seem attractive in the rain. I realised that if I went south this would probably result in a heatwave in the northern part of  Scandinavia the moment I left, but that’s life. And anyway those three options give me a perfect reason for returning one day. 

Plus there were things to look forward down in the south where there is not 24 hour daylight.

I left the campsite at Skibotn and fairly soon was crossing the border into Suomi/Finland’s Lapland on the so-called Northern Lights route in the Tornedalen. 

Only 53 km from Halti

Found, almost by chance the starting point for Halti at Kilpisjarvi – as the sign shows it is 53km. I would have tackled it using a shorter route from Norway, though.

Saw my first moose/elk – it was grazing right at the roadside. By the time I saw my fourth I was less excited.

It wasn’t long before I crossed the river Torne at Karesuando into Sverige/Sweden’s Lapland. Not that there was much difference, Lapland seems to mainly consist of trees, lakes and the occasional moose or reindeer. And in the countryside the houses are still largely  that red colour. I have now discovered that the colour is called Falu red and the paint contains a by-product from the Falun copper mine at Dalarna in Sweden. Apparently, it is a cheap and effective wood preserver used since the 16^th century. Houses painted yellow or white indicate people who were wealthier.

Trees and water - Finland

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falu_red

Typically, as I approached the turn off for Kiruna – and the start point for Kebnekaise – the weather cleared and tempted me to divert. I resisted the temptation – bagging Kebnekaise  takes at least two and half days. As I pondered the options my iPod shuffle played ‘It’s gonna rain’ and  ‘Have you seen the rain?’. And, when I stopped for the night by the river Lule in the Muddus national park – in the Laponia World heritage site there was a violent thunderstorm. And a lot of reindeer and unfortunately mosquitoes.

No distance shown from Karesuando to Slaithwaite, though

Went up another Ultra

Store Lenangstind from Breivikeidet - the previous day

 

Morning view of Jiehkkevarri (Ultra, 1833m, P1741)

28-07-12

The picture above was taken at about 5.00am, whilst I was still literally lying on my bed and just opened the van door to have a look. Fantastic, isn't it? And look the sky is still almost clear (but maybe I should have noticed the cirrus). Now here is the chance to go for another Ultra - Store Lenangstind (1624, P1556) - but not Jiehkkevarri as I think it might be beyond my reach.

Parked at Koppangan

Started from Koppangan. Once a fishing village that looks like it has been overtaken by tourism, but not a lot. You will see in the pictures most of the houses are a dark red. It seems to me that two out of three houses in Norway are that colour - most of the rest being yellow or cream. Almost as if someone accidentally added rather a lot of zeroes on the end of the number of litres when ordering that colour and the Norwegians are despearately trying to get through the vast reservoir created. It is not as if it is the same colour as the red on the Norwegian flag.

Koppangan village

Koppangan from above

I started by walking along the shore, then following the glacial stream through, yes, you have guessed right, birch trees. And then the first stretch of boulders and rocks, up a steep slope and on to a seemingly endless boulder field. You get a real sense of geology in the making - no vegetation to mask things. Then up another steep slope to the Koppangsvatnet glacial lake - where unfortunately the fine day disappeared and the rain came in and stayed.

Endless boulder field

Store Lenangstind and the Koppangsbreen glacier

Moraines on the glacier snout

Then I had to get up the steep ice on the snout of the Koppangsbreen glacier - time to put on crampons and wield the ice axe. The ice was crystallised so there was quite a good grip really - not that I was too happy coming down here later and I used the rocks and grit in the moraines to help keep from slipping.

Store Lenangstind across the crevassed glacier

A long walk up the glacier looking out for crevasses - some looked deep but most were not too wide to jump over.

A crevasse to avoid

A steep snow covered section of the glacier lead to the Strupbreen glacier - it was obvious this was a different glacier that moved in a different direction, because the crevasses were now running alongside my route rather than across it. There were pools of melted ice and slush to go round, too. As I got nearer to the circle of tops there was evidence of past avalanches. The penultimate part was definitely the hardest, the snow became quite steep - thankfully it wasn't ice. There was no visibility because of the cloud cover and there was a bergschrund to avoid. The last part is just a rocky scramble and I had no idea of the exposure as there was no visibility. I did not hang around by the summit cairn.
Coming back was tough going, I was wet through and those boulder fields. I did enjoy the controlled bumslides down the steep snow slopes.
However, it was also wonderfully eerie and primeval. Geology in the making and it makes it easy to understand the more familiar hills of upland Britain seeing the processes before my own eyes.

The summit in clouds

It was close to 11.00 pm when I got back. Thanks for the 24 hour daylight. If not the weather.

Koppangsvatnet glacial lake in the mist

Another view from Breivikeidet

Went up for a 'bimble'

Enough quartz to make a few watches

Karltinden summit with an ultra background

Karltinden from near Svensby

Karltinden summit

27-07-12

It looked relatively easy on the map. I just wanted to find a hill that wasn't going to be an epic struggle in the rain. The morning was fine, the birch trees didn't seem to go on for too long - although the marked path through them was non-existent. Then there was the usual boulder field, maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as I  thought. Then it got steep.



However, the top was a huge plateau and that meant hands in pocket walking, doesn't it? Well, yes, if it was vegetation and not endless boulders, rocks and scree. Still it wasn't too bad - except it started to rain. The top was reached in cloud. Not the top of the overall massif but a nice 1206m with a prominence I reckon of about P350-400. In other words, bigger than anything in England and Wales. And not a bimble.

Nakkedalen

A Nakkedalen view from Karltinden

Snow face

And then wonders will never cease, the weather turned, the skies cleared and I even found a meadow half way down to wander through the yellow poppies.

 

Needs must, when midges abound

 Shame about the midges - my face is covered in bites as I did not put on the hat straight away.

Caught the ferry from Breivikeidet to Svensby on the Lyngen peninsula. And stopped for the night looking across to Norway's third most prominent Ultra, Jiehkkevarri and behind me the fourth one, Store Lenangstinden. Would the weather hold? Was this a ridge of high pressure or just a break between two weather fronts?