The trip was organized by Ankarat Avotunturit. If you are interested in arctic expeditions I recommend you to check out their courses, programs and expeditons: Ankarat Avotunturit.
The final preparations for the Svalbard expedition are in full swing! We are flying early in the morning, but everything is finally packed ready. It looks as if my final weight of the sled will be below 70kg, which is nice! The last thing I have done is to update the playlist on my iPod, but I realized that I had not so much music on my computer, so it will be for me to listen again and again the same songs…
I’m glad I’ve packed my warmest sleeping bagcombination, because the forecast is on the cold mode in the beginning of the week… Luckily the weather gets warmer by the end ofthe week.
You can truly call this an extempore trip! I had no plans to travel abroad during the spring. Instead I was planning to spend the spring quietly at home with a few ski trips. For about a week ago those plans changed completely: I’m going to Svalbard for a ski expedition in the end of March for three weeks! Svalbard is a group of islands located about midway between continental Norway and the North Pole, and yes – there are polar bears walking around.
During these three weeks our plan is to ski about 300 km. We will start the expedition from the town Longyearbyen. If the weather is on our side the plan is to summit the highest mountain peaks Newtontoppen (1713 m) and Perriertoppen (1712 m). We will also visit Pyramiden, which is an abandoned Soviet mining town.
On a typical day we are going to ski about 7-8 hours and the night we are spending in our tents. The sledges will weight about 70-80 kg, but the sledges will get more lighter when the trip progresses.