Trip in the Fell (Fjäll)

Friday was another day out in the field and this time we (Thomas and I) had hired a skiido at Björkliden to be able to get two other lakes. One of them being a high alpine lake up at 1300m asl. We had a sled on the back of the skiido with all our gear and Thomas did the driving. It was such a lovely day, sun was shining, clear blue sky and a pleasant minus 5 degrees. I am fascinated with the skiido, it can climb extremely steep hills and carrying two people and a sled. I suppose having Thomas driving helped heaps as he has got lots of experience and knows the area around here very well as he used to be an alprescuer (fjällräddare). The whole day went really well and I cannot believe how beautiful the Swedish "alps" (fjäll) are. So as Fredrik pointed out there actually is a word for fjäll in english which is fell. Skiidos are great vehicles however they are rather noisy and their presence spoil some of the quietness that you are meant to experience out in the fell. Particularly there are a lot of Norwegians around on their skiidos and they are speed demons and like to test the skiidoos by going up real steep hills.I bet there are at least one Norwegian injured each year from doing stupid tricks on the skiido. I also heard that in Norway there are not so many tracks for skiidos as we have here in Sweden, hence that is why they come over here and cause havoc.
On another note, my old Antarctic mate Dave (Winkle) got married on saturday in Melbourne. Some other Antarctic friends were there to celebrate with him (Benny, Watto, Tb and the Captain). I got a nice call from them all on saturday and they all seemed to have had a little bit too much to drink but it was fun to hear from them and to hear about the wedding.
Today I have been out skiing, quite a long trip down to the abiskojokk and back but it was great weather and you could actually sit in the sun and sunbake as it was plus degrees!!!! Spring is on its way and the fell is looking its best.







Lapporten viewed from Björkliden










Leaving the first lake at 1300m asl... going up means that you eventually have to get down...










....and down we went, should be able to make out the steep slope we came down (it is in the shade in the middle of the photo)














...and then up again









...for a spectacular view, how amazing is this??!!






We had some low clouds at the second lake, looks kind of like fog I reckon












You can see the clouds coming in in this photo where Thomas is drilling the ice. So much snow on the ice.














And the beautiful skiido.... ahhh I want one!!!













My elk friend at the station

Abisko winter sampling

Straight back to work in Abisko and I have decided to sample the five lakes I sampled in the end of the summer again. So on tuesday, Thomas and I set out to sample Lake Vuoskajaure which was a pretty easy one as it is close to the road. The ice was 65cm thick. And today we headed upto Nuolja with the lift, brought all our gear and skiis and then set out to my second lake. It was a glorious day this morning, nice and sunny and only around minus 10. The ice was a little thicker on the Nuolja lake at 90cm thickness. We skiied back down to the chairlift, Thomas first of course and me behind struggling a little of course... he he he. I then got back on the chairlift and went back down on that but Thomas went down on his skiis. The slope on nuolja is way too hard for me, especially when wearing crosscountry skiis, there is not easy way to turn with them (or that is what I think). Anyhow, back in the lab I open up the sample bottles and man they stink, smells like rotten egg. So there was some hydrogen sulphide present for sure. This can take place in sediments as bacteria convert sulphate into hydrogen sulphide however it seems like the whole water column was full of this as I sampled about 1m underneath the ice. So it seems the whole lake is completely filled with this bad smelling gas, good thing I made a hole in the ice to let some out aye.




Thomas on the lake having morning "fika"














Lapporten




























Thomas with all the gear













On my way down in the chairlift, pretty white snow.













Nice view from the chairlift, look rather different from the summer time that is for sure.

Beautiful Skåne

So I went down south for the weekend. Got on the train in Abisko wednesday evening and arrive in Lund on thursday evening just a 22 hours long train journey. A bit of a shame that I live furthest up north as it takes ages to get anywhere. Anyhow, I went down to Lund to see Kelly defend her phd-thesis in my old department at Lund uni. Ahh, it was nice to see everyone from my old department again. It is such a lovely place. Kelly did very well in her phd defence and is now a Dr. She had a phd party in the evening which I went to and it was great fun and nice to catch up with some old friends. I stayed with Ramiro for the weekend and after a big night on the friday we did not get up until 2.30pm he he he. Well the friday party only finished at 6am. Ramiro and I had a big fry up and were then ready to take on copenhagen for a clubbing night. And yes Copenhagen is as lovely as ever and there are so many cool places to go to. We ended up in a club called culture box and it was a dub night on but they had another room with some good old house/elektro playing so I got to dance again which made me smile! We got back to Lund around 7am and then I had a few hours sleep before catching the train back to Abisko at lunch time. I felt rather ordinary but I knew I had plenty of sleeping time on the train. And as the train went by Hudiksvall my mum had arranged for Bosse to give me some freshly made cinnamon swirls and some meatballs and pasta, sweet!



Kelly as a happy Dr in Limnology and Marine Ecology.
















Kelly's phd-thesis nailed to the ecology building tree.