I went North

[Hovmod_imp]

Thank you for all those kind words, I'll try to break down the trip for those who are interested.

My father was from Vadsø, and so as a kid I used to spend every other summer up north. Alternate summers were spent in Telemark, another beautiful area to go for a ride (and probably a more likely place to go if you visit Norway to ride a bike). I never loved the car rides to any of those places, because to get to the family cabin in Tana took *days* in our 1967 SAAB Station Wagon, and my mother thought about 2 cm was a sufficient window crack to let the cigarette smoke out. I loved the cabin and all our people up there, I loved fishing and hiking and the feasts on reindeer and salmon, but the car ride was murder and the mosquitoes and I never became friends, either. I no longer have a lot of people up there, but I imagined that if I went to some of the old places and said my name, I would be welcomed (and I was right).

So when my GF said that I should pack the tent and go for a ride, I immediately thought that I could give it a shot.

There are basically three options when you go to Finnmark from anywhere south of Saltfjellet:
The ultra scenic coastal route, the main road (E6) through Norway, or what we just refer to as "Sweden and Finland", which is any route that cuts through those two to get the job done. The roads in Sweden and Finland were traditionally much better than ours, probably because they are straight lines through forest (like the TCH in Newfoundland) while ours have to deal with the very things that make them interesting: mountains, fjords, coasts, islands, etc.
I *really* wanted to get up there, so I went for a mashup of options two and three for the way up, leaving the ultra scenic to the return home.

Keep in mind, even the shortest option with the straightest roads comes to 1,500 km. Norway is not a very large country, but it's really really tall.


Day one, E6.
Trondheim - Storjord (587 km)

The only deviation from E6 was that I took the old road over the Korgen mountain instead of the tunnel. The highest point on that bit was also the last spot for *many, many days* where I needed to put on more clothes.

E6 has many highly rideable stretches, but almost invariably there are "better" alternatives, again if you're not in a hurry, and it's starting to fill up with camper vans. Good day, perhaps not great, and now I was done with E6 for a while.

Slept in an old hotel in Storjord.


Pic 4 is also from Storjord.

Access to a lovely pathway through well tended old forests was across this thing, which I'm not gonna lie freaked me out a bit when it started resonating with my steps, particularly on the way back.



Day Two: Sweden.
Storjord - Karesuando (654 km)

At breakfast, an elderly Swedish man who had retired from a job that required driving all over Northern Sweden and Norway recommended a decommissioned road into Sweden, so I snuck past a gate and took the old road through Junkerdalsura (The 'Junker valley scree') instead of the "new" tunnel. The road was great (albeit kinda short), but since it's no longer maintained, I had to keep watch for fallen rocks. Once I met the tunnel exit, I was now on the 77 heading towards Sweden, and I sent some kind thoughts to the old guy. This worked for me - beautiful nature in sixth gear. Picture 9 above is from this stretch, towards Arjeplog. I stopped there for gas and coffee, and in addition to the lovely scenery got a taste of the theme for the ride: Heat and Horseflies. Many of the towns on this route are familiar names for any Scandinavian, of course, but only those of us with a history of going to Finnmark in the summers have ever been to places like Arvidsjaur, Kåbdalis, Jokkmokk, Gällivare, or Karesuando. All of those had higher temps and more horseflies than normal, it was HOT (sorry, Nachodaddy) and the second I stopped the bike was swarmed by those damn things. I noticed that they really like the heat coming off the bike, though, so I learned to get off the bike and take a few steps away before removing helmet, gloves, and leather.
Ate a perfectly delicious smoked salmon salad across from the old cinema in Jokkmokk, but the relentless, evil, carnivorous insects made it a quick stop. I was starting to become worried about the rest of the trip, but things got better.



A year or two ago, a Norwegian prog rock band called Jordsjø released an album with a song called "Skumring i Karesuando" (dusk in Karesuando). A great song, in my opinion, and as it became clear that I was indeed going to make it to Karesuando for the night, that song was on repeat in my head. In particular, the part from around the 30 second mark.





Midnight sun cancels "dusk" as a phenomenon, so here's a picture of the late evening sun in Karesuando, the northernmost town in Sweden:



They know where they are in the world:



Fewer horseflies (but more mosquitoes) than anywhere else in Sweden, good news for someone who needs to fit all of this on a CB1100 in almost 30C...



OK, that's day two, and the last of Sweden for now.
Stay tuned for day three, 'A Pilgrimage to my Childhood'.