A glimpse of the Northern Lights

From nice northern light...

...to nice northern lights

In between clouds this evening, there were some clear starry spells with a dancing green glow across the sky. It is not easy to take photos of, especially with town lights and orange glowing clouds around.

Meanwhile, the clouds are being stubborn - not dissipating, and not dumping like was forecast. It looks like I might not get the perfect snow tomorrow, but I'm hoping it will be clear-ish, so I can ski from higher up before I leave town on the bus and night train for the South tomorrow night.

Today was a pretty cool exploring day, despite having mediocre snow quality. It was warm overnight, and though it was precipitating all night, the rain line went up more than half way up to the summit, and with lots of wind higher up. The moist Southerly flow continued, but switched to Westerly this morning. Skinning up the mountain, I was being chased by lots of wind and a big fat cloud.

Snowstorm coming in, with much wind

It turned out to be just a short storm, though, and hasn't snowed much today.

The descent was nice, though in variable snow, wind-affected, some nice turns half way down, then rain crust. It was a great work out for the skis, which stood up to the test. It was good for me to get some exercise after all that time travelling, and I'd rather ski down than hike down anyday! Thats what I'm here to do.

Well, its snow, and its skiable, and its only November 12th...



There is a very good chance that it will be dumping here within a week, even if it isn't now. I'm glad I came North, and I'd like to stay a while longer, but I'll be back, maybe for a snowstorm or two...

Narvik town looks snowy...

The ski hill looks snowy...

...And the top looks great!

Snowing a bunch, but with wind

Wind affected near the mid station

I didn't make it to the top, though, because of the wind and cloud, and it wasn't worth doing 2 laps.

Idris skis were looking forward to a challenge...


And I was looking forward to
a smooth-ish descent, as it turned out to be.
















I felt like I was descending to Prince Rupert!






I also found a cool cave, right on the ski hill:
I could live in that!

And after lunch, I went to the beach, though by then it was dark!

There is quite a lot of daylight up here, if you get up early, but not much sun as I saw yesterday. The afternoons are short, though, as noon doesn't seem to be quite in the middle!