New Year in Norway

Happy New Year to you all! Here's to a record-breaking 2006!

New Year saw the Arctic Foxes landing in the tiny hamlet of Finse on the high Norwegian Hardangervidda plateau. Finse is so out of the way that the only access is by train. So the locals were fairly perplexed when four English girls arrived to set up camp on the far side of the frozen lake. At temperatures of minus 30 not only were they worried we would freeze but they also wondered about our sanity. Fortunately we survived and Martin from the local hotel, Finse 1222, kindly packed us off the next day with a reindeer skin, which although smelly did a great job at keeping out the cold.

Despite the chilly temps we had a fantastic week perfecting our skiing skills and exploring the local hills. The weather was incredible with blue skies, bright sunshine but unfortunately no wind. We did get some fly-time on the last couple of days and made the most of it but it was only enough to whet our growing confidence and we left hungry for more. Hopefully Finse will return to its usual windy form when we return in February and March.

While in Finse we were lucky to meet Niklas Norman who along with two team-mates traversed Greenland from South to North in 2005. Using parasails they completed the trip in 30 days and hold the record for the longest distance covered in 24 hours – a whopping 421km. Check out their website. Niklas was kind enough to give us some specialist advice and we look forward to picking his brains over the coming months!