You may have noticed that I’m often rather negative about snowmobiles. Partly because I don’t like the snowmobile tracks criss-crossing the scenery everywhere but most of all, I resent the idiots who ride their machines in places where it is specifically forbidden, like national parks and nature reserves. Living in Sweden, and in Los in particular, it’s impossible to avoid snowmobiles though so I have become increasingly curious to find out for myself what the fuss is all about. So I was all the more happy to be offered a chance to go for a snowmobile ride in my favourite mountains! The first day of the summer time dawned bright and sunny. I headed to my snowmobile date after breakfast and got strapped into appropriate gear, including a helmet of course. And then we were off, with me squeezing the passenger handles with all my might. Our target was one of the peaks, naturally with marked trails all the way. It was quite a difference to see the trails now as compared to what they had been in February… back then they were quite narrow, just a couple of snowmobiles wide for the most part. But now, it was like a snowy highway, 10-20 metres across! I also noticed that there were a lot more ski tracks around, so following any of the prepared tracks was no longer a necessity. But I digress. When we got to the top of the mountain, the wind was considerably harder than on the plateau below. I would have like to tried to take one picture without the UV filter (in order to reduce flares when shooting into the sun), but the windchill was severe enough to make the metal contract to the point where I couldn’t pry the filter off before my fingers were frozen. The sceneries around me however, there was absolutely nothing to complain about! 360 degrees of nothing but mountains, can you imagine it? I don’t have the skills to do justice to such views so I just took a few snapshots of the snowmobile with mountains in the background. Awesome.

That’s me, in borrowed helmet, borrowed gloves, borrowed jacket, borrowed boots, sitting on a borrowed snowmobile. The pants are mine, though.

The mountain in the background is Stor-Skarven. I don’t own that, either.

The sceneries on the way back were naturally just as fabulous as they had been on the way in. Whatever I may think about snowmobiles, I can’t deny the attraction – the sceneries are just as good regardless of the mode of transport, but you just get to see more when you can travel from point A to point B at faster speeds than the modest 5 kph I seem to average on skis. When I noticed that one of the ”highways” opened up before us again, I asked my driver if we could go a bit faster (he had been very considerate to go slower than usual to spare me the embarrassment of falling off) and he was happy to comply. The fastest we did was 80 kph and I was laughing inside the helmet – it was that good! All things considered, I can now fully understand why snowmobiling is so popular. I just wish that someone could find those joyriding idiots in national parks and feed them their snowmobiles in big unsavoury chunks.

After the ride, I noticed that my biceps were aching. All that hanging on… Well, what better way to alleviate pending training aches than to train a bit more. So I slapped on the skis and headed for the same plateau I had swooshed across moments earlier on a snowmobile. I was right about the sceneries, they were just as fine on skis as well. The big difference was that now the sky were starting to cloud over and I spent the rest of the tour in overcast conditions. But that was fine as well. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful it is to be out there, you have to try it yourself to understand!

When I skied back to the hotel, I took the prepared tracks for the last 4 km. Since I had by now learned a bit more about staying on the tracks in downhill, I was brave enough to let the skis run. Which would’ve been just fine, had the tracks not curved about 90 degrees after an unusually steep slope. And quite predictably, one of my skis followed the track left and the other one strayed straight ahead. I did my best to catch up with the straying ski, which meant that I skidded right across the tracks and into the forest and stopped some half a meter short from the nearest birch. Judging by the snow around me, I wasn’t the first one…! And as Murphy would have it, of the about 7 people I met on that 4 km stretch of tracks, 5 of them was right there. While I was busy wondering how an earth I had managed to stay on my feet, one of the people commented that it seemed to go pretty fast. Yeah, you noticed? I very nearly burst out laughing. It’s not amusing to stray in the forest at full speed when it’s happening, but afterwards when you have survived the experience, it’s hard to keep a straight face. Too funny!