Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra 2023 - PART 2/2

 

Part 2 of 2 - The 315km from Overkalix to the finish..... at Overkalix

Interlude

While Karl and Harriet are sleeping the sleep of the dead at Checkpoint 4 Overkalix, dreaming of medals and cake (but mostly cake), lets take a moment to reflect. Swedish Lapland, described as Europe's Last Great Wilderness is quite simply breathtakingly beautiful. To a larger extent ultra racing to us was endurance-challenge-reward and so what featured most were metrics like distance, time, elevation, terrain underfoot. On technical terrain hours could be spent literally watching ones own feet. 

Entering an arctic wilderness is like entering a Christmas card and we were blown away by the landscape from the day we arrived, and were still staring admiringly out of the taxi window as we were being driven back to the airport. Combined with a relatively consistent trail underfoot, and our policy of moving as much in daylight as possible, meant we could fully absorb the scenery.  Had the logistics of taking photos without getting frostbite been simpler I would probably still be there now, clicking away with amateur enthusiasm.  You would not believe it was possible to combine a relatively simple set of elements; woods, sun and blue sky, snow covered rivers and lakes, into a myriad of ever changing landscapes. We were constantly shouting at each other and waving our poles to indicate another spectacular view that had developed off to our left, right, or ahead. And don't get me started on the Northern Lights.  

Adding to the visuals was the silence and the emptiness. When we stopped moving (which was often) and when Harriet stopped talking (less often) it was absolutely silent. A silence so complete that it defies description. Certainly not a silence that anyone from "civilisation" can comprehend without experience. And the area Lapland covers is vast, and the human inhabitants few, so in 10 days on the trail we encountered maybe ten non-race people (most of whom had used the trackers to deliberately seek us out to say hello) and saw one car as we crossed a road-head.  If you like your races noisy and crowded, this isn't for you. If your heart yearns for a simpler existence, for long periods of self-sufficiency, and for your time to fly by in a wilderness paradise, then this could be your Nirvana. 

If you can, check out the wonderful work of the talented and dedicated Callum Jolliffe on the reels on the Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra facebook page or on Instagram. You don't need to be on either to view them, though I think the videos default to muted, so unmute to get the full audio visual hit. I love them. Great work Callum, and thanks.

Meanwhile, Day 5, leaving Overkalix, destination Lansjarv

At 1am the alarm went off, brutal at that time no matter how long you've been asleep for.  In the "middle of the night" (about 10pm) I'd surfaced to go to the toilet and was delighted to find Ruth had arrived. The only ski competitor in the race her determination had overcome all challenges and she was the well deserved owner of a finishers medal. Ruth and Alex, who had also put in an amazing first time in cold weather race to secure second place in the 185km race were our training course comrades, and it was great to see all four of us use the learnings from the training course to get to our respective finish lines.  

We were coming up on 40% of our time done, and 37% of our distance covered. Even the half way point seemed a long way off and so it was time to get our game faces on.  But, we were uninjured (bar stupid self induced finger tip burning which was currently at the pins and needles stage, but had passed medical scrutiny), feet were in great shape, and our morale was good. The next leg would take us first on an out-and-back section of about 12 miles which we would revisit again right at the end of the race as we returned to Overkalix, and then a further 28 miles or so to CP5 at Lansjarv where we would be reunited with our dropbag for the second time. We were happy that with our planned 3am start the 40 mile distance could be covered nicely to bring us into Lansjarv by our planned 9pm, and any earlier was a bonus.

The first step would be getting ourselves fed and out the door. Obviously our ruthless efficiency and complete disregard for things like coffee and chit-chat with the medics, would have had us out the door in record time, but this time our departure was delayed a little by Jonne Tiili, sportsman, entrepreneur, vlogger, content creator, and coffee fan. He runs The Unlazy Way youtube channel which focuses on sports and adventure, though how he is going to work us into that mix I'm still unsure! As well as documenting the race, and our "if they can do it anyone can" angle within it, he was facilitating a medical trial testing core body temperature with heart rate in endurance athletes. This involved swallowing a pill, which sadly did not release us from the grip of the Matrix, but did apparently capture, store and transmit our core body temperature for as long as the pill remained in our system. The manufacturers clearly hadn't taken Harriet's superdrive metabolism into consideration. That woman could pass a porcupine through her in less than 10 minutes.  We took our pill, adjusted and readjusted our heart rate monitors and were finally out the door by 3:15am. We had once again turned a 4 hour contingency to plan, back into an "on plan" state. Yes we were playing the long game, but still time to get moving.

Once we were out of Overkalix and hit the river ice all of the worries about starting the second loop were gone. Behind us was behind, but now we had six hard (but hopefully fun) days ahead of before we saw Overkalix again. The miles flew by and by our first food stop we were in good spirits. At the join point we saw the trail come in from the left and had a moment to dream what it would be like when we get there in 6 days time!

Loop 2 in all its glory. 315km of wilderness just waiting for us to pass through it.

Once at the end of the out and back, loop 2 goes anticlockwise and the first 14 miles of this was, in hindsight some of the most remote, winding backcountry trail of the whole race. In many places there were bits of tree and bushes growing up from or into the trail, and quite rutted in places causing the occassional capsizing of the pulks. Generally we tracked North with the Bonalven river in the valley down to our right and the going was pretty slow before turning North West and opening out onto long flat sections which looked like a herd of reindeer had partied on the day before.

 
There were road heads at a couple of points on the trail and Jonne and girlfriend Ottilie appeared to attempt to download data from the core body temperature pills. Two problems arose, firstly that whereas we all expected the sensors to transmit data to the receiver over a meter or so instead it required being in practically touching distance which required the receiver being dug into our stomachs and held there for longer than we wanted to stand still.  The second problem was that as Harriet had already answered material calls of nature at least seventeen times that day already the chance of her sensor still being with her were pretty slim. Jonne and Ottilie moved up trail to the next roadhead and promptly got their car stuck which further hampered efforts to capture data!

The trail finally started a steady descent down a valley and we found ourselves in a movie set, half expecting a legion of Romans to emerge from one side and a wild (possibly livid) band of Celts to charge from the other.

I was so overcome with getting less than 10 miles to the checkpoint I prematurely ended the video.  We had one more visit from Jonne (who had freed the car with Scandinavian wizardry and a lot of branches and sticks under the wheels), and then had the pleasure of a steep descent down to the floor of the valley that we over-enthusiastically ran, with the pulks building our momentum all the way. Having luckily not broken our necks on the run we arrived safely at CP5 Lansjarv at 19:30, having once again built up a cushion on our worst case plan of about 2 hours. A tough day with some challenging terrain in places was behind us; a good meal, our drop bag, a shower and a warm bed was in our immediate future, but first we needed a plan for the next day. It was decision time.

We have a simple rule with time we have earned ahead of plan. Half of it is available for use if needed, and half of it should be banked as contingency against future challenges. We had already broken this rule about 8 times and it was only day 5, so we amended it to be more of a guideline than a rule.  The plan also said that from here we would be out of sync with checkpoint arrival times and body clock sleeping times.  It was a not inconsiderable 48 miles to the next checkpoint at Leipojarvi and the plan told us to expect to arrive there 13:00 on Day 7, a whole day and a half from now with a bivi stop in between.  Over dinner we pondered whether to go all in, use our contingency time and cut our sleep time here, and leave in time to make reaching Leipojarvi in one jump probable if not certain. The trail had been hard today and unpredictable in speed so if it that continued into the following days trail our journey time could be anything from 16 to 32 hours long.  The risk was that our body clocks were programmed to sleep early evening and any likely plan would mean working right through our night (6pm to midnight) and this would cause our pace to drop just when we needed it to bring it home. On the flip side, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We were carrying our gear regardless and so if trail or tiredness got the better of us and we wouldn't make it by say midnight we would call it and bivi.

So decision made we reset pulks with food and supplies from our dropbags and got ourselves to bed for 3 hours of valuable sleep, a 2am alarm set and a planned departure of 3am. In practice we again succumbed to a relaxing breakfast chatting with the ever present and ever helpful Jonny and didn't get ourselves out the door until just after 4am. Well we are here to enjoy ourselves.

Day 6

Past halfway in time and distance. That was a good feeling. Less of a good feeling was the prospect of a 48 mile day including a back 6 hours in darkness with bodies and brains demanding sleep. We just needed the trail to raise its game to match ours and all would be well. #midnightorbust

The day started well with an easy mile over the frozen Lansjarv lake, then a cheeky climb up into the hills again before some good quality trail over to Torasjarvi lake which again was firm and fast.  Just as we left the lake and crossed a road we came across a local gentleman who had been following us on the trackers and set out a little table of treats for us. Tea, coffee biscuits and, joy of joy, he had even made us a sandwich each. He said he had been out for the others too which bearing in mind there were hours between competitors was proper commitment and yet another example of the local support the race has. He asked us about our plan and we told him we were going straight through to Leipojarvi and would be there before midnight. "Leipojarvi?" he said, carefully correcting my slaughtering of the pronunciation, "ooh no I do not think so" he added reassuringly. "Maybe on snowmobile" he further added just in case we hadn't got the point the first time. I felt my British stiff upper lip responding "oh yes, it will be fine, watch us on the trackers, we will be in by midnight".  Well we had to do it now regardless, national pride and all that nonsense.  But the day was young, the trail was good, and were enjoying ourselves (and now had sandwiches!)

Our first sub-target of the day was the Suolajarvi open shelter at 18 miles. Now armed with sandwiches we promised ourselves not to eat them until then and have them with pasta-du-jour which was due then.

Yes you heard it correctly, it had an outhouse. A poo-with-a-view. We arrived at the shelter at 11am, having done the first leg at an average of 2.6mph which was great progress, but it was the start of the day when we were at our strongest so we resisted the urge to extrapolate a finish time from this..... well of course that's a lie, I couldn't resist the temptation to work out that if we held that speed for the rest of the day we would arrive at 22:30, yeah, easy, we got today in the bag.  Nice job Shields, way to set the day up for disappointment!  Regardless, we were in good spirits, fed and watered, and had 30 miles left for the day. Next major pit stop of note was another open shelter 20 miles from here but between now and then we would need a stop to melt snow and make up new porridge and pasta (separate flasks, though by that stage it was far from certain that we wouldn't eat them even if mixed together). So with the mileage falling well we decided to do 10 more miles, stop to make water and food there, which should align with sunset, then 10 more miles to the open shelter for a 15 minute break to sit down and eat food, then the last 10 miles to the checkpoint.   10 miles, 10 miles, 10 miles, easy, let's get it done.

We made good but not great progress, got our water and food prep stop done just as the light failed, then set headtorches and pushed on for the shelter. Once the dark came the hard work started. Energy and positivity started to fade and we switched early to some music to keep us focused. In our heads we were awesome, but to any passerby, two mad middle aged English folks storming past both singing different songs out of tune at the top of their voices must have been a curious sight.  The aforementioned silence of the wilderness was well spoilt that night. Animals migrated. 

The shelter, as is their habit, refused to arrive into our headtorch beam.  While scanning left and right looking for it I managed to properly freak myself out by deciding the small scattered trees I could see trail side were like Weeping Angels from Doctor Who and as soon as they left my headtorch beam they would move closer. Soon after this largely unhelpful scary thought I scanned from left to right to be greeted by a tree that was literally a meter from me and I almost died on the spot.  Thankfully I was saved from the Weeping Saplings by the shelter which finally got with the programme and arrived. It was another open (three sided shelter) that given the icy blast blowing into it probably had a lovely view of a lake, so we got the big coats on and ate quickly. Ten miles still to go but we needed food as it could still take a long time and our bodies were already at the politely-asking phase of sleep need.

It was 8pm when we left the shelter and music was again helpful in keeping us going. It was cold, and combined with our growing tiredness we were feeling it, so we had our secondary insulation layers on (not the down expedition jackets, they were for stationary times only) which proceeded to start icing up nicely.  We changed direction to the South West and quietly, without realising we had done so, turned away from the most Northerly point of the whole course. In hindsight we should have at least stopped to go "ooooo" or something, rocking our inner minions. Instead the course attempted to bore us to death to stop us reaching our goal by following a long straight break in the trees whose only purpose was to carry overhead power cables.  On cue the Northern Lights made an appearance and entertained and motivated us for the final couple of miles to the town. As if the Northern Lights were not enough the Hari's Angels came past on snowmobiles on their way into town, the last two stopped alongside Harriet to ask if we were on the race, shout (potentially drunken) congratulations, ask if we were still married, before fist bumping Harriet and weaving off along the trail at breakneck speeds.  

On the outskirts we were met by a local (whose house we were to later stay in but whose name I forget, sorry) who told us the gpx track was wrong and not to follow it. Instead he directed us to follow the clear markers out onto the lake.  It felt pretty odd to be seemingly heading away from the checkpoint and out into the darkness of the lake but in Markers We Trust so off we went.  Like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben (wow, that reference dates me big time, but google it if you are under 50 and curious) the same local appeared at the other side of the lake and directed us up to the checkpoint.

It was 4 minutes to midnight and we were feeling fricking awesome. Mission accomplished. That was a major push, but in hindsight it was pivotal to our ultimate finish. Hey, local man who provided us sandwiches and laid down a challenge we couldn't ignore.... thanks on both counts.

Day 7, Leipojarvi to Nattavaara, about 32 miles+

The more we thought about it the surer we were that the long leg to Leipojarvi was a crucial one to complete. It had set up not just the indoor sleep at Leipojarvi, but had also put the next CP (and final dropbag location) Nattavaara back on the sleep time schedule too. Our original plan had both these as daytime short stops with three outside bivis wrapped around them and our big push had avoided that. It wasn't that we were averse to sleeping out, we just felt with make and break camp overhead and in quality of sleep terms, sleeping indoors at checkpoints was more efficient if it aligned to night time.  But we needed to consolidate yesterdays efforts so we trimmed our sleep, and planned to leave at 08:00, giving us a respectable mid-evening expected arrival time at Nattavaara.

Callum, who appeared to have the omnipotent ability to be everywhere on the course at any specific time, asked if he could grab a quick interview with us before we left, and duly attached the tribble-esk microphones to us. 

Courtesy of Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra and Callum Jolliffe

We were starting to feel that we had the race in control, even if there was still many miles to go and plenty of time for the wheels to come off. At least the plan seemed reasonably achievable from here, 32ish miles to the next CP, then do similar distance on Day 8 and Day 9, leaving about 22 miles to bring it in mid-afternoon on Day 10. But as they say (sort of) if you want to make the gods laugh, tell them your plans.  But before all that we had another way to make the gods laugh.

As we left Callum had his spy satellite up in the air. You can just see me and Harriet, two little figures side by side with our pulks on the far left of the photo

Courtesy of Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra and Callum Jolliffe

The drone was up but with the noise of the pulks we didn't hear a thing. As is customary Harriet always waits until 5 minutes after she has left a checkpoint with a perfectly functional bathroom to decide she needs a pee. So she did, only to be startled by the sudden whining engines of a drone rapidly being removed from the vicinity. "Karl, make it go away" she squealed (how??) before promptly falling backwards into deep snow, legs in the air. Some time later when I had stopped laughing and Harriet had regained her composure (if not her dignity) we recorded our daily diary + special "Pee-gate" addition.

It was a lovely day, the trail was good, the daily distance reasonable, and reliving and in some cases re-enacting Pee-gate kept us entertained for hours to come. All was well.  We kept to our now tried and tested model of doing 60-90 minutes of work, trail and hills dependent, before stopping for a coffee-choc and biscuits refuel along with a few mouthfuls of porridge. Our super-charged coconut and chia porridge mix was proving to be an absolute winner, maintaining good temperature and  consistency for hours. Adding a little boiling water each time we ate some seem to make it into an everlasting treat that kept us fueled with slow burn carbs for long enough until it was time to switch into a Huel savour lunch menu.  We were starting to feel we were settling into a good, efficient, trail rhythm and our average speeds reflected that.

Robert as usual had chosen a checkpoint location that was on the top of a hill. There was an out and back section from the main trail, into Nattaava and to the checkpoint itself, a beautiful and historic building. The views were amazing, as is often the case when a checkpoint is a million meters above sea level (well thats what it felt like dragging the pulk the last half kilometre).  The hill was so steep that many checkpoint staff came out to see us and tell us the hill was steep which was kind or we may not have noticed!

 © Nattavaara Hembygdsgåden

We arrived at the checkpoint at a very respectable 21:30 and Harriet immediately decided to get a handle on the whole pee-gate situation and laughed it all off with a very relieved Callum, who must have been dreading the conversation all day!

So, with the big push to Leipojarvi successfully consolidated and our cp arrival brought back from midnight to mid-evening, we were now 8 hours ahead of our red line schedule. We had access to an always welcome shower, and our dropbags for the last time so decided once again to cash in some of our contingency time and take a long rest stop, with a planned departure of 08:00. From here on we had about 87 miles to go, which we still envisaged breaking up into a couple of 33ish milers with camps after, then a 22ish last day to the finish.

Day 8, Nattavaara to the great unknown, via Polar Circle Cabin assistance point

Refreshed and rebooted once more we focused our attention on the last phase.  We ate breakfast (in reality the other half of the monster race meal we hadn't eaten on arrival), and an extra Huel shake to top off the calorie count, filled our flasks and made for the door at 08:00.  The good thing about checkpoints on hills was the way back. The sky was blue and the route was downhill (for a bit).  There was no warm and welcoming checkpoint waiting for us to sleep at this time as it was just under 50 miles to Rikti and that was not going to be happening in one stage, not with 230 miles in our legs already. We were in good shape, but not that good a shape!

But, between us and CP8 Rikti Dokkas was an "assistance point" at Polar Circle Cabin #2. The rules defined an assistance point as being manned with boiling water available but no food provided.  But any opportunity to see some of the wonderful medic team, and get sat down inside in the warm (careful what you wish for), and have someone else provide the water refills was good so we were really looking forward to it.  

"just in case we get some dump of snow or something crazy..."  Karl once again demonstrating an uncanny ability to hex the weather. I really should keep my big mouth shut.

We had expected to cover the 22 miles to Polar Circle Cabin by mid afternoon but a combination of cumulative tiredness and a slightly reduced sense of urgency and focus as we clawed our way closer to the finish, was starting to show in our moving speeds. The leg took us 9 hours all together on good trail, with no major hills, and in good weather.  We were maybe not pushing as hard (ok, yes I know, in "racing" terms we could be accused of not pushing hard at all, but we were on holiday after all), and we were choosing to, or needing to, take our mini-breaks more often.  For the first time in the race we didn't manage to comfortably out-perform the target speed in our worst case plan.  

Sunset started as we closed on the last half mile to Polar Cabin, and its striking polar circle sculpture, a large torus set upright into the ground with the upper segment representing the latitudes above 66.3 north removed.  We pushed on sensing a purely coincidental, once in a lifetime, photo opportunity. We arrived just in time, and disturbed the medic's rugby viewing long enough to get him to take our photograph. With similar amazing timing Jonne and Ottilie also arrived from the other direction.

Leaving the arctic circle for the last time on the race

Polar circle cabin(s)

Innovative rugby watching; finding the best mobile reception at 66 North

Our pulks watching the sunset together  🤍❤️ 

Well we had wanted somewhere warm to rest for a few moments.... medics to the rescue. The inside of hut was heated to something close to the temperature of the sun, resulting in an immediate need to remove layers, and if we had beachwear with us we would have changed into that. They were super helpful as always and we refilled our flasks quickly, including one with a late race speciality, Bovril, a British "beef tea" classic.  Hot savoury magnificence that we had saved until this point for maximum morale boosting efficacy. 

It was so relaxed and welcoming in the hut, with the warmth and even a suitable soundtrack playing, we could have stayed for ages and before we knew it an hour had drifted by.  Jonne had asked if we would be willing to be filmed while setting up camp that night (presumably needing a how-not-to-do it section in his documentary) and so we confirmed that the plan was basically to push on until we had done our minimum of 33 miles for the day and then look for a suitable camp stop. We agreed he would return to his car (this polar cabin is close to a road head) drive further along trail and then backtrack to meet us sometime between 10 and 11pm. What could possibly go wrong?!

We finally got ourselves moving and out the door of the cabin just after 18:00, headtorches at the ready, and a minimum distance to cover of at least 11 miles to cover before we would let ourselves camp for the night.  We had avoided a lot of night travel in the race so far and while it wasn't technically difficult, we did find ourselves begrudging any time moving when we were unable to fully enjoy the scenery.  It really highlighted to us how inspiring and motivating the Lapland scenery was, by recognising how acutely we felt its absence at night.  We deployed some tunes and pushed into the night.

At about 10pm, shortly before we passed the important 33 miles minimum daily target, we saw a headtorch coming in the opposite direction. The rendezvous plan with Jonne had worked, and he tagged along behind us on his skis while we looked for a suitable stopping point. None presented itself, and this inevitably aligned with Harriet having a big energy and motivation crash. We were still in scrubland with only a few trees for shelter but decided to just make the best of it and stopped to make camp, with Jonne capturing our efforts. We have not seen the results of his work yet, but I almost dread to watch!  In the dark, when you are tired, and hungry, and cold, and you have gloves on everything simple in theory becomes complicated. Snowshoes need to go on to stamp out a suitable base for the tent just off trail (blocking the trail is not safe or allowed) and all of a sudden this becomes the equivalent task to solving a Rubiks cube wearing mittens with the lights off. Harriet got to work blowing up the airbeds (Robert rents out the Exped DownMat XP9, a very warm and comfortable product, that comes with a pump bag that also requires practice to get good with!) and I got the tent up. The tent thankfully, while far too small for the two of us to be practical, was great in a race context as it was super light, freestanding and I'd field rigged it so I could literally erect it in 30 seconds (unless I was tired, and hungry, and cold, and had gloves on!). Camp made, we set our alarm for 04:30 with a plan to be up and away by first light.

Day 9, plan to be decided...

It had been another unseasonably cold night. Our ability to pick them to bivi out was uncanny.  I mean seriously, it's like the arctic in here.  We broke camp as quickly as we could, had a very welcome first coffee-choc of the day from one of our flasks (far too early for Bovril, that would be just wrong) and got moving.  

We were a bit down, emotionally and physically, and no matter how much we ate and drank we couldn't seem to get our metabolism's going and energy levels where they should be. By 10:00 we stopped for a major pitstop to make water and food for the rest of the push to Rikti, still a good 10 miles away

At this stage, two plans were on the table for consideration:

1. Get to Rikti, turnaround in an hour, and push on for the 16 miles to Damkojan shelter, holding true to our previous 33+33+24 plan for the last three days. Or
2. Get to Rikti, stop and have a good rest, leave early morning, and roll up the mileage not covered in day 9 into day 10.

In hindsight, and given our previous decisions in such situations, the choice was never really in doubt, but at the time (and ahead of seeing a weather forecast) we were still of an open mind.  Get to Rikti and review.

CP8 Rikti Dokkas is an amazing place, endowed with all mod cons including water supply from a well, and an outhouse. Perched (literally) on the top of a big hill (where else would Robert put a checkpoint) it offers amazing views, especially if you have a drone at your disposal....

Courtesy of Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra and Callum Jolliffe

As the afternoon wore on, we wore out.  It had started lightly snowing, the trail was increasingly heavy going and the hills just kept on coming. Plan (2) was looking pretty much nailed on and that was before we heard the weather forecast for an overnight blizzard and big dump of snow.  We arrived just before 3pm to a warm welcome from checkpoint and snowmobile teams. We had arrived just at a changeover of staff and the small checkpoint was alive with people. It felt great to be among so many people, and we tucked into our race meal hungrily. Daniel and Robin were there, taking a well earned break from snowmobile duties and the difficult task of keeping the trail clear with increasing snow and wind forecast. They offered us some smoked moose which was melt-in-the-mouth amazing and Daniel explained he had prepared himself, in his own smokehouse, and from a moose he had hunted! Don't get better food provenance than that!

Although it had been our shortest mileage total for any day so far, and it was still only 4pm, our general tiredness and the non-favourable weather forecast meant the only sensible solution was to stop now, sleep out the worst of the snowstorm, and then leave very early the following morning. The balance of risks were convincing - if we pressed on, we would be in the dark, in a snowstorm, tired, and heading for a hut considerable distance away, and the condition of (for example, if there was firewood) we did not know. So we grabbed stuff from our pulks, arranged with the checkpoint team for our flasks to be filled with water while we slept, and headed to a small room where we could sleep. Robin had magically got the little stove in the room going and it was lovely and warm and our kit was arranged on the rails above it to dry.  We set alarms for midnight and slept the sleep of people who know they just made a wise decision.

Day 10, Time to "get it done" ( © Maximo!)

When the alarm went off I put my headtorch on and went off in search of the outhouse. I'd been to it the previous afternoon in the daylight so had a mental image of where it should be, but the scene I emerged into had changed a lot. The snow was deep and all the tracks and footways in the snow from the previous day had disappeared. I could barely make out the two shapes of our pulks under their covering of fresh powder.  I stumbled my way, occasionally knee deep in snow to the outhouse and back, very glad for my own footsteps to follow on the return route. If the trail was like this it was a snowshoes day, and it would be challenging to navigate, certainly until the daylight returned.  But there was no more time for delay. As a result of yesterdays early finish we had nearly 38 miles to do today, and while we could easily do that before the cut off (still 32 hours away) we had promised Robert that we would do our best to arrive at the finish at a civilised time, and so had in mind to be in Overkalix before the bar shut. Priorities.

A friend from many races back Javed Bhatti, a fellow Yukon Arctic Ultra veteran, once introduced us to a magic line he always pushed for in the late stages of an ultra, that being when you have more hours left than miles to do.  As we had approached Rikti the previous afternoon we had passed the line (42 hours left and only 38 miles) but the line doesn't sleep and had quietly overtaken us overnight. First job was to catch that line again!

Determined or not it still took us until nearly 2am to get ourselves ready and out the door.  It took me half an hour just to clear the snow off the pulks and load them up.  Snowshoes on we set off into the night.  It was still snowing on and off which always makes visibility by headtorch a bit more challenging.  The first stretch down the hill was fun as the increased friction of the snow on the pulks was more than offset by gravity, but as we started across open land things got hard real quick.  The wind was blowing the snow and covering the trail. The markers and occasionally the tape were still visible, but in the dark and the snow the next marker was often not visible in front until you had ventured forwards.  The trail could be felt for rather than seen, probing forwards with poles to find where they went only 20 centimetres or so deep, compared to where they went down to their handles.  It was slow progress but we needed to be moving and we knew the daylight when it came would really help.

What helped more was a Daniel. From behind us we saw the glare of lights and the sound (the very welcome sound in fact) of a snowmobile.  Generally for safety reasons the snowmobile guides do not patrol the trail at night, and the race briefing had made it very clear that if we chose to move at night and the trail was blown out we did so at our own risk, the alternative being to bivi, wait for dawn, and the trail setting to resume.  Daniel had chosen to go out through the night, and had gone back along the trail to check on James, the only competitor behind us, and then was heading forwards to clear the trail to Overkalix for us. There were now no competitors ahead of us either as Maximo had delivered a Herculean final effort and had crossed the finish line while we were still preparing to leave Rikti.  Daniel driving over the trail at that time was a huge help and we owe him a big thank you!  Half an hour after Daniel had left us on his way to Overkalix the trail had already mostly blown in again, but that extra hour he gave us in darkness made a huge difference to the progress we made.  The pre-dawn was very welcome.

A curious new land revealed itself in pre-dawn light

With the light navigation became much much easier with forward markers and tape being visible in the distance, and the subtle indentations in the snow showing where the trail was buried.  Despite our fears about prolonged use of the snowshoes we were doing ok and making good progress without much moaning from our legs.  Another addition to our outfits were the ponchos - super flexible bits of kit, that in this instance kept the worst of the wind and snow out but still allowed plenty of ventilation.  

All the rage in London, Milan, Paris and Rikti Dokkas

05:30am. 29 miles to go. 28 hours left on the clock. Still chasing the line!  There was a lot of snow and it was making for a beautiful, if a little slow, last day.  

Back in Christmas Card land......

With Lapland magical timing, just as we were starting to struggle with the volume of snow again Robin arrived from the direction of Overkalix, not just in a snowmobile, but towing the 4 meter wide trail roller he used for grooming the trail.  Yes!  Robin was always a welcome sight on trail but today he was, like Daniel before him, our saviour.

At 09:30 we arrived at Damkojan shelter (which also had an outhouse - always an unexpected bonus worthy of note).  We had caught and passed Javed's magic line as we now had 24 hours on the clock and just under 22 miles to go.  Take that magic line.  The shelter was great, had a huge central stove and lots of firewood. We needed to melt snow for water and make food so we would be there long enough to benefit from heating the cabin so I got a fire lit (any excuse!!) 

Harriet deployed a pan over the fire to melt more snow.

Nothing says "Home" like steaming socks.

A tiny Harriet rests upon three seemingly enormous flasks. #badphotographer

We were in danger of getting a bit too comfortable here, though the time spent had nicely deiced and dried off socks, shoes and snowshoes for the last push.  Our next target was get to the junction point of the loop and the out and back section that we had last travelled in the opposite direction 5 days previously.  We remembered from the outbound trip that this section was 13 miles long and had been really good fast trail, though what the snow would have done to it remained to be seen.

About half a mile from the junction Robin came through again, still with the massive roller in tow.  He'd been out West to James (who was now approaching in Rikti and looking increasingly tight on time) and on in search of some Spanish folks who were not part of the race but who Robert was assisting with logistics. The blizzard had caused them problems too.  Robin informed us we were making great timing (clearly he hadn't noticed the large amount of time we had spent in the hut) and said he would see us at the finish!  We pressed on along the once more groomed and rolled trail and chatted about James.  Our worst case plan would suggest he needed to be out of Rikti by 3pm to have a fighting chance and that would require him going none stop through the night, so it was still possible but the fresh snow was a frustrating extra challenge he didn't need. We crossed our fingers for him and continued through the loop junction point and on to the last half marathon of distance. Now we could almost taste the finish. Or was that the Bovril?

Two more big lakes passed without incident and only a couple of trail deviations. Robin had warned us that in a couple of places he may have drifted off the line of the pre-existing trail (especially as he was hurtling along much faster than he normally did in order to cover the ground necessary to keep us and James moving quickly) and this meant on occasion we disappeared into deep snow and needed to prod around to see if the underlying trail laid to left or right of Robin's roller line.

After an interesting road crossing (tarmac and snowshoes do not mix) we descended for the last time onto the frozen river for the last 3+ miles into Overkalix and the long awaited and very welcome finish line. Despite a last minute navigation error where I was drawn in by another snowmobile track towards the Grand Arctic Hotel now prominent on our right hand side, we finally closed in on the finish line at just before 9pm with a good 12 hours still in hand, and a wonderful, challenging, motivating and life-affirming adventure now sadly behind us.

Yes, still married.

And as if that wasn't enough in itself, the Northern Lights took that exact moment to burst into life.  How Robert arranged that I will never know. Perfect finish.

Us and the amazing race crew who had made our adventure possible, and who gathered to welcome us over the line. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ 

It's A Wrap...

Well wow. Just wow. That was an amazing journey. We loved most of it and hated just a little, and for an ultra endurance event that is a proper result.  Never before in a race of this nature and duration had we felt so good, or so content and yes that was due in part to our plan and attitude, but mostly due to the amazing place, and the amazing people.

Swedish Lapland, Europe's last great wilderness is simply breathtaking in scale and scenery, and I would encourage anyone to get there to experience it for themselves.

But what made this race happen for us, both practically and in terms of enjoyment were the people involved.  The locals were warm, welcoming and hospitable throughout, and the race team were without doubt as helpful and friendly as we have ever experienced in a race. We would like to say a huge thank you to all of you for going above and beyond in your support of the race, and us participants.

To those of you reading this, well done for getting this far. If you read every word then you have already completed a significant endurance event and completing future Montane Lapland Arctic Ultra's will be easy! To my ultra running friends, this race gets my top recommendation. Like all races in their own way they need to be respected and the environment of Lapland in March should not be underestimated but it offers great rewards in terms of personal challenge, jaw-dropping scenery, and moments of silence and solitude.  Anyone considering it in the future, don't hesitate to get in touch, we learnt a lot, and I'm always happy to share.   K&H ❤️