Flyg-lag, Stockholm, and Beyond
Flyg-lag
This blog was supposed to be about our time in Sweden (and we took our time getting here) but now that we're here (3 posts later) its time for the fun to begin... well sort of. As we should have presumed, traveling with eight bags and 2 out of 4 working thumbs is a delicious recipe for bickering. Combine that with jet lag and our ravenous appetites from skiing twice a day at 10,000 feet for the past several weeks and the first 48 hours of our dream took an unexpectedly argumentative twist. Yet it was hard to avert our eyes from the undeniable beauty of Stockholm entombed in the great white Beast from the East (Siberian air mass/Polar Vortex traveling across much of Europe).
Stockholm
We took this unique weather window opportunity to ride the metro to go nordic skiing. It is quite a sight to see so many Stockholmers—fully kitted out—strolling through the tunnelbana stations alongside stressed commuters. As it turns out, you can go alpine skiing inside the city too! Sofia was training for a famous historical ski race in Norge called the Birkebeiner which traverses 54 k (>30 miles) between Oslo and Lillehammer so she put the burners on and I flailed behind her for hours. The day was capped off by the sun rearing its elusive head just before sunset and this was when it hit me. We really did it, we live here and this place is truly amazing.
Among the many highlights during our first few days: the food scene here in Stockholm is bananas. I wasn't expecting to be all that impressed by it because it is hard to beat Portland but I was wrong. And of course we have indulged in fika all over the city. I'll save those details for another post because I know Sofia is itching to share some finds. Fika and food more broadly have been and will be a big part of our time here.
We barely had our feet on the ground before our friend Ian Agrimis (https://www.captureunlimited.com/) came to visit us. We embraced our inner tourist and hit all the spots in the city. Between gusts and squalls, brilliant, almost blinding sunshine illuminated Gamla Stan, Djurgården/Vasa Museet, and Södermalm. We made a stop at Fotografiska, convincing Ian that museums aren't all boring...as long as they are about photography ;). Seeing Stockholm through a lens didn't stop there. Ian's time with us was a 'working trip' so the next 7 days were a blur of motion, snapshots, Gram stories, hyperlapses, charging batteries and, "did you get the shot?" Despite the beauty, Stockholm was the sideshow and the mainstage was yet to come.
Beyond
Ian had actually come on a mission to shoot a virtual reality experience film in a remote, closed iron mine. We decided to tag along as production assistants just for a sense of adventure but we got ourselves into even more truly adventurous terrain than any of us could have imagined.
We drove to Örebrö for the night and then continued on our way towards Filipstad where we met two local guides, Hacke and Birgitta, to show us the way on foot to the mine (one of many mines in the area). We walked past an expansive frozen lake with a single ice fisherman perched above his tiny portal. The ruins of shacks from miners long gone lined the shore. Hacke told us that times were so hard when this particular mine was in operation that over fifty percent of the people in the village immigrated to the US with the hope of better prospects.
When we arrived we had a moment of realization as to why Hacke and Birgitta brought a snow shovel and ice pick. There was a steel gate blocking the entrance to the mine that was not only padlocked shut but also encased in roughly 30cm (1 ft) of ice emanating from the seeping water in the mineshaft. After chipping away for half an hour, we realized that it actually swung inwards, not out, and there was no way we could break through enough ice to let the door swing free.
At Birgitta's encouragement, we initiated plan B, climbing into the tiny hole between the top of the gate and the ceiling of the mine shaft. After getting myself stuck in a particularly precarious position on top of the gate (see the video), I lowered myself down onto the ice and immediately broke through! The ice was semi solid on top but slushy underneath. The warmth of the earth and the seeping underground water weakened the ice so it was just fragile enough for my boots to break through. At first I sank 3-4 inches—a scary but manageable depth with waterproof boots—but the longer I stood there, the deeper I sank. Within an inch of the top of my boots, it seemed to stabilize.
The ice slushy extended as far as the eye could see through the mine shaft. We could see light at the end of the tunnel but it was at least 50 meters of the unknown to get the open part of the mine where Ian planned to shoot. We had no idea how deep it was but someone had to test the slushy waters before the camera gear made the trek so I plunged into the darkness.
We didn’t die, but we did soak our pants and boots with ice water. After a mad dash through the tunnel and a quick stop to wring our socks out, anything exposed refroze upon contact with the open air. I couldn’t re-tie the laces on my boots. We attempted to ignore our aching feet and instead admire the intense beauty of the ice flows while the VR camera rolled in the -9 degree C (12 F) warmth.
Two hours later, despite many pushups, burpees, and high knees, our feet were past the point of no return so we packed up, plowed through the ice bath to escape through the mine's only exit. Entering panic mode (none of us had ever felt such an intense cold), we scaled and flung our bodies over the gate (Sofia, with no ability to use her hands, had to be caught by Ian after I pushed her over the top of the gate) and quite literally sprinted back to the car where we proceeded to blast heat on our frost-nipped feet for upwards of half an hour. Ian exclaimed that during the life or death sprint to the car he could not feel his feet make contact with the ground; “All I could feel was the impact of my body weight on my knees and shins.” But it was so worth it. Sofia and Ian weren’t having much fun by the end but I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face because I hadn’t felt this alive in a long long time. That is what real adventure feels like.
And just like that we scurried back to Stockholm with a quick pit stop at the third largest frozen lake in Sweden, where I recovered Sofia's third generation hand-me-down reindeer leather mittens on a bench out on the ice. Ian's time with us was almost up but we still had a lot to show him. Stay tuned for the second post om Sverige. Den kommer snart!
hej då, ari