That
night, I brought my boots in near the fire to dry, so I had toasty
warm feet the next morning. Unfortunately, my first job of the day
was to fetch water from the river, by dipping a bucket, and I stepped
in too deep, so ended up with a soggy foot and a damp foot for the
day. Then, as we were setting our dogs on the sledges, my big dog
tried to have a go at his neighbour again. I was in no mood for it,
so I flipped him onto his back and sat on him, giving him a long,
hard stare and some muttered imprecations for good measure. He got
such a shock! But he knew he could get his own back. Just as we
were about to set off, he casually chewed through the nylon rope of
the lead dogs' traces. I was able to grab the traces before they set
off anywhere, and to yell out for replacements before Per Thore
actually set off. He came back down the line with fresh ropes and
asked "Who's the guilty party?" I replied "I think you can
guess."
So,
this was Friday. We'd been warned on Sunday night that this would be
a big day, and Per Thore said on Thursday night that this would be a
recap of all we'd done already, with all the kinds of terrain we'd
seen already, plus a downhill through trees. We started off easily
enough, out of the valley and back over the tops, a little nervous of
what the big downhill was going to be like, but finding ourselves at
ease as we slipped across a snowy, barren landscape. I think many of
us were far away – Peter was gesticulating his pleasure, David's
feet came off the runners, Cathy turned back to Phil and I to call
out that she'd been “miles away” - and her call made me realised
that I hadn't been in myself at all either. Edward Wilson said of
the Antarctic that “the peace of God which passes all understanding
reigns here” and I think we got a glimpse of that then.
Then
the sparse silver birch started to gather into a forest and an
evergreen appeared – shockingly green in the black and white
landscape – and the undulations took on more of a downhill. Per
Thore stopped to make sure we were all together, and then we headed
off into the trees, braking and swerving, swinging around the route
on a logging track. I was focused now, but thinking this wasn't was
much of a challenge as I had been expecting. It looked like a tangle
up ahead, and I ended up stopping on an upslope of metalled road, so
it took all my concentration to keep my dogs in place, looking for a
snowy edge to sink my anchor into. The moment they spotted that my
attention had strayed, my team started dragging me into a melee that
was developing in front of me; but then they all set off, swinging
hard left off the logging track and onto a ski track! Now we really
were in the woods. I was ducking under branches, and kicking my
sledge around corners, braking to stop the sledge running over my
team, curving into an uphill and diving down again. As well as
keeping on track, I had to try to keep an eye on the sledge in front;
there was no attention left for the team behind. We had one stop
when someone came off, then we were onward again – and I was in
just the place to watch a multi-sledge pile-up. There was a drainage
ditch and a hard left onto a wider track, and Jane came off in the
ditch. David stopped behind her, near the trees, with Cathy, then
Phil then me all halted in line behind. Jane sorted herself out and
headed off, David started next, with Cathy's team deciding to go at
the same time, slamming David into the trees and hooking the front of
her sledge over David's runners. She couldn't pull her sledge
backwards and David couldn't move forward for the trees. The two dog
teams were all mixed up together too – but Phil came to the rescue.
His team was perfectly behaved, so he could drop anchor and go help
sort out the mess. By this stage, Per Thore was coming back, so he
was standing on the corner as the rest of us came down the hill,
telling us to get our foot off the brake. With no sledges to
obstruct my passage, I sailed over the ditch and around the corner
beautifully, and slid to a halt as lunch was declared.
Afterwards,
we travelled upriver with a drop off to the river by our right hand
side, then across the frozen Alta and a trudge back up out of the
narrow valley – but it all felt so easy now, that the end was
coming too soon. The last thrill was water skiing. The day had been
warm and snowy, the trees dripping, and part of our route along a
frozen stream was rather damp, with a couple of centimetres of water
on top of the ice. It was a bizarre, delightful feeling to be
streaming along “boat fashion” behind the dogs. And then the
field where it all started appeared in front of us and we came to a
final halt. All my dogs sank to the ground and composed themselves –
you'd believe snow wouldn't melt in their mouths. They knew their
week was done, and that there was no more point in competing with
this particular human for top of the team. And so we unhooked all
the dogs for a last time, and gave them a thank you pat for all their
work. BBC David chose this moment to interview David, so it was a
bit of a struggle to get everyone back together for a final team
photo – which naturally turned into a snowball fight when BBC
David, filming, said “do something”. Sid said the hot tub would
be going, so we gathered our gear and room keys and stripped out of
the doggy clothes, and into the shower to rinse off days of dogs and
sweat. David and I rushed off to the hot tub, which was outside in
the snow, and ended up being joined by six others, so that I think
there was more human than water in the tub. And the people were at
least as bubbly as the water, too, full of chatter about what we'd
done and seen.
There
were enough clean clothes left at Gargia that all the dog-smelling
stuff could be assigned to a sealed bag – and boy did that bag
stink once my nose had got used to the absence of dog-smell!
However, it did mean that when we went off to tour Alta's biggest
tourist attraction – the Igloo Hotel – that evening, I was cold.
It was OK outside, but cold once we went in. They have a bar, chapel
and bedrooms and do most of their business in weddings. It was a
mighty strange place – I can't imagine wanting to spend a night
sleeping in a block of ice. They provide sleeping bags, and there is
a mattress and reindeer skin on top of the cube of ice which is the
bed, but there is a separate wooden building where you dine and
change for bed – no en suite here. They do have shot glasses made
of ice, which is a clever gimmick, and lots of ice sculptures about
the place which last until the spring, but it was higher on curiosity
value than anything else. The ride in the minibus was strange, as I
was sitting behind the driver and my mental impulse was to kick out
the sledge as we came to curves, and to manage my speed with the foot
brake. It was quite strange to discover how far into my mind the
sledge driving skills had soaked.
Back
at Gargia, we had a final dinner, where Sid told us all what a good
group we'd been. He seemed genuinely impressed at our consistent
ability to be ready to go at the assigned time in the mornings, and
in our overall performance. I suspect that we had no slackers in the
team because Friends of SPRI made sure people knew what they were
getting into before they signed up – from talking to Sid, it seems
that a lot of charities get people's name in the frame before they've
really committed to the fitness requirements. After Sid, David said
a few words about fSPRI – since half the group were in it for the
sledging and didn't know much about where the money was going – and
thanked us for our effort. Finally, our youngest team member got up
and thanked “the staff”.
On
Saturday morning, more than half the group went off to have a go on
skidoos themselves. Most of the rest seemed to spend time with the
dogs, whilst David and I ended up “at leisure”. We had wanted to
go into Alta to see if we could find interesting birds in the
harbour, but the cost of a taxi was prohibitive, so we ended up going
for a little walk and, dodging the snow-clearance truck, we realised
there were bird feeders on some of the houses towards the main part
of Gargia. We found Arctic Redpoll – a lifer – and Willow Tit, a
familiar bird from Britain which we could mentally compare with the
Siberian Tit and feel even more confident of our ID. (We had skipped
on the bird book, as it was 800 grams, and only had one pair of
binoculars between us). Then it was a bus into the airport, which
was right on the harbour. We spotted a raft of gulls and ducks a few
minutes before the airport, but couldn't get any good ideas as we
zoomed by – though we were happy with a lifer on the Glaucous Gulls
flying about. After check-in we still had two hours before the
flight, so David had the bright idea of getting a taxi from here.
The nice security guard even called one for us, though we ended up
with a driver who didn't speak a great deal of English.
Nevertheless, she was happy to drive Alastair, David and me to a car
park by the sea where we all shared the binoculars and managed
another lifer – Iceland Gull. Long Tailed Duck was a good addition
too, and a couple of commoner species made the trip list up to 14!
Then it was back to the airport and time to head for home.