Three Flights Later

2:20 PM

3:45 AM—beep, beep, beep!!!!! Aaah, I feel completely wrecked. Quickly peeled an apple and made some sandwiches, then waited for the taxi. Waaah—at 4:40 AM the taxi still hadn’t arrived. What do I do! Call them? And then, luckily, the driver finally came trundling up. Forty-five minutes later I was back at the heavily guarded Schiphol, and three flights later in Alta.

A shuttle bus was already waiting to go into town, and I could walk straight to the outdoor shop to buy fuel and maps. In the back of the shop I reorganized my entire pack and arranged a taxi to Masi.

Gert, another E1 hiker who had started on June 12, was just beyond Alta. He’d forgotten his trekking poles at the hotel. I could bring those along and pick Gert up with the taxi so we could travel together to Masi. Nice, because we could split the taxi fare—which was ridiculously expensive! Even more than a hotel, and it was only 70 km.

6:18 PM

And then you’re standing in Masi… with snowshoes and crampons… without any snow. Gert actually wanted to head further down toward Abisko, but when he saw there was no snow here, the decision was quickly made. We had a cup of coffee to get acquainted and went for a short walk. That “short” walk turned into 7.5 km, and then I’d had enough for the day—it was already 8:00 PM. Found two nice trees, hung the hammock. Opened a nasty pack of trail food and went to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.