‘Last Winter’
Last winter I went ‘Fat-Biking’ in the snow. In Finland 120Km North of the Arctic Circle. The temperature was below -25C. In Fahrenheit that is ‘really rather cold’.
After crossing a frozen lake I climbed through the forest soon leaving behind the lodges. The only sounds I could hear at first were my breath and the rolling crunch of deep-treaded tyres through cold pristine snow. The trees were draped in thick snow, branches sagging under the weight, frozen into surreal shapes and patterns as they merged together. Soon I was in the next valley, in the shadow to the North of the fell, a place where no sun had touched in months. The temperature dropped further, breath and snot freezing around my face, each intake stinging my nostrils and sticking them together.
Nobody had been here in days. The tracks told me that. Nobody else might pass for days to come. What if something went wrong? A crash that damaged my rebuilt knee that rendered me unable to bike or walk? A mechanical failure that made the bike unusable? Were there wolves here? Or wolverines? Could I hear them as I stopped to take pictures?
What makes you safe on such a journey?
Well not undertaking it certainly does. Yet if you don’t want to be bound by the world you already know, you need to go into new places. Wonderful new experiences often come at a cost, requiring us to give up certainty, take some risks, face up to some questions.
On the bike I needed to trust my navigation. I also needed to constantly sense into the weather, the landscape, the vegetation, the trail. And I needed to look into myself, my physical, mental, emotional condition. Food, warmth and a clear head are critical. I sensed the changes in the world around me and within me, each a little pointer to something even if I knew not what.
To undertake such a journey is to soak into a world of deep awareness. Conscious thought and sub-conscious intuition interchanged with each other, uninterrupted by others interjections. Alone, in the arctic wilderness I exclaimed aloud with joy of just being. Being there. Being alive.