Hiking Diary #1: Facing an Ice Storm

“The wind picked up more and more. And snow is one thing, because it doesn’t hurt your face, but this was ice-water-snow. So it hurts your face that much you have to cover it all, and when that ice slush hits your glasses those get totally covered as well.

But just that feeling of having the GPS-watch… I had the direction of the cabin, but for three hours all you could see was two meters in front of you at best, and we had to put our ski poles in front of us to feel what was up and down.

And all along you have this big, steep canyon to the right, with an obvious avalanche risk; so you don’t want to fall into it. Always you always know it’s there, somewhere to your right. You’re forced by nature to become so small, so powerless.

So you’ve got to have some faith in some authority greater than you, an inner compass that is not affected by the storm. In my case, the GPS. It’s tough, it’s hard, but at the same time it’s not; because you’ve been given guidance – if you just dare to follow it.”

Highlights

– 0:00 If you have a clear direction, an inner compass, you withstand the storms
– 3:28 The story of Ruben skiing through an ice storm in the mountains outside Tromsø, Norway, in the middle of May 2022
– 12:34 You can’t depend on the forecast (such as from tarot cards or palm reading), you got to have an inner compass or direction that is not affected by the weather
– 17:14 Life is a storm; sometimes more severe, sometimes less. Even in periods when there seem to be no storm, the clock is still ticking.
– 22:16 2 kinds of people go into nature; the ones who wants to conquer nature, and the ones who want to harmonize with nature
– 27:29 How Ruben met a reindeer on the mountain, who poked his nose onto the cabin window. When that spirit soul in the reindeer body gets a human body, that’s when the angst and expectations start.