Getting There

Journeying to the Arctic is never boring. Neither is traveling with a bike.

This time I got to fly on the Embraer E190-E2 for the first time, twice even as that aircraft serves both the MUC -> BGO and the BGO -> TOS legs of the trip. Even more exotic is the final hop from Tromso to Alta for which I'll take a tiny De Havilland Canada DASH8-100. Luckily the Wideroe flight that I had booked in January wasn't affected by the rampant cancellations in Scandinavian air travel due to the ongoing fossil fuel crisis. Good on them for not even demanding a surcharge.

The connection looks to be a bit brittle. At the check-in in Munich I was told to not expect automatic luggage transfer in both Bergen and Tromso. While I don't expect to run into serious issues at BGO considering it's a 1.5 h layover, I won't have that kind of safety margin at TOS. With a bike for luggage this could be rather tight. I'm kinda banking on TOS being tiny. However the last time around when I started my 2022 trip from there I remember waiting for half an eternity for my bike box. Let's hope the logistics in Tromso will be smoother today.

[Update] It got quite close in Bergen too as I had to undergo full check-in procedures again including my baggage. Which means that I had to wait at the conveyor belt for the bike to get dropped off first and then line up at the check-in counter. To add insult to injury, I realized upon getting seated that I was back in the same seat of the very same plane that I arrived on. Makes sense as Wideroe only got three of those E190-E2s in their fleet. Luckily I made it to boarding about 10 min. before departure. Even better, a helpful Wideroe staff guy informed me my baggage would be transferred automatically at ALF which makes me quite confident that me and the bike will make it in time.

Nice weather here in Bergen, no rain in sight. The views across the fjords during landing and take-off were breathtaking. A thick layer of snow still covers the higher altitudes, imbuing those mountains with a spectacular pattern of bright white branches extending out and down from the peaks. Slartibartfast's unrivaled masterpiece.

[Update] Ultimately the transfer in Tromso turned out to be completely frictionless and I made it to my DASH8 in time. Inside the plane it was much less noisy than I expected of a turboprop machine so I could admire the Finnmark scenery from above. In Alta I was alone at the airport after everyone had grabbed their baggage. I've been crossing fingers all day for the bike to arrive intact, and to my tremendous relief it did! I built up the bike in the hall without pressure and rolled out on the road an hour after landing.

Forecast

Last time I visited Finnmark in 2024 the weather was altogether pleasant with weeks of cloudless blue skies and 22 hours sunlight every day. This time conditions are predicted to be rather grim at least during the first days, but in particular on Monday, the official first day of my trip. I'm not at all looking forward to temperatures as low as three degrees and a constant rain as humid air from Finland surges to the north cools down on the uplands of northern Norway. Sigh. Kinda expected of the coldest region of Norway, really, but still not great. For a silver lining, at least that kind of weather will keep the bugs away. Anyways the best approach to this weather is going to be to keep going no matter what to stay warm.

Alternatively, if things get too rough up there on the high plateau, I still have the option to turn around and head back to the coast where the weather is much nicer.

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