Spelunking

Whew. I am really terrible at keeping a blog. I thought I'd better post a quick update before I take off for Ireland (Easter Break).

So on Saturday Feb 20, I had the opportunity to go caving with a student organization here called Arctic escape. It is lead by the counselling staff at the school. We drove about one hour out of Bodo to Fauske where we picked up our caving guides and gear. Each person had a helmet and head lamp. It was a particularily cold day!!

After about 15minutes more driving, we reached our destination. The cave is called Svarthammarhola (Black cliff cave). We actually had to hike uphill through about a foot of snow to make it to the main cave entrance. At the entrance, we had to hold a rope and walk slowing backwards down the steep, rocky slope. Once inside, we did some exploring.

It was pitch dark in there and also very cold. Not sure the exact temperature, but the guides did say it was the coldest caving tour they'd ever lead. The cave was huge! It had several rooms and we had to stumble through piles of rock as we moved through. The highlights were some ice formations called the king and princess. This cave is also unique in that it has a glacier right inside of it.

At the end of the tour, we scrambled through a very tight tunnel to reach another cave opening called the keyhole. There's an amazing view from up there.

After a light snack, we returned to the cave entrance and began our way down. However, it had become very slippery, so rather than a hike back down it was more of a slide on your bum. There was a real talent for it, so it was appropriately dubbed as a new sport "Buttluge" or "luge de Glute" with the Canadians against the Americans!!

Everyone arrived safely at the bottom, though thoroughly soaked. It was a great day enjoying Norway's outdoors.

I thought about including my Ski trip from the beginning of March in this post, but I still have some pictures to retrieve from friends. *Stay tuned*

I will arrive back in Bodo on April the 6th, after Easter, with my family in tow! Happy Easter everyone.

update

...still snowing

Snowed in!

So it has been snowing in Bodo for the last 3 days -straight! And I'm not exaggerating. It's not just been lightly snowing either. I'm talking blowing snow so thick you can walk outside for 5 minutes and your hair is covered in snow. This started on Sunday night, it was actually raining and very windy all that day because it was so warm. This made the roads and paths extremely slippery and it was just all around disgusting weather. Then Monday night, or around Tuesday morning I can't remember any more, it began snowing and just hasn't quit! I went for a walk to the lake today with my friend Heather, who is from Nebraska. It's quite warm still, even though it's snowing. We found ourselves in for quite a bit more of a workout than we'd planned, tromping through deep snow. Then we thought it would be a good idea to leave the path, and found ourselves in waist deep (for me!) snow. It was quite a lot of fun.

I'm not meaning to sound like I am complaining, because I'm actually really enjoying this weather. It makes all the trees and houses look so pretty. I just think it's crazy how much snow this place gets. As long as it doesn't turn into that horrible rainy/windy/stormy weather again I'm happy.

The pictures show the snow around the small cabin that is beside the lake. Also a movie of the snow outside my window.