Saturday, September 8, 2007

Wow....


So i arrived at YWAM base about a week ago and met all the people i will be living with for the next 9 months, everyone seems really chilled out and awesome people. they all love God first then love the outdoors second, my kind of people!

After a short introduction and a quick supper (we managed to get to base at about 10:30pm as driving directly from Bodo to Engavagen consists of driving aroun in the hugest squiggly line you cna amagine due to all the fjords up here, a 100km direct line took us about 3hours i think...) were todl the plan for the next few days, basically it consisted of jumping on a small boat, taking a short trip over a crystle turquose blue glacial runoff fjord to the base of the 2nd largest glacier in norway and setting up camp. all on the 2nd day we got there with half the student still Jet lagged and feeling tired and sore, awesome...

so basically words can barely begine to describe how beutiful northern Norway is, pictured dont really do it justice either, though ill throw some up anyways. We set up camp at the bottom of the glacial flow just behind the big turquose lake at the bottom in a small clearing of tree's. The mountains rise about 1000-1500m up from sea level with rocky outcrop and near vertical cliffs, the tree level is about 300m so there are not many tree's on them at all... everything is lush and green with small waterfalls cutting their way down the side of the mountains at regular intervals, small berry bearing bushes litter the ground, all of which you can eat if you feel a little peckish.

we camped one night at out base at the bottom of the mountain then hiked up and spent a day on the glacier with crampons and iceaxes in tow all tied together with a rope to make sure we didnt fall. its hard work and we got our first glimpse of freezing norwegian temperature as it was windy, raining, icey. we were all soaked and cold by the time we got of the glacier and we still had to scramble down a wet rocky mountain side to get back, it was great! that night was horrible, pouring rain, over cramped tent as we forgot the poles for one tent, with a splitting headache. got through the night and we packed up early instead of hiking up to a hut 1400m up the mountain as the wind was too strong and it was pouring with rain.

My room at base has an amazing view, its great for the mornings when you just dont want to get out of bed, you just look out the window and want to jump out and go climb it or something, its picturesque!

so thats about it for the short ramble, not too much details but you get an idea of what its liek up here, we're yet to start the teachign phase, that starts this monday but i'm looking forward to that and to see what is in store for us! after a week or so of teaching im sure my Blog will have a little more substance to it! but yeah....

NAthan.

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