Words from Wik

Executive Summary: Since this is a long post I will give you the quick and dirty here for those who don’t want to read it all (though I do recommend it obviously!) Skip it if you want the suspenseful version! Once again bit off more than I can chew hiking. Walked about 60 km in 48 hours: 20km hike to base camp (after a horrible night’s sleep on train), sleep with the sun in eyes all night, take 5.5 hours to ascend 1850m to summit, take another 5.5 hours to come back, sleep with sun in eyes again, hike 20km home. This was done before the mountain was officially opened and there was still too much snow, so summiting was done half with snowshoes. I wasn’t sure if the effort was worth it after doing it all, but after a few days I got over it and was glad I did it. Rest of Sweden was wonderful, people are great and the weather worked out, definitely a place I recommend visiting in the summer. See pictures below (click on them for more pics)!

End Executive Summary

After I scaled the UK’s tallest peak (see previous post), I thought to myself, “Why not scale the tallest peaks in other countries as well? I am after all from Canada, have done a bunch of hiking there, and we got some big mountains. So these should be no problem!”

With that attitude I went to Sweden and first thing I did on my 10-day stay was to go to Kiruna (where the sun always shines during this time of year, home to the Ice Hotel in the winter). From there it’s possible to summit Sweden’s tallest peak, Kebnekaise, at 2111m (if you count the glacier that sits on top of the rocky peak). I took nothing lightly though, the base mountain station is at 670m or so elevation, so a good 1400m climb is involved, which is no picnic (but it’s only a little more elevation gain than I had done on UK’s tallest mountain, that took 2h20m).

I was however unprepared for some other things. I had read about the fact that the mountain station can only be reached by hiking (think of it as a sort of base camp), but I had completely forgot. Another thing is that on arriving and asking how I can get to the mountain, they told me it doesn’t open for two weeks so I can’t go up top. All this led to a whole bunch of confusion, and after straightening everything out I had to do the following:

I had about one hour to go buy all my food for the next three days, knowing I will have to carry it all on my back for 20km to the mountain station. Take too little and go hungry, take too much and my shoulders would cry.

Catch the last bus of the week (no buses for next two days) to village, hike 20km with food on back to the mountain station. I had to hurry to make it to bed at a reasonable time, and the fact that the previous night I had spent drinking beer with the locals and sleeping only 5 hours on a night train didn’t help.

Finally I arrived at the mountain station, my home for the next two nights, glad to have all the confusion behind me. At the station I found some nice German guys who had attempted the summit that day. They were walking around stiff-legged and in some discomfort, and they told me they had spent 12 hours (round trip) making an unsuccessful attempt at the summit. They had to turn back because the snow was waist-deep, and they had big heavy backpacks that made them sink very easily. They were climbing the mountain alpine style so that they could camp on the other side after summiting, and all that weight and no snow shoes kept them from the top. Luckily I managed to track down some of the people that were preparing the mountain station for opening and got them to rent me snowshoes from their shop, hoping to make it myself.

That night was my first night sleeping in a place where the sun shines 24 hours. I must say it totally messes with your internal clock. The day just flies by, and the night is tough unless the room has no windows. It was not the best sleep I had by a long shot.

Next day I set out to summit while the German guys were taking a day of rest. I told myself I would do like them and turn back if I didn’t get up the mountain in 6 hours. Actually I was hoping to make it in 5 or less, but after 5 hours I still had a ways to go so I just kept pushing. It was the most exhausting hike ever. About half of the elevation gain had to be covered in snowshoes as there was still a lot of snow on the mountain. This was the toughest part, as going up in snowshoes means every step you take you sink, then when pulling your back foot out of the snow your front foot sinks even more. Place back foot in front, sink. Wash, rinse, repeat. Just taking step after step was difficult. I thought of stories I had heard about people climbing Everest, how every step is a huge mental effort, and I felt much the same way (though obviously I had nothing on Everest). I eventually made it to the top in 5h30m, ready to die.

The GPS I had said I had ascended 1850m and descended 360m on my way up. That’s a lot more than the 1400m I was expecting, because the way there actually goes up and down over a slightly smaller peak. That also means that the 360m I descended I have to climb back up on the way home. All those numbers add up to a very long day and a very tired Wiktor. Anyways, after spending about 30 minutes on the peak taking panoramic photos, I went back with no significant events, other than the usual tiredness of snowshoeing up the smaller peak. I think my trip was just shy of 12 hours (luckily the sun shines all the time so there’s no chance of being left in the dark!) Back at the mountain station I had a dinner that seemed very small compared to my appetite after that climb (I guess I erred on the side of going hungry in choosing how much food to bring).

After another bad night of sleeping with daylight in my eyes, I hiked the 20km back to town with the German guys. It was good to hear some of their other stories they had about climbing in the alps, and I felt a little bad for them because they certainly came well prepared and knew what they were doing, had crampons ready for ice, but just couldn’t get past the deep snow.

For some more commentary and pictures click on any of the pictures above. And to make a long story even longer, the rest of the trip in Sweden was great. The country is probably the most similar to Canada of all the European countries. The people are really nice, I met a few and stayed at one of their houses for a night. Stockholm is a great city, parts of it remind me of Zurich (which is a good thing!) and a great place to party all night when the sun barely sets for a couple hours, and dawn comes well before people consider calling it a night (and that was on a Tuesday).

That’s about all there is to write for this trip, now I’m spending my time in rainy Aberdeen. I feel like I’m living a two-part life, one very different from the other, completely unrelated and uncoupled.

A quick post about what I was up to a couple weeks back: hiking up the tallest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis. While the size of the mountain may make it seem like not much of an achievement (1344m), the start is at about sea level, so it’s a decent climb. That, and I bit off a little more than I could chew by deciding to climb it with another Canadian I met in the hostel; he is a park ranger manager in BC and climbs mountains for a living. So, for the first bit I could keep his pace, but eventually I had to tell him to slow it down a little or leave me behind! He has kids my age, yet I felt like the old man and developed a hip problem going up. But by having his pace to keep up to, I think I set a personal best for getting my ass up a mountain!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see from the top; the peak is clouded over about 70% of days. It also rains over 7 times as much there as it does in ‘sunny’ London. The picture at the bottom shows us two Canadians on the top with snow on the ground and cloud all around (click here for more pictures).

Next on the list for me: go to Sweden and climb their tallest mountain. For some reason that’s what I feel like doing, climbing mountains, rather than just going to a place to say I’ve been there. That and of course partying it up with local Swedish girls!

I am writing this update from an offshore platform in the North Sea. Coming to this platform was quite an experience, and that’s what I’ll write about today. Another day I’ll write what it’s like actually being here (after I’ve had some time to form my opinions).

I was told before coming to the UK that you get onto the platform by helicopter. That’s fine and dandy; I had flown in a helicopter before for work in northern Canada. You just put on your coveralls, hop in, put on some ear protection and off you go!

Well, it’s very different here in the North Sea. I think the industry here is one of the most regulated in the word.

First of all, when you check in the heliport (a separate building from the normal airport), all your bags are searched. That’s right, someone goes through all the things in your bags and makes sure there is no: alcohol, sharp objects, drugs. Even prescription medicine is taken from you (but then given to the medic on the platform to give back to you).

Now, how about carry on luggage? That doesn’t exist. The most you are allowed to take is something that will fit in the one pocket of your survival suit (more on that later). That’s about enough room for my paperback novel, or a folded newspaper to read on the plane. I had to give my laptop to them as just another piece of luggage.

So once I was checked in, we proceed through the metal detectors (which goes fast; nobody has any carry-on luggage). We then enter a room and everyone starts putting on their survival suit.

Some background. North Sea temperature is currently about 6 degrees Celsius or so. That gives people about 5 minutes of survival time in the water before cold and hypothermia overcomes them. That’s why everyone, including the pilots, must fly in survival suits. Basically it’s a glorified dry suit, which will keep the wearer (almost) completely dry if immersed in water. Coupled with a thermal suit underneath (which is also mandatory), it gives people several (some tell stories of up to 12) hours of survival in case of a submersion emergency.

On top of the survival suit everyone wears a life jacket with built-in re breather (which allows you to re-breathe your own exhaled air, as well as adding a small canister of compressed air). For a good site with pictures of what we look like and the equipment we use check out this place (expand images on the right).

So this is all standard and par for the course. Everyone that was on my flight had done this before and just went through the motions. I had to ask them for a suit in my size, which ended up being a little tight in the neck (the seal which keeps water from going inside down your neck is like a wide rubber band. For a similar effect try wearing a 1.5″ wide rubber band around your neck for a 90 minute flight that slightly cuts off circulation to your brain.)

But really, the experience was quite enjoyable. When we were all walking out onto the tarmac in single file, suited up, I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. As far as I was concerned, I was a NASA astronaut suited up for a space mission! Well okay, not quite.

But from walking up to the chopper and feeling the turbine exhaust in your face, to flying over the sea and seeing platforms strewn about, to getting off the chopper once secure on the platform and seeing a man standing behind a mounted gun pointed at you ready to shoot down any flames that may come out of the chopper with his ammunition of foam, to marching through thick sliding steel doors to the place where you pass off your re-breather to the crew waiting to come home, it was a very cool experience.

If you haven’t yet, read the last two posts about my court experience to get the full picture.

After all the action in the courtroom I had a brief chat with the Officer about the things that went on that day. Well actually, he did most of the talking. Basically I just told him that I didn’t want the demerits due to insurance, and he went on to tell me this:

Everyone knows that the Police have a quota for tickets that they must meet. It’s no secret. (Actually it was to me. I had heard people talk about ticket quotas but I had never heard solid confirmation until now). Every Officer has to write 20 tickets a month, it’s no secret. That’s why close to the end of the month you see guys out there with the radar guns so that they can meet their quota. Now it’s unfortunate when we have to give out tickets to good citizens like you. And because of that there are some “chicken-shit” tickets given out, tickets that you don’t normally see. And with those tickets you can usually get them dropped. But for speeding they have become very strict, and they won’t just drop them.

So he was explaining all this to me, almost apologetically for having given me this ticket. He wasn’t too thrilled about the ticket quota and I can understand why (they have to write close to one ticket every work day). Moral of the story? Don’t speed in the last 5 days of the month (thinking back, I got my ticket Dec 28). And if you get a chicken-shit ticket, fight it! (I am still not sure what would make a chicken-shit ticket. Maybe changing lanes without signaling or something like that?)

This post is a continuation of my previous court post, so check that one out if you want to know what I’m talking about.

So here is some of the advice I got from the Lawyer friend: when you’re taking a ticket to court, show up a few minutes early, go into the courtroom and try to find the Police Officer who gave you the ticket. If he’s not there, that’s probably good news, because if he doesn’t show up they throw the ticket out (I heard advice elsewhere that if you change your court date after setting one initially, it may conflict with the Officer’s schedule and he may not be able to show up to court).

If the Officer is there, go and sit down beside him and talk to him. Tell him why you’re there (I want no demerits please) and he may be willing to do that for you. Or he may not.

I think that’s about all the advice I remember. So I was going in there hoping either a) the officer does not show up (no, I did not change my court date) or b) he is cool with giving me no demerits.

On the court date I show up nice and early, find the officer responsible for my ticket, and tell him who I am. We start talking, I do as I was advised and tell him that I’m just here to get my demerits taken off. He is pretty cool with that, says he will talk to the prosecutor and ask if the demerits can be dropped. BUT (and he mentions this is a big but) in the end it is up to the prosecutor whether or not the charge can be lowered. He can do his best but ultimately the decision is not his (which is not how I interpreted the advice from Lawyer Friend). He mentions that likely the deal I got offered before would still stand if nothing else, and that if it comes to that I should take it. He said that I “would have no leg to stand on” if it went to trial, and I definitely agreed (I have no lawyer, just being in the courtroom and approaching the Officer was scary enough, and I am not about to go arguing a case I don’t have while not having any idea what I’m doing)! But I said I would make that decision once he talks to the prosecutor.

So he goes and talks to the prosecutor, I take a seat in the second row. I hear them talk and the prosecutor says pretty much “nope, I won’t take off the demerits.” The officer comes back to me when he’s done, and I tell him that I heard it all, so I’ll just go head and take the deal. I’ll take 2 demerits and half the fine, what else can I do? The officer informs me that I have to go tell the prosecutor myself, and leaves me to it. So I do just that, and tell the prosecutor I will take the deal. He briefly looks at me and says: “Alright, and tell you what, I can do you one better.” He then lowers the charge to a section 57, which basically changes it from speeding to not obeying a sign. He says something along the lines that it will not go on my record this way, so I’m like “alright, sounds good to me.”

What followed was that everyone got a turn to be called up and discuss the case with the judge. Luckily I was not first, so I saw what the person before me did. Basically you just stand up in the middle of the court room at the center podium and represent yourself. Luckily the prosecutor did most of the talking for me saying things like “…would like to enter a guilty plea to a charge under section 57 with…” and rambled on, half of which I didn’t understand. Then the judge just asked me if I agree with what was said and I say Yes. Then he asked me how much time I need to pay, and I just repeated what the person before me said, which was two weeks (I actually ended up paying the fine that day after everything). And that was it! Over! So I left the courtroom and started chatting with the Officer which actually ended up being the most interesting part of the day.

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while, and now that I have something to write about I may as well go ahead with my plans. So here goes, my first entry.

On the break between Christmas 2006 and New Year’s, I got a ticket leaving downtown, going northbound on Center Street. The limit there is an “un-posted 50”, and I was unfortunately clocked at 79. That’s 29 over, which got me a ticket of $172 that comes with 3 demerits (interestingly enough, I was 2 km/h away from getting the next category of ticket which comes with 4 demerits).

As I’ve done in the past, I went to the First Appearance Center to try to get the charge lowered to something with no demerits. Unfortunately, that is no longer possible, and I can vouch for that. The best deal they could give me was to halve the fine and give me two demerits by changing the charge to speeding 14 km/h over.

Now let me back up for a bit. Before I went to the first appearance center, I talked with one of my coworkers about the ticket, and he said he would give his lawyer friend a call. Long story short, I got some advice about what to do when taking the ticket to court.

So as I’m sitting there contemplating taking the lowered charge, I think about the plan I had going in: to me, the fine is negligible; I know I did something wrong and I will pay the fine as a consequence. The story with demerits is different; they go on my record and potentially raise my (already demoralizingly high) insurance. So my plan was to take nothing less than zero demerits. Being faced with 2 vs. 3 makes no difference to me, both go on my record, so I tell them I mean business and decline the deal. A court date is set for March.

Hey Everyone! This blog is a new addition to my site, I’m hoping to write things here regularly. I will also be updating my actual site and perhaps moving some of the content from there into this blog. In the meantime you can still see my site here. Enjoy!