Everyday workouts in Quito

The last two days Bjarne and me have worked the neighbourhood as good as possible for thin air. The town itself is located around 2800 meter above sea level and just being here is good acclimatisation. But a good thing with Quito as a pre-climbing destination is that there is a gondola in town taking you up to 4100 meters. From this viewpoint you can get an additional 700 meters by a easy 2h hike to the summit of Cumbre Rucu Pichincha. We have now done this hike two days in a row and have been hanging out on the summit for a few hours working on our Spanish, listening to music, talking about life and just freezing in general.

But Quito is of course not only mountains; it’s a really cool city with very friendly people. In between our workouts we have been strolling the town, eating some good food an trying to get info about further transports south.

Tomorrow is a rest and travel day south to the higher mountains. It’s going to be exciting to see the big Ecuadorian lumps of snow, rock and ice but the weather doesn’t look very good. However I have found a window in the next few days, so if we are lucky we will get into what we came here for.

I’m very tired after the long journey and the last two days. Bjarne flew in one day before me and had time to sleep in, but I really feel the lack of sleep even though the body have been feeling incredibly well on altitude. Coming from sea level to 4800 meters can feel like a shock, but so far I haven’t even got any bad signs.

Now we are of for our last night in Quito. Bjarne is keen on samba; lets see where this is going! 

First dinner in Equador

Bjarne in the gondola

"No bandidos aqui ahora" said the guard at the lift station while imitating being stabbed in the belly...

The first view of Cotopaxi and the real mountains in Ecuador

Gloria at www.hostalrabida.com giving us some well needed help

Scribbles from the night

I’m sitting in the foyer of our hostel in Quito and I have been up the later part of the night due to jet lag. I like this peaceful part of the day when the world is asleep and excitement for another good adventurous day is running through my body.

Today is the first real day of a great and personally highly anticipated adventure across the Spanish-speaking world’s highest mountains. The goals and objectives are there, of course, but the most important thing is like always the unexpected subtleties of the everyday voyage.

I like this part of an adventure the most, when every possibility is open and each risk are hidden behind every corner. The future is in every beginning a mist that only extrapolation of past deeds can try to explain. But that is of course only an illusion and the mind’s way of trying to find security in a reality that is infinitely insecure.

I guess this is one of the things I have learnt to love in life – the lack of security, and as the mystics would say is “that in order to have something, nothing can ever be had”.

So now I’m standing here again in eager excitement. I feel like I am where I need to be, in the forefront of my own life. Because I have not already put a strong scale of expectations on the future, every grain of this moment feel alive, and I’m feeling ready for whatever success or failure that might come ahead. Check this life out, it’s quiet real if we only rock n roll a bit outside of the box. 

The Denali film!

Here is the edit from my adventure on Denali this last spring... Enjoy!

Edited by Bjarne Salhén on endlessflow.posterous.com

First ski descent on Denali south face by Andreas Fransson from Bjarne Sahlen on Vimeo.

In Quito via a night in Madrid!

A couple of days ago I told my dear friend and filmer Bjarne Sahlén that we will meet at the hostel Rabida at 18:00. Now we are sitting here on the other side of the planet and I made it here with a 5 min margin. It’s the first time in a long while that I’m feeling really excited and I’m looking forward for our three-month adventure through the Andes.

After a full day of packing back home in Luleå I flew to Madrid via Stockholm. I haven’t been thinking too much about the journey before hand and when I arrived in Madrid I realised that I had a night to kill before the flight to Quito the next day. I had never been in the Spanish capital so I jumped on a buss for an evening in town. My learn by doing Spanish course got a bit delayed as I met a couple of French girls on a bar and spent most of the evening drinking cervezas in French. But after midnight it was time for me to find my way back to the airport for some classic airport sleep.

It’s the first time in my life that im trying to speak Spanish, so I’m hoping the learning curve is going to go steady upwards. I learnt on the flight that no one in my surroundings spoke English and no one knew what a vegetarian was. But my seat neighbour worked with me for about ten hours straight and now I have kind of a foundation for the next couple of months. It reminded me of when I went down to the alp once with Bjarnes older brother Morgan and did a 21h straight French course that lay the foundation for my poor French.

Now its time to hit Quito by night and try to find some good Ecuadorian food and keep the acclimatisation going. Quito is on just under 3000 meters altitude so just hanging around here will help us get used to the thin air.

Tomorrow we will try to find the local gondola to get a view of the town and get even higher…

Check out Quito on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quito

And our hostel Rabida: www.hostalrabida.com/

Keep on following our adventure on my blog, Bjarne's blog (endlessflow.posterous.com), Oakley.com and Haglofs.com. 

Lots of people on the streets of Madrid

A classic airport night on a bench

The streets of Quito from the cab

The devil is in the detail

Departure for Quito is coming closer and closer. Tomorrow is the last day of preparation. Exciting times to come! 

Photo shoot in Narvik

I just came back to Luleå after a week photo shoot for Haglöfs in and around Narvik, Norway. The crew was made up by awesome photographer Nicklas Blom, alpine princess Johanna T Stålnacke, telemark ace Per Jonsson and myself. We had a great time together and Niklas was happy with the photos. Mission completed for the next years summer/spring catalogue in the categories light trekking and mountaineering. We found really good scenery around Efjord, Skjomen and the Lossi hut. When we came back from work I celebrated with a two hour run up to the Third Peak up above town in a snowstorm. It felt good to feel the approach of the cold and the winter and I can’t wait to get up in the mountains again. But now its only two days of final preparation before I take off to Quito, Ecuador, to meet up with Bjarne – so after months of planning we are almost there.

Check out my amigos from this last everyday adventure:

Nicklas Blom: www.nicklasblom.com

Johanna Tiensu Stålnacke: www.entreenord.se/

Per Jonsson: www.freeride.se/blog/perjonsson/ (Swedish)

On our way up Eidetind

Johanna Tiensu Stålnacke

Per and Nicklas chillin...

And in work...

Johanna rappelling 

And showing some moves

Mordor... or.. hrmm Stetind

A pretty day at the office

Below Kuinarchokka, one of the most beautiful mountains i know, but damn its a shitty ski.. 

Myself contemplating the view

A good dinner in good company

Narvik with Fagernäsfjellet high above in the clouds 

On my way back home

The view from the train

And a quick glance of Riksgränsen from the platform.. 

South America autumn adventure!

I haven’t really made it official before, but on the 20^th of September I’m going for the next adventure, and this time its to South America. I’m going with friend and filmer Bjarne Sahlen on Endlessflow  (www.endlessflow.net) and we are looking forward to a three-month expedition trough the Andes, starting in Ecuador and flying out from Santiago. We have of course kind of a game plan, but I don’t like talking too much before I do something because it can easily affect decisions up on the mountains, whether you are aware of it or not. But the adventure will be filmed and posted as episodes during the journey and I will also post you with some updates on this blog.

And yes, it will involve mountains, snow, skis and hopefully a bit of rock n roll! 

A beautiful end of the summer

The last few weeks I have had a beautiful vacation in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Italy.  I stopped working about three weeks ago and then had a week of just hanging out in Norway. We even moved in to a house (yes, I have been living in a tent the whole summer, and with the Alaska trip about three out of the last four months). Then after Norway we went to Finland to catch up with my family, then back to Luleå  (my hometown in the North of Sweden) where after I went for a quick visit to Stockholm and Italy. Now I’m back home preparing for exciting times, but first I’m going for a photo-shoot in Narvik with Haglöfs friends Per Jonsson and Johanna Stålnacke as well as photographer Nicklas Blom.

Summing up the summer its been exactly what I was needing; an vacation from big mountains, great climbing both for myself and with clients, a fun job, lots and lots and lots of running and everything in one of the most beautiful sites in the world; the Lofoten Islands in the north of Norway.

Maybe I was working a little bit too much to really get in to the shape I would have liked to be in right now, but then again its great to get the energy from beginner climbers, and I still managed to log around 100km a week even though I was climbing nearly every day.

I have also been extremely bad bringing my camera for my everyday adventures, so there are not much to look at from this summers small adventures. But on the other hand it was my vacation. From now on I'm going to bring it where ever i go!

Now, as always I’m focusing for the objectives to come! 

A photo from one of the last climbing days in Lofoten... 

Dundret, Gällivare (In the north of Sweden). We drove bast the mountain an thought we needed to run up to the top to het the heart beating and to stretch our legs. It felt super easy after a summer of mountain running in Norway!

I usually gets one round a year of waterskiing out side of my cousins little island outside of Vaasa. 

Johanna caught a fish! 

Morning workout by the water... 

Expedition prepping back home...

And a clean rack, ready for a winter in a box. Except a few chosen ones that will suffer from winter climbing and steep skiing.