Photo: Heading to Haukland beach on winter roads, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 6, 2012.  8:57

This week’s photo is more for illustrative purposes than of something scenic.  With more and more people planning on visiting the islands in winter, it can be a bit of a shock to drive on the roads for the first time, especially if you are like me, and grew up in a temperate climate.

While my experience on the European continent is that they tend to keep roads snow free in winter, either by plow or grit, in Lofoten, this is not overly practical.  In big storms, the roads are cleared of deep snow and snow drifts, but overall, there always remains a layer of snow and ice covering any asphalt.   To deal with these conditions, the Norwegians (and Swedes) utilize studded tires from November to April.

While not like driving on dry asphalt, the studded tires work amazingly well.  In my estimate, I would say they retain about 70% the traction level of normal tires on dry conditions.  For road conditions like in this photo, you can more or less drive normally (but be weary on sharp turns).

Where driving conditions become dangerous is when the temperatures warm to 2-6 degrees above freezing and it begins to rain.  This turns all the hard, compacted snow of the roads into a layer of wet ice.  Scary and slippery!  The road plows are good at dealing with this and will have the main roads gritted and ice free within a few hours.  But I would suggest minimizing your driving during this period if possible.  I have gotten stuck a few times where I pulled down into an icy parking area and was unable to drive back out without considerable effort on my part to clear away enough ice to get a bit of momentum built up.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 16-35mm f/4
16mm
ISO 200
f 57.1
1/30 sec
WB Daylight

Photo: January dawn on Haukland beach, Vestvågøy, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  January 6, 2010.  09:49

Some time ago I posted a photo from this morning at Haukland beach, but as I’m now less than one month away from returning to the islands, it’s time for more winter images to inspire me.  Even now, looking back four years later, it still remains one of my most memorable days on the islands and is partly what saw me start this website in the first place and begin to look at Lofoten with a different set of eyes.

After having spent a stormy night at Utakleiv attempting the sleep in the cramped back seat of my all-too-small rental car, Haukland beach was the first scene I came across for the day.  I was not in a rush to get anywhere in particular, but I was in a rush to get as much variety out of the 4 hour day as possible.  I was also still cold from the night, only having a 0˚ sleeping bag with me, as the temperature dropped to -10˚ or so, and the car had yet to properly warm me up in the short drive from Utakleiv.  With already cold feet, I crunched my way across the snow covered sand and down towards the beach.

When I caught sight of this small chunk of ice on the frozen beach, I knew I had found something special.  While Lofoten is cold, there is not often ice on the beaches such as this.  But thanks to the cold temperatures and the small creek that runs into the sea at Haukland, a frozen piece of creek ice must have washed back onto the beach at high tide, and then a light layer of snow fell overnight to complete the scene.  I have attempted to find a scene like this in my last several winter visits, but have never been so lucky again.

The only thing that distracts me is the otter tracks across the middle of the image, I guess he was up before me.  But overall, this is still one of my favorite images from the islands.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 24mm f/3.5
24mm
ISO 200
f 16
8 seconds
WB Daylight
2 images – top/bottom

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Well, I’ve reached image number 52, a whole year of weekly Lofoten Images.  Good thing I still have about 900 images left in my archive to keep things going.  But at the moment, I’m not too sure if I’m going to continue posting weekly photos.  I initially started when there wasn’t all that much content here on the site, so I was just hoping to fill things in a bit.  And in all honesty, I haven’t received much feedback for my efforts during the last year, so I’m kind of questioning whether it’s worth my time to continue.

So now your chance to chime in.  If you find the information or stories useful on this Friday Photo series, maybe make a comment letting me know.  If it’s just been a waste of time, you can let me know that as well. 🙂

Happy 2014!  For those of us heading north in the next months, lets hope the mountains are full of snow and the skies full of Auroras.  And if you see some guy in a ugly blue jacket wandering around, come say hello. (I also accept invitations to hot tea and use of an oven to cook a frozen pizza for dinner in.)