Rørøs to Skordalen. 30km 5 1/2hrs. Today had potential to be dull and difficult. Strong winds from the south, overcast, and my next fixed destination, Nordpå, too far to reasonably or rationally do in a day. So I opted to split the journey and hope tomorrow will be a short day. How fortunate to find numerous positive aspects to such a day! For the last week I’ve been working NE along a populated valley, staying on ski tracks, skidoo tracks, dog-sled tracks and back-roads as much as possible. (Let’s not mention the E3) Today I headed due north and it felt like I was finally covering good distance again. Particularly since the wind was a strong southerly, and rattled me along the tracks with firm encouragement. The first 13km were ski tracks to Glåmos, from here I’d expected a similar distance following the main road, potentially walking if the road was gritted. I stayed on a small farm track for a kilometre or so trying to avoid the potential pain of the road, and just as the snowy lane delivered me back to tarmac I saw a skidoo track through the fields on the far side… heading north along the valley bottom! What luck… I hopped on the track and made fast progress northwards, across several little lakes and frozen marshland. Whilst happy at my luck in avoiding the road I found myself tense and worrying about how long the skidoo track would continue heading in my direction. Rather than enjoying the moment I was worrying about my good luck’s imminent end. I’ve time to think on my journey, and this just encapsulated a key aspect of life for me. Rather than enjoy our current good fortune,we worry about when it will end. I smiled, relaxed and just focused on enjoying the skiing- which was easy, fast and fun. 😀 The skidoo tracks kept on due north all the way to within 4km of my home for the night. When they finally veered off up into the hills and forced me to concede that I might have to break my own trail I was well ahead of schedule and didn’t mind the extra effort required. Back up into the mountains tomorrow!