This is the leg!

In addition to being an experienced musher with several races behind him, Krister Höök is Finnmarksløpets trail manager in Eastern Finnmark. He is not starting this year’s race, but is happy to share some insight on the leg from Sirbma to Levajok 2.  

Because of bad ice conditions on the Tana River, this year’s leg is completely different from ordinary. The leg this year is 73 km, versus 55 km when the leg follows the usual trail up the river. From Sirbma, which is approximately 60 meters above sea level, you follow the snowmobile tracks straight northwest through the terrain. For the first fifteen kilometers there is some vegetation, before you get up towards Gurteluobbal at 260 meters above sea level where you get on the same trail used a few days earlier between Levajok 1 and Tana Bru. From Gurteluobbal the trail has some variations in height from 260 to 300 meters above sea level, before you reach the highest point of the leg at 370 meters above sea level at Gaisavuolesjohka, approximately 40 kilometers from Sirbma.     

The last time the track was changed from “normal” it climbed even higher, to 500 meters above sea level before it descended towards Levajok. From Gaisavuolesjohka the leg this year descends down towards the tree line before it climbs quite a bit again, before it once again descends down into the woods and now in to Levajok 2.

When you start out from Sirbma heading west towards Alta you have completed 750 kilometers. Some mushers might choose to rest some more in Sirbma than what has been usual, to get some extra energy for both musher and dogs. The new trail will be hard for the mushers, with a lot more rise compared to the leg on the Tana River. Now you have to run and push a lot more to get the dogs up the hills.  

This year the trail manager reports of good conditions on the trail. – The tracks aren’t as hard as they have been the last couple of years, but we might see good speeds unless we get sudden snow falls.

Höök adds that he won’t be surprised if some of the mushers come down from the mountain claiming to have seen Hobbits. Especially the last stretch from Gaisavuolesjohka down towards Levajok is a fairy tale landscape. If you have seen the Lord of the Rings movies, you might see similarities in this area.