Across the Arctic Blue Night

I’ve always got a Lapland map at hand, wherever I am. I like to spend time looking at the colorful lines drawn on it by my own hand – one for each route completed – and dream of new ones covering new areas. My latest trip was however, in my opinion, the most aesthetic and logical of all: 1.200km across Lapland, without motorized support, during the Arctic wintry night.  

I had been dreaming of this route in the same way others dream of a long pleasure cruise, a race car or a lion’s head.

Otherwise, I reckon I like travelling solo, but I am not a loner. Thus, I happily agreed when two friends asked me to share patchs on the first and last stages of the trip: Ainoa Aldalur and Javier Pedrosa respectively. The rest of the time, I relied on “Lonchas”, my regular mate. He is  pure breed Alaska Malamute originally named “Longyearbyen” (after Svalbard’s capital) but widely known by the shorter nick-name. Thanks to social networks, “Lonchas” is getting an increasing number of fans around the world and definitely becoming more famous than me.