On a lonely, snow-covered pass

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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Two hours later, in complete darkness, we are soon desperately looking for a place to spend the night. Many of the possibly suitable parking bays are snowed in or filled with snow by the snow clearing vehicles. At one point, the route descends steeply over an icy slope to the banks of a river. “Too dangerous”, this time it’s me who refuses the ride down there. Another time, it’s a steep climb up a narrow path. “Not good,” says Tanja. “There might be somewhere to stay overnight 17 kilometers from here,” I say, glancing at my smartphone. “South or do we have to go back?” asks Tanja. “We have to go back.” “Oh no. I can’t stand going back,” she teases a little. “We don’t have to cycle, paddle on horseback or walk, we can just go by car. That costs us a maximum of 15 minutes,” I counter. “All right, I can see that,” Tanja concedes. I turn our expedition vehicle around at a suitable point. Then the navigation system sends us off the E6 onto an uncleared side road. “You want to keep driving there?” asks Tanja. “Yes, it’s only another 15 kilometers. If it gets dicey, we’ll turn back. I promise,” I say. As soon as I close my mouth, the narrow strip of asphalt leads upwards. Turning is out of the question. I step on the gas. So I keep the Terra at speed and we don’t get stuck. At least I hope so. Snow is piling up to the left and right of the mountain road, which appears to have hardly any traffic. The snow-covered silhouettes of trees shoot past our windows. It goes higher and higher, serpentine by serpentine. The Terra does a great job, has not stumbled or slipped once so far. Tanja sits silently next to me while my adventurous heart is pounding with excitement. “We have to get to the top at some point,” I say reassuringly. “There was a place to turn around!” exclaims Tanja. “We’re almost there. Only two kilometers to go. We’re not turning back so close to the finish.” “Only two more kilometers? Okay, we can still make it,” she says confidently. Then the road in front of us is closed with a barrier. A lane cleared of snow leads to the right a few meters before the barrier. “There are houses!” Tanja says happily as we reach the top of the pass. A few flags flutter in the wind in front of one of the wooden huts. A snowmobile is parked in front of one of the huts. Fresh tracks indicate that someone lives here. In the diffuse light, we look at a sign stuck up to its neck in the snow. “Korgfjellet?” Tanja reads aloud. “It’s a mountain area in Helgeland in the province of Nordland,” I reply. “That would mean that we drove the last 17 kilometers on the Blood Road, which we dropped on the way south?” “Could be,” but I’m not sure if it really is the Blood Road. (The Blood Road was a name used by the locals for many of the roads built by Yugoslav prisoners during the Second World War. From the Korgfjellet mountains in Nordland to the Karasjok border crossing in Finnmark. The Germans brought around 100,000 Soviet and Yugoslav prisoners to Norway during the occupation and forced them to work on several major infrastructure projects of this kind. Thousands of them did not survive the hard forced labor and died an agonizing death)


I think we’ll know more tomorrow. Do you want to see if there’s anyone in the house and ask if we can stay here? In the meantime, I’ll type the short records and log data from today into the laptop.” “Sure, I hope I meet someone and that they are well-disposed towards us,” says Tanja and leaves the Terra. “Fifteen minutes later she returns, shivering. “So, have you met anyone?” I ask expectantly. “I have.” “Well, don’t let them pull everything out of your nose. Can we stay?” “Bjorn, the owner, is very friendly. He even offered us electricity and water and said we could stay as long as we wanted. In summer, there are lots of motorhomes camping here who have to pay for the pitch, but at this time of year, no one comes up here. The road will even be closed tomorrow. Then you can only reach the huts by snowmobile,” reports Tanja. “Wow, what luck. It’s a good thing we ventured onto the pass road. It’s a great place.” “Must be a very special place because, weather permitting, you must have an incredibly beautiful view of the surrounding mountains from here. That’s what Bjorn told me.” “And is it the Blood Road like we thought?” I ask. “Yes, it leads from the E6 to the top of the pass and goes down to the other side not far from here. But we’ll have to turn back tomorrow because the other side has become completely impassable due to all the snowfall in the last few days.” “Okay, then we’ll just drive back down the pass road. No problem either,” I say. “It could get slippery on the steep descent,” Tanja points out. “The Terra will manage that easily,” I’m sure…