Aurora Day

The first days

NOT GOOD.

That was my first thought when I realised the reason that the storm and the rain clouds shone dimly in red and green. Because that must be the Northern lights illuminating the clouds. Red and green are not the colors gray rain clouds usually have at any time of the year. But to see an enormously powerful Northern Lights, also know as an Aurora, this relatively far south in the summer? Not good. Apparently Earth has just been hit by a huge CME, Coronal Mass Ejection, from the sun. It actually happens all the time on a small scale. Earth constantly has weak northern lights in UV spectrum, our eyes just can't see it, not even at night. The sun throws charged particles around it and these are the nice light arcs you can see in science films about the sun.

Enormous ejections of particles from the sun happens occasionally, which is not a problem either. The problem is when huge ejections hit something technological, and Earth is full of technology. The charged particles that the sun throws out are mostly driven away by Earth's magnetic field, but some find their way down into the polar regions where Earth's magnetic field goes down into the ground, and the charged particles at high altitudes begin to interact with Earth's atmosphere. This is an Aurora, the Northern Lights. Nitrogen gives green and is most common, because air is 78% nitrogen. Oxygen which is an additional 21% gives red light, but I don't have a good idea of what gives blue or purple tones and then there are lights that interact with each other and are perceived yellow and so on. Red and green does that. I don't have such a good understanding of exactly how it works or what heights it's at, but probably 80-200km, and also depends on the polarity of the charged particles and so on.

The Northern Lights themselves are not dangerous, just very pretty. But the stronger it is, the less Earths magnetic field protects us, and as a consequence, the further south it becomes visible. Seeing an Aurora light up at night far north in the winter isn't difficult. I've seen it many times, but usually weak. I once took a long exposure on picture a March night in southern Sweden when I saw faint glimpses of it. Quite okay photo, and more colours than the eye could see.

But again; scale. That I can see it through rain clouds when the evening sun has just set means it must be gigantic. I wouldn't be surprised if they can see it in southern Europe where the summer nights are actually dark. It has happened before in history. There are several descriptions in books and paintings. It is not dangerous to humans, animals and nature. But it is dangerous for technology, and nowadays most of the world is very technological, although its an advantage most communications nowadays are fiber optics instead of copper. When a CME of this size hits, all long cables and metal parts will act as antennas and create powerful current spikes, and that is dangerous for the technology at the ends of these cables and metal things. The last time a powerful CME hit Earth was somewhere in 1860s, and its called 'The Carrington Event' and it was seen down to the Caribbean - people could read newspapers in its light at night.

There wasn't much technology in 1860, but telegraphs had begun to spread and they had trouble as fires broke out and a few people died. But the telegraph is a simple thing at the level of copper wire, brass, wood and magnets. In modern times? With all our copper cables, high voltage power grid, etc? Hence my thought of 'not good'.

It may only be 12-16 hours from the time scientists watching the sun discover the coming CME, until it hits Earth. The only way to really protect the power grid is to disconnect transformer stations. Turn off all power in a country, and which politician will make that decision at short notice? I don't have high hopes for that. If it goes really bad then the main powergrid is fried. To fix it everything damaged have to be cleared away, and then new transformer stations built, and then smaller transformers for towns and villages all the way down to residential areas. It will probably take years. Because if something really big hits - it's worldwide. Not local. Today's global economy with manufacturing of things in few places makes it difficult to rebuild everything.

Cities without electricity? Without the ability to pump water? Heating houses? Cooking? Keep food refrigerated and transport food to cities etc? A disaster. It's really bad when electric power is lost for a few days. But if it is many months or years? Millions will be dying, and desperate people are not very kind people. Just taking care of the sick and dead becomes a problem. No fuel pumps work because there is no electricity, except for local small generators that in turn require fuel. Cars will hit the roads, run out of fuel and chaos ensues. Diseases will spreading. Famine and problems. Civilization will eventually recover, but the question is what the world looks like. How many nations and other things are left.

So; not good.

That really was my first thought when I saw the Northern lights above the storm, and I was right. Just didn't know how it would have affected me in a completely different direction than expected.

I had left my apartment in southern Sweden three days earlier, on a saturday morning on the Midsummer weekend, to do a hike over the Hardangervidda high plateau in Norway. I don't drink alcohol, so it was not a heavy weekend for me as for many others in Scandinavia, and I needed to use all the time I had so I got the most out of the vacation week I took.

It took a day to drive up to Odda and I spent the night in a cabin at a campsite. I spent the evening re-verifying all equipment was in good condition, packed, sync time and dates in cameras, including well-modified Mobius. I check that nothing important was forgotten and then just sleeped. Probably the last night in a bed for a week. I left the cabin early the next morning after breakfast, and not unexpectedly it rained lightly as I drove north. I parked the car in Tyssedal where I am supposed to walk down from Hardangervidda when the hike is over. I took my backpack, locked the car and zipped up the keys. While I was waiting for the bus, I took a selfie with the waterproof Nikon compact camera. As usual, my idea was to use the Nikon DSLR system camera during the hike as my primary photo equipment, but I always have to reckon with bad weather, rain, that the camera can stop working etc. So I bring my small waterproof Nikon compact camera too. I can also dive with it, but I don't plan on doing that up there. There will still be fields of snow and ice, and the water is really cold even at the end of summer.

I also has a small modded Mobius action camera with replaceable batteries and many 32GB memory cards so I can film a bit more than 3 hours, and then just change the battery, film another 3 hours and change the memory card and the next battery and so on. It's old but works well, and cheap enough to abuse. I have several. Tape it on a boonie hat, magnetic bracket on the car's roof or side or releasable cable ties on a branch or other uses. That's why this one got a sensor for the Nikon camera IR remote and also an input connector so it can be connect to a small cheap radar motion sensor to activate when something happens in its view area without draining the battery while waiting. Motion trigging doesn't work well outside, and draws much more current. I've added a tiny red laser pointer just to be able to get an idea of where the field of view is centered when the camera is on my head. It's so annoying to discover that the important thing is at the edge of the movie or its too off center when moving.

My cameras live a hard life. Thousands of pictures a year, and for me cameras are to be use to make lasting memories. But shit happens, and just the DSLR camera have been dropped in the mountains up in Andorra, and been in a not completely waterproof bag when I passed a river on the Hardangervidda once before and a large rock tilted. Rafting without a boat isn't fun, and surprise, surprise - DSLR cameras don't like it. Especially not when you can't even dry socks, clothes and shoes because it rains all day too. Or shutter blades jump of when you least want it and try to take photos in Hong Kong. So my DSLR camera tends to stop working on trips, sooner or later, and then I use the compact camera. Should the battery and extra battery run out, it will eventually be the mobile phone. Until I've charged batteries or fixed the problem.

Fixing something when sitting in a tent can be an interesting challenge, but I often doesn't have much else to do and can be worth it. On longer summer hikes, I also take a small solar panel with me because the sun barely sets. I just need to keep aiming it at the sun, so it's a bit dependant on walking direction.

I like backup plans and to just be able to continue with what I am doing. I like to have tools and options with me. How much do I like it? On a completely normal day, I wear cargo pants, often gray or other natural color in durable fabric. In the right pocket I have a Leatherman Wave multi-tool modded with better pliers with carbide cutters from a 'Rebar' model, together with the keychain. It was made before Leatherman made a Wave model with it. The keychain have a Leatherman Squirt PS4 mini tool too. In the keychain there is also a small and wonderful Pocketburner flashlight with high and low output, 128GB USB memory, as well as a fire starter with some starter paper and a button compass, and a GlowRing tritium rod and of course keys.

In the left pocket I have my mobile phone. Its a water protected model with replaceable battery and a 128GB memory card, as well as a Uniball ink pen and my wallet. The wallet contains a metal mirror in stainless steel, fresnel magnifying lens, Victorinox Swisscard which has several small tools, and in the coin compartment a couple of small dice (random number generator) and another 64GB USB memory with various computer fixing tools, and other useful programs. Overkill? Yes, but often I have use for everything, because the tools etc are good at different things, and I try to have better tools, but I always want to have something.

Apply the above on a hiking pack and it will not be light. Never light. Ultralight hiking isn't for me. But being prepared in combination with ingenuity and being innovative has saved the situation many times, with interesting stories and experiences in the end. With a good backpack and perseverance, it works for me and is worth it. But not fun when you need to climb a cliff, or just many altitude meters in one day at a higher altitude. The pace will be slow. But rather lower tempo during 14h with breaks and to be prepared, than high tempo during 8h.

It doesn't help that I take unnecessary things with me just because I want to do something different, and had the trip been planned to be a few days shorter and in more interesting terrain, a small quadcopter like Karearea Titi with compact RC control and Fatshark goggles would have been brought. I really had to stop myself from taking it with me, just to be able to do a 'dive' down Hårteigen or Trolltunga.

So I stand there with the camera on a small stand on a bench, waiting for its self timer to take a picture, and then I just wait for the bus. After a bus change I will arrive at Dyranut. Few people this early, and I am completely alone in the bus after the change as the bus makes its way over Hardangervidda. I take a new photo with the compact camera, a selfie over the shoulder of the empty bus and chat with the bus driver. Its always nice to talk to local people as long as you don't disturb them in their work. Its often them that start talking when they see a large backpack, because most Norwegians who go hiking have light small packs and go between larger cabins. Some carry only spare cloths, thin bedsheets and water, and buy food in the cabins and use the cabins cooking equipment and beds. Such a small and light pack makes it a pleasant hike.

But they get into problems if the weather changes or the cabins are full. Especially if it combines. I have several times heard how they warn people on the radio from taking advantage of the nice weather to go for a hike, because its full everywhere, and there are no beds or food for them.

But, what if you want to go outside the normal trails to areas where there are no cabins? Larger pack.

Norwegians are not alone in having problems in bad weather. I've encountered similar in Andorra and Scotland. I was passed by people in a t-shirt, shorts and baseball cap with just a small water bottle. Then over an hour the weather changed from sunshine to thunderstorms, high wind, cold and rain. I just put on the rain cover, poncho, boonie hat and kept going. Streams flowed along the paths and rain-soaked, slippery cliffs and rocks. Most who had previously passed at a high pace or jogged by stood and took shelter under trees or talked about going back to a cabin further up. I just kept going down and finished my hike. It continued to rain like hell the rest of the evening. Shoes soaked and feet sore after going through all that water for so many hours, but no real problems since I wasn't going to hike the next few days.

But in any case, I got off at Dyranut, and left a note at the reception with the name, planned itinerary and contact person, so that there is a witness I left from there and when. Before I left Sweden, I gave printed maps with planned route, probable sleeping places, which direction I will take if I abort the hike, etc. Left it to my parents and big sister, and I emailed them a copy too. It also says that I have an orange reflective vest, orange raincover for my backpack, Maglite LED flashlight with SOS flashing function, and a dual band VHF / UHF radio with all standard open channels programmed, including international marine emergency frequency 156.8MHz 25kHz FM. Backup plans. Stupid to not have it. Stupid to not let people know your plans and route. I kind of take it to the extreme as I have several compasses and I can orient myself according to the stars, the sun and signs in nature.

I send an SMS message to my parents that I am now leaving Dyranut and they will probably not hear from me before I come out in a week, and start walking. I get a reply a quarter of an hour later, so I put the phone in flight mode. There is no coverage where I will be. I will try yes, but don't count on coverage unless I go up a high ridge, and that's just unnecessary work.