Awoke from a zombie dream (curse the film "28 days later") to the sound of rain and a very grey sky..... hmmm the planned skating trip might need to be abandoned. But we stuck to the plan and off we drove, to Vällen, a nice long lake about 30 km east of Uppsala. Vällen is a long lake, cut in two parts by the road to the coast. The north lake is about 12 km long, and the southern lake about 8km long. The great thing about skating on a long lake such as this, is that you get the impression you are going somewhere, rather than the feeling of going around and around in circles, like you do on smaller lakes.

There were a few cars there when we arrived, and traversing the ice covered car park almost required crampons. There were a couple of guys there with ice yatchs on the roof of their cars, trying to work out which lake was best. We took a few pokes at the ice, and off we went on the northern lake. Patches of frozen snow made some interesting patterns, otherwise the ice was great, clear and pretty thick. The only dissadvantage was the water on the ice, from the morning rain.

We met a few people on the ice on way up, and took a fika (coffee break) when we arrived at the northern end. Then it was heading back south, as the skies cleared. Finally the sun cast aside its security blanket of clouds, and stepped into the lime light. The unfortunate side affect of this pleasant experience is that the ice gets softer, but we still maintained a good speed.

We arrived back at the car park, and i popped off to look at the ice yatchs on the southern lake, although the wind had dropped, so now they weren't really doing a lot. A quick chat to the guys there, and then we were off home to Uppsala.

Check out the pictures below from the trip, and enjoy.

Cheers

Al

Patterns in the ice/snow	Happy people	Self Portrait on the move
Water on the ice	Clearing skies	On the move
P.S Krøyer?	Emma	Patrik
Nice day	You know who	Ice yatchs