Today is the day that has been on our lips for a month.  People of every race and creed along the way have asked us, ¨what is your plan?¨and we´ve consistently responded ¨well, baby, we´re not so good with plans.  We´re not the planning type.  Oh, but, we´re supposed to meet up with some people on July 4th in Paris.  Aside from that, devil may care.  You know how it is.¨  Well, we had one deadline in a whole month, and we missed it.  We´re not in Paris;  we´re in Sweden.  We´re on a train headed toward Paris, though, and we´re going to stay on trains headed toward Paris until we get there, which should be tomorrow.  

This is progress, because on July 2nd we were on a train headed far from Paris, to Narvik, Norway.  Narvik is the farthest North someone can travel using the Eurail Pass, and it is several hours of mountainous train travel above the arctic circle.  I think we were feeling pretty torn about choosing to head North while time was running out to keep our commitment to meet people in Paris, and it was all the more unsettling because we chose Narvik just by looking on a map, and just because of the little conceptual cookie we got out of using our Eurailpass to its utmost limits.  Luckily, it didn´t take long for Narvik or the surrounding region to prove itself worthy of our hopeful preconception of it.  We had been riding trains all day for 2 days straight, with no definite promise of reward, only the promise of definitely making ourselves late.  We saw snow-capped mountains on the horizon, which multiplied into a dozen or more peaks visible all around us, with haze and rainbows on the distant ones and waterfalls tumbling into blue lakes right outside our windows on the train.  The feeling that there was going to be reward for all our traveling and our decision not to turn back was very exciting.

I think it was 7:00 p.m. when we arrived in Narvik.  We toyed with the idea of heading further North on busses, because someone on the train had innocently mentioned that the Northernmost land-locked point on the planet, called Nordkap, was in Norway.  Whenever we hear about the anything-most anything, we start looking at each other askance and saying ¨hmm...did you hear that?...Northernmost on the planet?!"  It would have taken 2 more calendar days of bus travel to reach Nordkap, so we decided against it, although the decision should have been easier than it was.  We spent some time trying to figure out how we´d get there, hypothetically, if we were going.  We spent some time talking about it over dinner.  We spent some time farting around town, checking e-mail in a hotel lobby.  I can´t explain it, but we ended up sitting on the same curb in front of the same hotel for hours, well into the middle of the night.  Our only excuse would be that we certainly weren´t tipped off that it was nighttime by darkness of any sort.  

It was getting late, and I went walking ahead by myself to set up our tent, thinking about how to use our time in Narvik to feel less disappointed at being Northern, but not Northernmost.  I had already spoken up, at dinner, about finally allowing ourselves, for the first time in days, to appreciate where we were, instead of compulsively hopping from train to train.

So, what did we have to work with in Narvik?  There was a mountain near the center of town, tall enough to be a real mountain, but not so tall or cragged or scary-looking as some others nearby.  It wasn´t Everest;  it had a big radio or radar tower on top of it, and it had ski slopes stretching about 3/4 of the way up.  But it was there, and so were we, and it seemed like a good match-up for us.  We wanted to take a hike while we were here, we knew we couldn´t really stay long, because of our obligations in Paris.  So, suddenly, at 1:00 in the morning, i had a lan to sell the other guys.  I had a specific mountain in mind (that one, right there) and a specific time (now), and even an exit strategy (3:25 p.m. train out of town the next day).  Now all I have to do is convince everyone that climbing that mountain right now, in the middle of the night, makes sense, meets our goals, and pretty much ties up every loose end you can imagine.  Johnny was all for it, immediately.  Carl was half for it immediately, and that was enough for a majority.   Shane, although very tired, was all for it if it was what the group was deciding to do.

We started up the mountain on an overgrown ski slope at about 2:30 a.m.  It was a little hard to maintain the feeling of spontaneously sneaking up the mountain in the middle of the night with the sun beating down on us with all its Norwegian 3 a.m. fury.  When you climb a mountain, you soon realize there are no downhill, coasting portions.  It´s hard to train your mind not to look forward to anything easy for an indeterminate number of hours.  It was surprising to realize how often in normal life I´m just looking forward to the next downhill portion or the next bit of shade.  The ski slopes, which looked like grassy hillsides from the distance, were some of the toughest portions of the climb.  They were steep, but not steep enough to get your hands and arms involved to help.  They were overgrown with lots of menacing, angry, tangled grasses and other plants that you wouldn´t ordinarily stroll through purposely.  They were also furrowed and pitted and rugged.  Not having smooth or firm places to step started wearing on the knees early.  They seemed impossible to ski on without feet of snow piled on them, but I guess that´s the point, and it´s probably not a problem in Northern Norway.  Finally, the ski slopes were mosquito infested.  While you were walking, there was only the odd mosquito now and again, but if you dared to take a break, for a drink of water perhaps, you were thoroughly harassed and assaulted.  There was no glory in this part of the climb.  I´m not one to play mind games and pretend something doesn´t suck when it does.  This did, and I was well aware of the two reasons I was continuing--so as not to back down in front of the other guys, and in anticipation of the satisfaction of being done with it.

When we finished with the ski slopes, there was a brief portion where the vegetation got thicker and higher.  There were no trees, just man-sized bushes.  Then it got rockier, with mostly moss and low grasses.  None of these changes, or the increasing altitude, was the magic element that we could survive but mosquitos couldn´t.  I´d look ahead and think, ¨maybe mosquitos can´t live in moss as easily as they can in grass.  Just a few more steps...oh, I guess they can.¨ We reached patches of snow, and balled up handfuls of it, and there were still mosquitos around.  It made me wonder ¨why do you bloodsuckers have to be, like, the most successful insect ever?  What animal do you suck when we´re not here?  Why are there 4 million of you on an uninhabited mountainside?  Who are your natural predators, and how can I lend them my support, in cash, if necessary?¨

We finally climbed high enough to escape the mosquitos.  The wind got strong enough that they couldn´t hover over their targets.  This was a triumphant moment in our ascent, and right around this time the rocks were getting big enough to make proper triumphant perches.  For the first time we could look down on the town and bay far below without receiving a dozen simultaneous injections.  We were high enough now to scan over the distance we´d already climbed and feel some pride.  It made me feel confident that we were going to finish, and I think it was the first time I considered not taking the easiest route to the summit.  The path we´d traced up with our eyes from the base seemed a little boring now.  I had developed a taste for climbing, using hands and feet in conjunction, and an extreme distaste for walking uphill.

Johnny and I kept on pushing further ahead of Carl and Shane.  We´d pause, but we could never quite bring ourselves to wait for them to catch up entirely.  We had started going over or through a lot more intesting formations, instead of around.  At one point, we climbed over 15 or 20 feet of snow to get from rock to rock, and we did so by thrusting our hands and feet in to make holds.  That led us to a scenic resting point, with built-in rock chairs.  We took pictures, and waited there for Shane, aspiring to be immortalized on video-tape as we attempted the next phase.  

Beside our resting place was a steep face with large rocks jutting out on either side that looked like sturdy handholds.  This was the way I´d planned to push on when I climbed over snow to get here--I thought it would look impressive without being really difficult or dangerous.  Shane and Carl weren´t coming, though.  They had taken a different route, so Johnny and I decided to climb away.  I went first, and mentioned that it might not be a good idea to climb right behind me, since we´d been warned earlier by a townsman about loose rocks.  Moments later, one of the two sturdy handholds I was supporting myself with came abruptly loose and went crashing, kicking up dust, past Johnny, who was wisely off to my right instead of below me.  This was pretty scary, because this was a rock I would have nearly bet my life on.  I´d tested it with a few good tugs, and I didn´t expect to see all 50 lbs of it skipping briskly to a much lower resting place.  It was scary as well because I was left with only one handhold that I was indeed betting my life on, and I had intially had no greater faith in the one I had left than in the one that had suddenly failed me.  The way up didn´t seem as clear to me anymore, absent one main rock to grab, and I believe the only way down was like a rolling stone.  I froze, and didn´t really know for a minute if any moment would be safe.  I didn´t reach panic state, but I suddenly understood how that could happen.  If I ran through my options of what to do and couldn´t find anything with a good chance of keeping me safe, I´m not sure what I would have done.  Fortunately, as I clung there, not moving a muscle and carefully thinking through which muscle I would move, and where to, and when, and how, I saw a way out.  I climbed up so very cautiously and precisely and I passionately embraced solid, level ground when I reached it.  Johnny came up the same way, against my advice, but without repeating my experience.  He kind of made it look easy, but that´s okay.

We all reached the top of the mountain, and each celebrated in his own way.  I climbed partway up the radio tower, just to ice the cake.  Johnny took a nap.  Carl took pictures.  Shane peed.