LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka and FUGLENAES Fuglenes

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka

   Alta calls itself the northern lights town, and it has some right to the claim. The little town on the Alta fjord, about a degree and a half south of the North Cape, has some of the clearest, most dependable aurora in Norway, and visitors travel from across the world in winter to stand in the cold and wait. In summer, the same sky never gets dark, and the midnight sun lights the fjord and the hills for weeks. The nearest large settlement to this stop on the plateau, Alta has about twelve thousand people, and it is thirty-six kilometres away.

   Read the complete LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka is where the day begins. Next is LILLE-REIPAS Raipas.

2. 2. LILLE-REIPAS Raipas

   Some of the most important monuments in the world are very small. Lille-Reipas, on a hill above the town of Alta in far northern Norway, is one of them. It is one of the points of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of survey stations running from Hammerfest on the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, about 2,800 kilometres, that was used in the nineteenth century to measure the size and shape of the Earth. UNESCO listed the surviving points in 2005, and a simple marker is all that stands at most of them.

   Read the complete LILLE-REIPAS Raipas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   LILLE-REIPAS Raipas comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is FUGLENAES Fuglenes.

3. 3. FUGLENAES Fuglenes

   Fuglenes is the headland at Hammerfest where one of Europe's long scientific ideas comes to an end. In the early nineteenth century the astronomer Friedrich Struve ran a chain of survey points stretching from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean to measure the shape of the Earth, and the northern end of that chain is marked here by a stone monument. It is a modest column on a rocky point, but it carries a World Heritage listing, and the idea of someone carrying a triangulation across ten countries makes you look at the little stone differently.

   Read the complete FUGLENAES Fuglenes write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 184 km into the recorded legs you reach FUGLENAES Fuglenes. Next is back through LILLE-REIPAS Raipas.

4. 4. back through LILLE-REIPAS Raipas

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete LILLE-REIPAS Raipas write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through LILLE-REIPAS Raipas, late in the day. Next is LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka.

5. 5. LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at LOHDIZHJOKKI Luvdiidcohkka. That is the ride.