Day 3: Alta to Gargia | 65km

I woke up to the sound of rain pattering against the outer layer of the tent. It’s never a welcome sound, especially not when you know you’ll spend the entire day outside with few options for shelter or warmth. But my body, surprisingly, felt okay despite the 140km I’d covered the day before. So, I figured I’d put in another big push to move south as fast as I could.

I checked the map: it looked like I could cover at least 126km to Kautokeino, a small town with a few hotels where I might be able to dry off and warm up for the night. The elevation gain didn’t seem too brutal, but the first half of the day would involve a climb, followed by a nice downhill stretch into a tiny town called Masi.

20km into the ride, I hit the first big hill. It wound up a gravel road, snaking its way up a mountain. As the gradient steepened, I had to step off my bike and start pushing. A few warning bells started ringing in my head. The hill didn’t seem to end. I double-checked the map. Still on track. Up and up I went, the road narrowing until I hit a patch of snow. Shit. That’s when I should’ve turned back. But, like mountaineers nearing the summit, I had a case of summit fever. I kept checking the map, and by the looks of it, I was almost at the top. The road, though, had deteriorated into something barely recognizable, now a muddy, snow-covered trail that was nearly impossible to follow.

Had I been with someone else, we might’ve discussed turning back, opting for a paved detour. But I saw the faint tracks of another biker who’d been leading their bike through the snow. ”Maybe I’m close to the end of this,” I thought. ”Maybe the worst is over.” I was wrong. Very wrong. I’d reached the point where going back felt just as bad as pushing forward. I should’ve chosen the devil I knew, retracing my steps down the mountain, but I couldn’t have anticipated just how bad the road ahead would be. And by the time I did, it felt too late to turn back.

The road, now just a hiking trail, was wet, muddy, and in places, buried under snow that reached halfway up my thighs. Pushing a 40kg bike through snow deep enough to swallow half the tires was a different kind of struggle entirely. Yet, somehow, I kept going, often veering off-course to find patches with less snow, only to rejoin the trail further ahead. My feet were soaked, freezing, and fear was creeping in. Standing on top of this desolate mountain, with numb toes and miles to the nearest town, was not where I wanted to be.

The landscape grew more hostile with every step. The small streams I’d waded through earlier had swollen into rivers, and the ground felt spongy underfoot, saturated by melting snow. Even where the trail was visible, the earth was so waterlogged that every step felt like dragging my bike through quicksand.

After pushing my bike for over 30km, a low-intense panic set in. I told myself out loud that I needed to stop, set up camp, warm up before hypothermia set in or I did something even stupider out of desperation. I’d heard stories of people making reckless decisions when panic strikes in the wild, and I felt I’d already been an idiot for taking another step.

I scrambled to find a decent spot for my tent, but options were scarce. After a few hundred meters, I settled for a relatively flat patch on the trail itself. I dropped my bike, fumbled to get the tent up as fast as my numb hands would allow, and crawled inside. For two hours, I rubbed my feet until I could feel and move them again. At that point, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t lose any toes. (I’m obviously not a doctor, so who knows if that was actually true, but in the moment, it felt like a real risk.)

I ate the last of my chocolate bars for "nutrition" and layered on every piece of clothing I’d brought. My feet finally warmed up, which settled my nerves a little. I checked the map again and again: only 10 more kilometers to the main paved road. Surely, I thought, the road ahead can’t be as bad as what I’ve just been through. I let myself feel a flicker of optimism that maybe I’d escape this nightmare by morning.

But that was a challenge for the next day. First, I needed sleep. To clear my mind. To rest after one of, if not the most, physically grueling and spiritually terrifying days of my life.