Turning 50 seems to inspire people in ways that reveal a lot about who they are. As I get older, I feel like I understand myself and what matters to me a little more each year. It’s friends and family and investing in the depth and quality of those relationships. It’s having a calm, clear mind and a strong body. It’s being outside in nature. It’s doing hard things. It’s being engaged in meaningful work and community service. I am immensely grateful as I pass the half century mark to be content in my own skin, to genuinely appreciate my life, and to have much to look forward to. And yet, something inside me keeps wanting to push for the next big adventure.

Which explains how, a year ago, I fell in love with the idea of an epic cross country ski tour across Scandinavia, from Finland’s border with Russia to the North Sea in Norway, over 800 kilometers through the Arctic.

It felt perfect, with one small exception. There are two very distinct styles of cross country skiing: classic and skate. And while I am an experienced skate skier, this is an entirely classic and fairly rugged ski tour on “sometimes not so good track,” (in the words of Simo, the event organizer). 

You know someone is a good friend when you call them to suggest they join this kind of adventure and they don’t hesitate. That’s Jim Harkness. Jim is not just an extraordinary cross country skier, he is a thoroughly dependable and good to the core person who I knew would be a great teacher and training partner and not let me get eaten by wolves or trampled by wild reindeer. So here we are, on an overnight Finnish train heading north from Helsinki to Kemijärvi, where we will get a shuttle bus across the Arctic Circle to Salla and begin our trek. We have both trained hard, with countless hours spent on ski erg machines, running on trails with ski poles (and getting odd looks), dealing with injuries and skiing as much as possible. We will be joined by a few guides and around 35 other skiers from across northern Europe and the US. I am excited and nervous.