4 DAY SOLO WINTER CAMPING AND WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY - off grid adventure behind the scenes in Norway

This is amazing. I have musk oxen in front of me and I have musk oxen in the background. It's so beautiful. But it wasn't easy to get here. I've spent three days hiking around this area looking for the musk oxen and now I found them in less than one hour. I've been here for a few hours now and I have to leave in a few hours so I have less than half a day with these. But yeah, it's too long a story to talk about everything that went on before I'm right here. But let's try to rewind time a little bit. So finally it's time to get the tent up. I have like half an hour before it's getting dark. The reason why I had my tent in this long bag instead of a normal pack that you get it in when you buy it is because it's much faster when I'm with pulk to get up this way. See, these ones are gathered with gaffer tape and that means that they will not go apart. And I have sewn them to this end. That means that they don't come out. They don't like go out when they're in the bag. So that means for now I can basically just join the poles two places each and then I can take the tent out and get it up. And that means that if I'm not filming and talking to you from I decide to get my camp up till the tent is there, the sleeping bag is in and the mattress is up and I'm actually sheltered, it's less than 10 minutes. So that's quite nice. So yeah, let's get it up. It's so nice to be back here in the snow-covered mountains in Norway. I love Dovrefjell. I think I've come here every year the last probably three years. This time it's not only to photograph the musk oxen or whatever wildlife I might be lucky to find, but it's also to test my equipment and all my gear for my upcoming expedition to Ellesmere Island. I've been hiking around quite a lot now without seeing any wildlife, but it doesn't really matter. I just really like being here. And that's maybe also the beauty of wildlife photography that nature is always unpredictable. Even though I might not see anything on the entire trip, I'll never go home disappointed. Just being here in the tent and just looking forward to another beautiful day here at Dovrefjell in Norway. I've been skiing for about an hour now and the weather has changed totally. Look at this. Huge snowflakes are coming down now. There's almost no wind, but it also means that there is no visibility. I can't see anything. So I really don't know what to do now. I did see some musk oxen up on the mountain over there, but I kind of wanted to get further in towards Snøhetta. Ah, I don't know. I can't see any musk oxen in this weather, so I'll just risk to pass them. So what I'm going to do is probably to wait for like a little bit without getting too cold and just to see if the snow will give me a little break. And then I'll try to see if I can find some oxen, a ptarmigan, like whatever, a fox, something, or just photograph the landscapes. Now I kind of regret that I didn't go to the location where I used to go when I'm here in Dovrefjell, because I know there are probably musk oxen down there. But if you don't dare, you will never get anything else. So I dare to go further in towards Snøhetta and I'm gambling, because I might just go a lot of kilometers without any photos. But then again, yesterday was so crazy. I decided to spend the whole day on going from the area a little further down up to the area near the mountain called Snøhetta, because I could see up there the mountains were covered in snow, everything was white, and I thought like finding musk oxen, ptarmigans, something in that area would be so beautiful. The problem was that I spent the whole day on getting up there, and when I finally got there, there were no animals at all. And seeing the newly updated weather forecast with up to 20 meters per second, like a storm going on in the area, just made me decide to actually go back again. But at that time it was so close to being dark and the storm was already picking up. It was so windy I almost couldn't get the tent up. Of course I got it up, but yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, what a night. About three o'clock in the night it actually relaxed a little again, and I got a good sleep until like seven or eight. And now I have a new challenge. I spent three days here. This is my day number four, and I haven't seen... Wait. No, this is my day number three, and today is my last day. I just have tomorrow morning also, but I haven't made one single photo of an animal yet, because I've basically been skiing with the pulk to find good areas. So yeah, the challenge is now what do I do, because I have my tent here. I would like to keep the tent here so that I could dry some of my clothes and stuff, but at the same time I would like to go a little further down, because I think the chances for musk oxen are better down there. So yeah, with only a day left and no pictures, I need this coffee to clear my mind. Just one. I need to make a decision, but yeah. But the weather is awesome. The sun is shining. It's beautiful. Definitely nothing to complain about. So yeah. This is almost too good to be true. Less than 50 meters from me, there was a tarmac flying up, but it landed again, and I was on my way up to this little mountain here to see if I could. I'm desperate to find some wildlife, but now I'm trying to get my 600 up and see if I can get the first photo on this trip. It's so warm, because I've been walking and walking uphill with a heavy pulk. Anyway, let's just see. Let's see my first on this trip tarmac. It's standing behind the stone. I want to see if I can get it at a little different angle. This is just amazing. About 20 meters in front of me, I have the little tarmac sitting there. Now he was looking up, because I was talking, and now you don't have to. Now I'm using the mirrorless Nikon Z6 with the silent shutter, so now you don't have the clicking sound anymore, but I am making good photos now, I think. Of course, the light is hard, but after three days here without anything, I'm not complaining. This beautiful moment. Oh, I wish I could show you, maybe on the screen. Wait a second. Oh, I can't see anything. What a moment, what a moment, and what a scenery. Look at this. I'm tempted to spend the entire day right here, but I'm also curious to see if I can see the musk oxen. I'm going to photograph this beautiful tarmac for a little while at least. No rush. So, I just spent quite a lot of time here with the tarmac, and as you can see, it's getting cloudy. Beautiful though, but I need to get up there to see if I can be lucky, push my luck and find the musk ox. But even though now I got pictures on this one of the ptarmigan, and I'm really, really happy for that. So, even though I have to go home tomorrow without any more, I'm happy. The ptarmigan is still sitting over there, you can see it on this one, between the rocks. So, once again, I managed to get the photos without scaring the little guy away. So, I'm so happy I didn't push him when he went flying. I'm here, a little mountain. This is where I photographed musk oxen before, and I hope I'll find them up there. I'm tempted just to go now and put up the tent afterwards, but then again, if I find the musk oxen, I really want to push it to the limit with the light. That means that I have to go down here with the pulk or set up the tent around here when it's dark, and I don't want to do that. So, I can set the tent up and make everything ready in less than 15 minutes. That's what I'm about to do. Plus, I'm going to hang up my solar panel to charge some batteries, just to use the last sun for that. So, yeah, let's hope there are musk oxen up there. I'm now at the top of the mountain. Look at this. Look at this. Isn't it just extremely beautiful? There are my skis, and I've actually seen the musk oxen, and I'm so happy, but the problem is, I cannot get down there. Not now, because it will take me at least 20 minutes to get down there, and much more to get up again, but look at this. Look at this. I don't know if you can see them on this little camera, but here they are down there. Do you see? So, yeah, I did find them, and it's torture. It's basically torture not to be able to get down there and photograph them now. I've been walking around, walking around for like, this is my third day, and I only have tomorrow, and if I don't manage to find them tomorrow again, yeah, I'll not get them. But the sun has already set, and it's too dangerous to start to walk down there. Look at this terrain. It's not for fun, especially not in the dark. It's quiet, but I think tomorrow I might go down this slope, and I hope that will lead me all the way down to Oh, this is awesome. Frost, snow, skis, a book. Look at that. I mean, what more could I wish for? And if I find the muskoxen, here we are. I'm just excited to see if I can see the muskoxen. Here they are down there. Now it's just about to get changed and get down there. So, yeah, here I am with this beautiful muskoxen, surrounded by snow on winter, but yeah, let me just show you some photos of them and some video, and then see you out there.