Most people stay inside when the scale shows a lot of blue. Adventurer Gina Johansen does not. She aims to become the world’s fastest woman skiing to the South Pole in December. This week she sought out the freezing temperatures. – I knew they had reported severe cold. So then I decided to go and test the equipment and myself. On Tuesday, she left about a mile from Karasjok in Finnmark with skis on her legs. The temperature was then -35 degrees. Until Thursday evening it was -40 degrees, both night and day. When she woke up on Thursday morning, there was almost no more mercury to be seen on the thermometer. – I never thought the temperature would be -50 degrees. There was not much red color to be seen on the thermometer on Thursday morning. Photo: Gina Johansen The coldest day Thursday turned out to be a really cold day. In fact, the Meteorological Institute’s measuring station measured that it was -43.5 degrees in Kautokeino. It has not been this cold in Norway this millennium. – We have to go back to January 1999. Then it was -50.3 degrees in Kautokeino, says meteorologist Eirik Samuelsen to news. On Thursday, there was a 44.5 degree difference from Finnmarksvidda to the coast in Finnmark. – And what’s a bit funny is that Vest-Finnmark has both the highest and lowest rating in the whole of Norway. While the official measurement by the Meteorological Institute in Karasjok shows that it was -38.5 degrees at its coldest on Thursday, Johansen’s thermometer outside the tent wall showed -50 degrees. The frost smoke lay over the town of Kautokeino on the day the coldest temperature was reported. Photo: Jan Erik Steine / news Probably lying in a cold pit When the adventurer returned to Karasjok, she was so unsure whether her thermometer was correct that she had to compare it with a friend’s gauge. – I later heard that someone had experienced -47.6 degrees in Karasjok. So I must have been lying in a cold pit. She thinks she was lucky to be out on the coldest day of the millennium. – I was very lucky to be there that day, and that everything worked very well. There were really no major problems. The biggest challenge was getting the water to boil. At its coldest this was not possible. – It was an experience to take with you if you go on a trip like this again. In the morning, Johansen always had to start by brushing away the snow and frost inside the entire tent, before she could start the primus. Photo: Gina Johansen
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– Was very lucky – news Troms and Finnmark
