The Project
The goal is to achieve the world’s largest “orienteering race” by connecting the southern end of Norway, at its northerly end essentially in orientation on 3000km. We will travel about 30km walk a day almost completely off-trail in the Landes, the Norwegian fjords and forests. This crossing will be realized in semi-autonomy, over more than 100 days with a map, a compass and a backpack of about 10kg.
Scandinavian countries, Norway offers a unique and wild nature with 47 national parks. It contains sublime mountainous landscapes, dark moist forests, and majestic fjords along the west coast. The climate is globally temperate, including thanks to Gulf Stream. Nevertheless, inside the land, climatic conditions are sometimes rough and cold even during the summer. It rains on average 15 days a month during the summer and snow can be found until July in some areas of altitudes.
More than 3000km separate Lindesnes Fyr and Cape North, the two southern and northern ends of Norway. We will connect them on a hundred days, passing through emblematic places.
The route is not defined in advance, the goal is to make our own choice of routes based on a card background at 1/20000. Relief, rocks, vegetation, streams, marshes, cliffs and trails will be our main elements on the map and on the ground to move compass in hand.
Every day we go about 30km and 1000m from off-road altitude with the constant possibility of adapting and changing routes. We want to benefit from total freedom of orientation and travel. We will evolve in low-frequented areas, in the midst of Trondheim wet forests, Hardangervidda mountainous trays, Trolltunga fjords, or in Finnmark’s tundra. We will cross large national parks in accordance with regulations, fauna and local flora. The summer months are the most suitable to cross Norway, we will begin during the month of June 2022 for a return scheduled for September 2022.
The goal is also to make this crossing in semi-autonomy, with a refueling point every week. We will leave with the minimum of equipment in order to lighten the bag as much as possible: clothes, a tent, a sleeping bag, a first aid kit, a stock of food for about a week and some equipment for filming. We will spend every 4 to 6 days in town to collect food packages that we will have prepared with our sister who will follow us during the 3 months of adventure. Every evening, we will organize our bivouac in a tent or an unguarded cabin.
In Scandinavian and military origin in the late nineteenth century, the first orienteering competitions emerge in 1893. It was in 1961 that was created the International Federation (IOF) and a few years later the French federation ( FFCO – 1970). Today in France, there are more than 9000 licensees and 200 clubs.
Orientation is a complex discipline when practiced without technological tools or GPS. By moving with maps, it is necessary to control a number of technical elements and to apply a methodology.
With a scale at 1/20,000 and an equidistance of 5m, the cards we will use are of great precision. Available on the site mapant.no, this type of card in IOF format have been fully mapped to Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging). We will print on a double-sided A3 format.
There are several types of compasses. All have a common point, the northern needle, which indicates the magnetic north.
The magnetic north is a point in perpetual movement under the influence of the earth’s magnetic field. It should not be confused with the geographical north which represents the northern point of the Earth. This is the intersection point of all meridians. The mapping is established with the geographical north as a reference while our compasses are oriented with the magnetic north. This is the origin of the biggest difficulty we will encounter: the magnetic declination. Its value increases when the latitude rises. In France, the magnetic declination is 1 ° while in Cape Nord, it will be 13.3 °.
This trip is a real jump in the unknown, because we have never made a challenge of this scope. To reach our goal, we will have to prepare us physically and mentally, to better cash fatigue and exhaustion.
We have made itineraries on foot, on skis or by bike during the year 2021 and 2022 to refine our preparation and test the equipment with a crossing of the Jura and the Auvergne Volcanoes. To maintain a good level of form, we put a lot of rigor in our training with daily sessions. Our training volume represents more than 10 hours per week with a lot of variety (intensity sessions, long outings, cross-country skiing, orientation, cycling, etc.). You can follow our preparation on social networks or on our Strava accounts (link below).
We launched a crowdfunding campaign, you will find all the information on the link below!
A big thank you to all those who support us and help us in its realization.
