3 days in the 'wild'

I didn't have any lessons last week so with the kind help of Ragnar and Eivind I escaped civilization for 3 days in the hills. I borrowed a pulk and skiied around 9k on tracks to arrive at a free, clean and quietly empty cabin.




On the next day I got up early and attempted a ski ascent of the highest mountain nearby, Hermannsnasa, 1032m. I reached a height of 800m, spending the last 90 minutes navigating in a whiteout.

I then realised that coming down was going to be much harder then going up. How can you estimate distance travelled when skiing downhill in a whiteout, or follow a bearing? There must be techniques but I do not know them. Literaly 2 minutes after I turned around and started to ski back downhill the clouds started to lift and I could see shapes and horizons again.

Momentum carried me further downhill, quashing the voice that was encouraging another about turn, telling me to chase the clouds up the hill again. I skiied on, attempting telemark turns, following my ski tips to a frozen lake through pines and powder.

After some exquisite skiing through 2 inches of fresh powder on a hard base I got to the lake, made a seat and dug my sarnies out. Just in time to watch the summit of Hermannsnasa appear out of the clouds!


Throughout my return journey down the river back to the cabin the mountain summit remained cloud free and sunstruck, almost smug in its untouched state. However, the 2 peacefull hours of skiing down the frozen river back to the cabin made a superb consolation prize.


Overnight 2 inches of wet snow came down. The ski back to the road was an effort, until with a stroke of genius I chose a track that led to a higher elevation. You see, its colder higher up, therefore the snow will be dryer, much more pleasant to ski in. The snow condition definately improved whilst the visibility unquestionably deteriorated! More whiteout nav, amazing rime covered trees and back to the road at last, absolutely knackered!