5 day ski tour

The last week was spent travelling by ski across the border from Sweden to Norway. The weather gave us real value for our money, with heavy snow, strong winds, brilliant sunshine, zero visibility and 2 days of warm rain. I think all who went enjoyed the trip but the last day was a suffer fest and we were all very glad to get back to Levanger. Dry clothes, hot showers, cold beer. Ahhh..

Day one...



Day two...






Day three...



Day four...and five..
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Dombas 16th to 20th March

1 ski school, 2 instructors, 5 student assistants and 60 kids. And 1 overworked ping pong table.

The Trolltun hostel is located in Dombas in the Dovrefjell region of Norway. In the winter it provides 5 day ski based mountain activity courses for school kids. I went with 4 classmates to help out for a week and really had an awesome time, spending the days out on cross country skis, touring, digging snowholes and soaking up the sunshine. On two evenings the ski centre next door switched on its floodlights and t-bar and we 'ripped up the slopes' on telemark skis!!!.

The credit for the following pictures belongs to Erik. The 'stuntman' is yours truly...

An eventful week

The last 10 days have been interesting to say the least.

The aim of last week was for the friluftsliv class to spend 3 days ski-touring, over nighting in snow holes. The chosen site for the snow holes was a steep sided stream bed, with a lee slope and a windward slope. My group of four chose to dig our hole on the windward slope which also caught the sun for most of the day. The rest of the class decided to dig into the lee slope where there was deeper snow. The spot was fairly sheltered from a constant 25 mph wind

Around 3pm the next day the lee slope avalanched partially filling the 3 holes that had been dug there. Luckily nobody was hurt despite 1 girl being carried a short distance and fully buried in the slide and 3 or 4 others who were covered to their waists. After digging out all the buried sleeping bags, cooking kit and clothing we binned the trip and headed back to Levanger. It seems the moral of the story is not to dig your planned snow hole into a lee slope that is being loaded by wind transported snow, spend some time finding a safer location instead.

As a result of some snafu’d communication I have just had a week without lectures instead of joining classmates at a ski school in Dombas. All is not lost as I can join another group of students next week. Instead I have been giving blood in spectacular fashion.

On Thursday whilst top-roping a steep and thin ice pillar with Gudmund I got hit in the face by a large chunk of ice. I had swung my right axe into the top of a bulge and was watching it to see the quality of the placement as you do. A chunk of ice literally exploded out of the bulge and caught me just under my nose. I spluttered with surprise and shock and liberally coated the ice in front of me with blood. My mouth had become an air brush, loaded with bright red paint. I assumed that I only had a nose bleed, so sprayed my way up the rest of the pillar and set up another top rope over another route. Gudmund climbed this while I belayed with a wad of snow stuffed into my nose. Rest, Snow, Compress, Elevate.

When we got back to the car my face was still dyeing chunks of snow a bright red. So I had a look in the mirror and decided a trip to the hospital was probably a good idea. 2 stitches later I was set free to wander home, feeling like I had been facing Amir Khan for 5 rounds.

Warm days and cold nights are a recipe for disaster if you travel by bike. The route to join friends for dessert, whiskey and cards went via a steepish downhill. An icy steepish downhill. As the back wheel slid away from under me I knew I was going too fast to get a foot down and a trip down the road on my backside was inevitable. And painful. No stitches this time, but I will need to take the bits of road out of my arm soon and put them back before the council complains. My heartfelt thanks to Gudmund and Kirsten for helping me plug holes in my body twice in 2 days and especially for the effective top quality liquid analgesics, matured for 10 years in oak casks in a misty land far away.

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!

For you Chris, blue skies and snow!

Today the Friluftsliv class went off piste! We headed up to the local hills and set off between the pines through acres of fluffy white powder. The sky was blue, the snow deep and endless and, well, it was awesome. We headed off around the side of a hill, steadily climbing all the while.





This is pretty hard work for a novice and I was soon stripped down to a thermal and fleece. When Eivind, the lecturer, asked me if I was cold I looked at him in astonishment. Couldn't he see the snow melting in a large circle around me as I pumped out the equivalent heat of a small power station?


Lunch was taken at the civilised time of 12.00 in a sheltered spot. I learnt a few more words for sky, clouds and sun and persuaded Tone to give me some wood. We headed back via the top of the hill we had been circling, which meant a long and scary traverse across hard snow/ice before a wonderful descent through knee deep powder. This skiing lark is alright!

Catching Up

I have been so busy lately that I seem to have had no time to blog! this is a good thing as being busy invloves things like Telemark skiing and ice climbing!


So whats been happening? Last week the class and I spent 3 days at a small ski resort called Meraker. We were learning to Telemark, which has to be the technique of the Gods. When it works it feels like you are gliding through silk and the feeling of flow as you shift weight from one foot to another is immensly satisfying. Then you return to earth with a bump as you deck it and get a face full of snow.

I was so busy concentrating on learning the technique that I didn't take any pics of the slopes. Here are a few taken in the cabin we shared.
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At the weekend the weather was pretty crap, heavy snow and strong wind, and I was fairly shattered from skiing. So when Gudmund suggested a leisurely afternoon of pulling on plastic in Trondheim I accepted. After 3 hours of sending problems that included a swinging start from hanging rings, a 2 feet upside down hang, a 5 foot dyno and various other kooky tricky problems I was properly knackered. So we returned to Gudmund's with the idea of watching a 'classic' film by Jim Jarmusch, Down By Law, and having an early end to the day. At 1.30 in the morning after many beers, some whisky and a 'few' hands of Vingt-et-un I staggered home and slept like a log.
This is an odd pic I took inside the wall. I'm not sure what settings I had fiddled with, or if the marks are dust specks, dirt on the lens or ghosts. A few others pics I have taken also have these marks, but never in the same places. Weird!
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The 2 feet upside down hang.