Lillehammer ski trip
–          21-02-15/27-02-15

Saturday
–          21-02-15

The alarm goes off at 5:45 in the morning. We take our last shower for this week, boil water for our thermoses and have breakfast. We walk to the train which leaves at 7:53. The train looks very luxurious to me, big soft chairs a lot of space for the legs, a table for your belongings and special closets for ski’s and luggage. We were able to choose our chairs on the internet and sit together on our chosen chair numbers. We arrive in Oslo at 12:25 and we move to the next train. This train is less fancy, still there is a lot of space to move around and they have special storage space for ski’s and luggage. We arrive in Lillehammer at 15:30.

 

We start with looking for the DNT shop in the city. After asking some people we find the DNT shop. The owner of the shop turns out to be a Dutch men who moved to Norway 9 years ago. The man is exited to help us and give us information about the weather, snow conditions, routes and we buy the map for our trip. He said it would snow with heavy wind on Sunday night, the temperature will drop, the routes are now covered with a layer of ice. We explain our whole trip and he recommended to spend our first night at Krokbua, there is a shelter and wood for a fire.  We thank the man and he wishes us good luck.

We walk out of the city area and are on ski’s at 16:00. We follow the løpe to the hut. Skiing with a backpack is a bit harden then skiing without. I’m a bit afraid to go downhill because it goes so much faster with weight on my back. The weather is nice today, it’s a bit to warm, the ski tracks are like ice. We putted wax on the ski’s, but it’s not working. A women who crosses us speaks to us and tell us there are two elge’s standing on the løpe and if we are quiet we might see them. We continue quiet and after a while I see one between the threes. We take off our backpacks and ski’s and walk to them over the løpe. They walk out of the forest on the lope right in front of us, they are less than 20m away.We are speechless and are impressed by these big animals, I think they are bigger than most horses I’ve seen. They come closer to us and stand still. They look at us and we look at them. They don’t look afraid of us, one starts to eat from the three and walk in the forest again, the other comes closer to us. Something scared him end he kind of run 5 meters away. The way he runs looks very clumsy and we all have to laugh. He walks to us again and keeps staring at us. After taking pictures, laugh and talk about this amazing animal we go back to our stuff, it’s getting dark and cold.

We arrive at Krokbua at 18:20. There is a fire place and wood like the man of the DNT told us. Adele makes her first fire in the wild and Miriam give her some help. I heat up my pasta from yesterday on the fire, Adele and Miriam decide to eat it cold. We talk about our first day and are delighted. We sleep tonight in the shelter they call it a ‘gaphut’ in Norway. It’s 20:40 Miriam and Adele are already in their beds. I’m drinking my last cup of tea and go to bed as well.

 

Sunday
–          22-02-15

I was watching the stars tonight while I tried to sleep. There’s  nothing that makes me more relaxed than watching the stars when I go to sleep. I woke up from Adele and Miriam talking, it turned out that Adele was cold. I came closer to her to sleep at her side to increase heat. In the morning I heard Miriam was also cold during the night. I only had a cold shoulder because I like to sleep on my side and not on my back. The temperature must have dropped to at least -5°C during the night. It took us a long time to cook water, we didn’t sleep with the gas can and now it doesn’t work. We tried to make fire but didn’t work that well, the wood was to wet. After several tries Miriam managed to light the fire.Miriam was a bit frustrated in the morning because things didn’t work out that well (sleeping, gas fire). I added some cold water to the almost warm water and this was for Miriam too much for this morning. We talked about it and I said sorry for adding cold water, next time I will first ask. We talk about our trip today and we agree to stay on the Lope and head to Nordsetter instead of first going to Sjøsætra.

 

After a rough morning we start skiing at 12:00. We ski over Ingalami løpe to the dam of lake Mesnaga. It was snowing ice this morning, now the sun is shining. We used the blue/purple wax today. Unfortunately the wax is working to well for me, I have troubles with gliding and going downhill. Because most of the route is uphill I’m glad the wax is a bit too much, I can walk uphill without bone haring or zigzagging. I taped my heels to prevent blisters, but it starts to hurt. We are almost at our camping spot so I leave it like this for now. On the last part of the route I fall down twice. The first doesn’t hurt that much, I fell on my butt, but I can’t stand up and glide down the path. The next fall is less comfortable I fall forwards and the backpack makes me fall with my forehead on the track. I take off my ski’s and walk the downhill part. The falling part makes me a bit insecure about my skiing skills for this trip. We arrive on a beautiful open area and the sun is making the landscape looking like a fairy-tale.

It’s nearly 16:00 and we decide to put up our tent after we crossed the open area. In the open area is a river and we check if the water is reachable. It takes less time to cook the cold water than melting snow. Unfortunately the river is total frozen and covered with snow. We walk between the threes and search for some threes who cover enough shelter for the wind tonight (According to the man this will be the windy and snowy night). We dig out a big hole in the snow to put up our tent. We dig the hole as extra shelter and heath reflection. After putting up the tent we make up our beds and I cook in the door opening of the tent. First I have to find out how the cooker works, Miriam gives me some instructions and I manage to cook. Adele and Miriam are complaining and say they don’t understand how people can have fun by camping in winter. I think it’s fun and it’s a challenge for myself and the landscape looks so pretty covered with snow. This is how I think about it at the moment and we’ve only had good weather, so I might not be too optimistic. We eat Lentils with carrot and potato. It taste delicious even though the potato had to cook longer. Before sleeping Adele and Miriam go out for a run to get warm. I’m warm, I’m wearing all my clothes except my woollen long underwear-trouser. Only my feet are cold and wet. I take care of my feet and put dry socks on. I put the shoes in a plastic bag and drop them in my sleeping bag. Miriam and Adele are already trying to sleep, I’m writing my traveldiary. It’s 20:30 now and I will also try to sleep.

Monday
–          23-02-15

I couldn’t sleep so well because my feet where cold, this came because of the ice cold and wet shoes in my sleeping bag. I put on my woollen long underwear during the night and putted my fleece around my feet. I woke up at 4:30 because of the wind and snow, hitting the tent. I fall asleep again and wake up at 8:00, we go out of bed at 9:00. We make breakfast with our last reserves of water. This night we slept with a gas can in our sleeping bag. I tape my heels again and we pack our gear. It’s snowing and its windy. We start skiing at 11:00. We arrive in Nordsetter at 12:20 and take a break in a café. We give the carrots and potato’s away to someone who’s working at the café. We drink hot chocolate with bread. For me a healthy sandwich for the girls a cinamonroll. We write our diary’s, dry our clothes and fresh up a bit at the toilet. We fill our bottles and canteens with hot water. We discuss our trip and decide to buy wood for the hut at the top of the Nevelfjell. We can’t buy a few pieces so we have a big bag of wood. We all put 3 pieces of wood in our bags. It turns out that I do have blisters on my heels. The prevention didn’t work the shoes are a bit too big. I buy kotex to put on my heels, this makes my foot fit better in the shoe and makes a nice bandage on the blisters. The boy of the café didn’t had trust in us and said we would come back after a few hours.

We leave the café at 14:00 to the top of the Nevelfjell. It’s still snowing and it’s windy. We follow the løpe and use our compass to cross the country up to the top. We zigzag to go uphill. We are above the timber line now and there is a heavy wind up here. Its foggy and a bit snowing. It’s hard to ski here, between the soft snow is ice, on the ice we have no adhesion and glide away very easy. One of Adeles ski’s came loose and is gliding down, luckily it’s heding to a small three and stops 5 meters below her, Miriam was near it and brought it to her.  Miriam want to follow the old skitracks of other skiers I follow the compass. Talking to each other is almost impossible and we have to stay close to each other. We cannot see more than 5 meters ahead. The ski tracks go everywhere and Miriam is okey with following the compass. We go uphill a bit more and I see the hut.

Found it! We are so happy, we are totally covered with a layer of ice and we all started to get a bit cold, so it was time to find the hut, otherwise we had to go down. We shovel the snow away from the door and settle down in the hut. The hut has three benches and a small oven. There is no wood in the hut, so it was a good decision to bring wood up here. We try to light the fire, I’m the one who finds out how the stove works, air flow is from the top, the flames start to grow by closing the door. After being in the hut for a while Adele tells she’s still cold and I’m a bit worried. We do a dance in the middle of the hut together to get warm. Adele’s sleepingbag is wet, not just wet from damp but really wet. Luckily we can dry it in front of the stove. We eat curry rice made with coconut milk and broccoli tonight and it smells really good. we have a delicious meal and have enough for a second dish. We hanged out all our wet stuff in front of the stove and it makes the hut very cosy. Adele brought a candle with her what makes the atmosphere even more cosy. We called the red cross to ask if they bring wood up here tomorrow, the man tells me that he don’t know and doesn’t think so. This means we only have enough wood for one day up here and might have to go back tomorrow. We read in an article that the hut is provided with wood, unluckily not today. We drink tea of melted snow and we all are in a good mood. We go to bed, no idea what time it was.

 

Tuesday
–          24-02-15

We all had a good night of sleep and we wake up at 8:00. I eat the leftovers of the rice of yesterday for breakfast. It’s still windy and very foggy outside. Which makes sense because Nevelfjell means foggy mountain. We decide to change our plans. Miriam don’t want to sleep in a tent for two nights so we decide to stay in the hut today, and have a day off. We will go to Nordsetter tomorrow, take a break at the café and ski to Lillehammer in two days, sleep one night in the tent and if possible sleep at Krokbua again. We call the café to tell that we will not pick up the wood today and they don’t have to worry about us. Our stay is comfortable, we melt snow, drink tea and hot chocolate, sleep most of the day.  We cook dinner in the evening and burn our last pieces of wood. We have couscous with carrot and potato today.  I watched the clock at 21:00 for the last time and fall asleep.

 

Wednesday
–          25-04-15

We wake up round 8:00 and prepare to continue our trip. We have breakfast and leave the hut at 9:00. Weather conditions are a bit better today, still foggy and windy, but less. We wear our goggles today. We go down carefully. We set our compasses on 90°. The course we take is between two walking paths and it doesn’t matter if we go more to the right or the left because we will end up at the løpe. We are between the threes again and the snow is like powder. Falling isn’t scary here, when you fall you fall in the soft snow. We have fun by going downhill. We see the markers of the walking path at the left side of us. Before we know we hit the løpe. This was quicker than expected. It took us one hour to go down to the løpe. We are all skiing with a big smile on our face. A man ask us in Norwegian if we slept in a tent and we answer ‘Ja!’ He respond “So bra!”.  We arrive at the café at 10:45. The boy who had no trust in us called us hardcore survivors. We fill up our bottles and leave the café at 12:00.

 

The route is downhill, but not too steep. We scrape the wax off our ski’s because its only downhill. We have fun and talk about our experience. We take a view brakes to take of clothes, to drink, to pee, and to eat. During one of our breaks Miriam loses a ski and it’s going down the løpe. We can’t stop laughing. A passenger pics the ski up and brings it to us. We arrive at the Lillehammer skistadium at 15:30. There are so many routes around it, and probably not all of them are on our map and we take the wrong løpe and end up in the middle of the stadium. People help us with finding the right løpe and we make it to Krokbua. We arrive at 16:30 and start building fire and put up the tent next to the DNT hut.The wood is still wet and it takes a lot of energy to keep the fire going but we manage to make a nice fire on the fire place. I collected some oldmans beard from the threes and dried it to use as tinder, this stuff is working better than tampons. We have our last evening meal tonight. We cook it next to the fire. We have smashed potato with dried onion. It taste delicious but doesn’t fill so well. We dry all our stuff around the fire and enjoy our last night outdoors. It turns out that Miriam is the only one with good shoes, they fit well and het feet are dry. We go to bed at 20:30.

 

Thursday
–          26-02-15

We had a good night in the tent. We woke up at 8:30, packed all our stuff, made fire, had breakfast. We leave Krokbua at 10:00. We take the løpe back to the Lillehammer stadium. The tracks here are very steep with sharp turns. I don’t really like the route. Miriam and Adele want to visit the skijump and I follow them. Finding the right route is a hard job here, we are in the stadium and see people train for the biathlon. We ski on their practice tracks and they pass us by. I don’t really feel comfortable here. Some of the steep hills I take of my ski’s and walk. Adele and Miriam have no problems with the hills and turns. We arrive at the skijump at 11:00. We take a look at it, but it’s closed. We have a nice view over Lillehammer from this place. We go back to the stadium and take the løpe to Lillehammer. The whole route is steep downhill with sharp edges and I don’t feel confident enough about my ski skills to go down. After a few tries and falling over I take off my ski’s and start walking. It’s below zero today and everything is melting. We arrive at the border of the city and take off our ski’s. We go to the DNT to ask if we can drop our backpacks and ski’s there. The man is very friendly and makes a spot for our gear. He asks us about our trip and we tell and thank him for the information on the first day. We walk through the city and do some shopping. We end up in a small bakery. I order a hot chocolate and Miriam and Adele buy coffee with a cinamonroll. We leave the bakery at 17:30, pick up our backpacks and ski’s and decide to eat pizza at a restaurant for a good deal. We stay there till it’s time to go take the train. The train leaves at 19:30. We have to wait one hour in Oslo and take the next train to Kristiansand. It’s a night train and has sleeping cabins and a restaurant. We get a blanket and blow up pillow for the night. I sit next to a Norwegian man, I hope he doesn’t smell me to much after being a week in wilderness. We arrive in Kristiansand at 3:40.

 

Short evaluation

I learned a lot from this trip. It was hard enough to challenge us, but we had options enough to do it safe and keep it fun. We all had moments in which we weren’t comfortable with being in nature, but at the end we all were happy about doing this trip. I also learned a lot from the girls. It’s different to be on a trip with girls than with boys. I felt more responsible and involved for everything, and we discussed all our plans together.

What I will change next time:
–          Always sleep with your gas bottle
–          Always sleep with your thermos
–          Always sleep with your shoes, and cover them with a            fabric so your feet don’t get cold
–          Bring a lighter
–          No need for icetea, cold drinks don’t work
–          No time for soup during break
–          Bring more breakfast
–          Something else for lunch
–          Only taping heels doesn’t work when the shoes are to big.