The Amundsen’s challenge 26 – 28/4

The information mentioned in Mountain Safety trip article was wrong. It was not the very last skiing trip this semester. The very last skiing trip was in the end of April with my dad in Hardangervidda. My dad was visiting me for five days in the end of April and he had a wish to go ski-touring in Norway. That made me to find out some possibilities for skiing in Norway in the spring. Using YR.no I checked the snow cover and picked Hardangervidda as a best and closest destination. Hardangervidda is a huge mountain plateau north from Haukeli and with its 3422, it is also the biggest Norwegian national park. Average altitude of the plateau is approximately 1200 m above sea level but the character of the environment is more similar to the lowlands or flatlands than to the mountains.

Route planning and equipment

I was planning route before my dad came because his wish was just to have a rest a made me guide him. After I picked the destination I’ve chosen the route using DNT’s website with maps UT.no. Our start point was set in Haukeliseter fjellstue. My plan was to do a round trip following both winter and summer tracks. Route was planned around two DNT cabins (Hellevassbu and Middalsbu) with total length of 65 km. Nevertheless we didn’t want to stay in DNT cabins but in the tent. These cabins should be something like the safety when the weather went very wrong. I’ve wrote down route into the Duke’s of Edinburgh route card. Our equipment was consist of skis (I had the university one and my dad had his own) and all the stuff connected with skiing, winter tent, down sleeping bags, inflatable sleeping mats, woollen underwear, waterproof outer layer, warm layer, petrol stove (and 1l of petrol), 2 pots, food for three days, a shovel and first aid kit.

Tuesday

We left Kristiansand early in the morning around 7am. Driving took us around 4 hours and we started touring at half pas eleven. Plan for this day was 22 km. In the beginning of route there was a steep uphill to get to Hardangervidda plateau. The temperature was -5 °C so I’ve used blue wax. That didn’t work well so I put a red sticky wax on, which worked almost as good as skins. My dad was very excited about surrounding nature and made a lot of stops caused by photographing. I was pushing him to go more constantly because we still had more than 18 km in front. We were very lucky with the weather. It was sunny, quite cold and not so windy. We made a half hour lunch break around 1pm and then several stops every one and half hour. We’ve arrived quite exhausted to the Hellevassbu area around half past six and started immediately finding good spot for the tent. We found a great place protected by rocks from three sides and also with all day sunshine (protected from the north, west and east). We’ve used a hole made by wind effect and enlarged it for having enough space for building a tent. Just after we had built a tent we cooked a dinner lying in our sleeping bags and went to sleep.

Wednesday

We woke up quite late at 8am. The night was ok and we slept well. I’ve changed the trip plans considering dad’s fitness. New plan was to leave tent and all our stuff at that spot, take just food for a lunch a make a shorter round trip in the area where we stayed. It was beautiful day, full of sun a warm. We’ve skied around six kilometres and found nice flat rocks where we spent approximately one and half hour eating lunch and sunbathing. Than we went back to the tent and improved our sleeping little bit, cooked a dinner and went to sleep.

Thursday

Final day of our trip was on. We wanted to go back same way as we came up there. When we made a breakfast, it took quite a long time to melt snow and cook water and surprisingly we spent almost all the petrol for cooking four meals. Before we left the area we went with trash to the DNT cabin and there was women from DNT stuff and told us, that it was -23 °C that morning, nice to know. What surprised me in the nice way was the care of the people who we met on our way. Everybody was asking if we are ok or if we need something. Nice and wise attitude. It took us 6 and half hours to go back to Haukeliseter fjellstue. The weather was changing all the time and it wasn’t nice. It was snowing and white out. That made us to walk down carrying skis in steep descents. Nevertheless it was both exhausting and totally awesome trip. I’ve enjoyed the time with my father so much.