Activities:

Three days of ski touring with great company of Michael, Martinas and Jonas in the Setesdal area. Startng in Ljosland we skied 20 kilometres to the DNT hut at Gaukhei, 9 km on to Josephsbu the next day and 22 kilometres back to Ljosland on the Friday. We had split into two cooking teams for the two nights so we would have Cuban-style yellow rice with ham and bananas one day and pasta with tuna, corn, onion and creme on the second day.

We only got going from Ljosland around 1 pm after figuring out where we could park the car for the entire trip and putting on red wax for the ridiculous hot conditions of 10°C at the beginning of the tour. If we would have had klister we would have preferred to use that in those slushy conditions.

The weather was great but moving fast was difficult in the slushy conditions. We asked two locals if the ice of the lakes was OK to ski on beforehand, just to make sure. The tour was full of scenic views and led us from lake to lake with mountains on both sides and occasional trees. The biggest lake started right behind a huge dam we had to climb in order to get to it. The route was clearly marked by sticks on either side and snowmobile tracks on the ground for most of the way. We had a sunny lunch break on an exposed rock on the side of a hill, looking over a lake. Jonas was facing difficulties with his freshly glide waxed skis which meant he could barely get a hold when trying to go uphill and had to go herringbone practically every time. We switched so that he could have my skis and I tried to save my energy for the hills on those slippery skis by double poling as much as possible. The downhills posed a problem for Martynas in particular because his overloaded backpack made it sheer impossible for him to steer or brake properly, so he lost a lot of energy where he should actually be saving energy. Looking back now, we could have taken some of the heavy objects out of his bag and carry them in our packs. When the sun started to go down it became increasingly difficult to go downhill because the top layer of the snow froze immediately and made the last 4-6 kilometres to the cabin quite difficult. We managed to get everybody to keep going on the last bit and for the last two kilometres over flat ground the stars came up and made for a surreal atmosphere when we raced to the hut we could make out on the other side of the lake.

There were already other people in the cabin so the main room was nice and warm. We made dinner, played games, told stories, and I grabbed an out of tune 5 string guitar out of a corner in the living room and we sat together until we almost fell asleep around the dinner table and it was time to go to bed.

The next morning was beautiful, we had a big breakfast with lots of oatmeal, nuts, bread and honey which turned into a kind of brunch. Jonas realised he had forgotten his glasses on the other side of the valley and decided to go and get them back. The rest of us also grabbed our skis to race around on the lake and up a narrow valley to look over the edge, enjoyed the view over the lake and discovered Jonas standing by the ice hole, fishing. We hiked up one of the higher mountains and laid down on the lee side in the sun on a perfectly shaped natural stone bench.

We still had to get to Josephsbu that day though, so we went back to the cabin, packed our bags, cleaned and were about to set off when a group of very friendly Norwegians arrived and talked with us. One of them offered Jonas to put klister on his ski and he thankfully accepted the offer.

We followed the tarck for about half way and then planned a different route and followed that one until we eventually crossed the official track again that took us the last bit to Josephsbu.

This cabin was even bigger than the one at Gaukhei and could easily fit 30 people or more. Jonas told us the other cabins are only open in summer and are supposed to be even nicer. As far as I’m concerned those cabins were absolutely great already. This one even had a guitar with 6 strings on it. We sang to the incredibly good songs on the radio and enjoyed the last evening of our trip together drinking tea.

The next day we started early in the morning, so early in fact that the sun just came up and because of the clouds the snow was completely frozen. The wax was completely gone after about five minutes and the steel edges of the skis had to be forced into the ice to get any grip at all. As we made our way back to Ljosland we therefore tried to avoid downhills as much as we could and stuck to wide zig zagging to get down any hill before the sun finally came through at around noon. On the flat bits however we were flying along without any grip wax or snow slowing us down we were double poling the entire way and managed to do the 22 kilometres in under 5 hours despite multiple stops.

Takk for turen! I will never forget this great trip with you guys.

Testing of equipment:

Klister worked brilliantly for Jonas. All of the sudden he could easily keep up and the klister didn’t seem to fade away quite as fast as the wax did.