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TR- Stryn (or nearly), Norway: 26 – 28 May

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
brought to you by horizon (Cedric) and maggot Irbis


Every great adventure is beset by obstacles. Columbus said that, before he set sail, 'seven years passed in talk'. Ulysses had sirens ensnaring him with wondrous song, on his way back home. And the Titanic sank on its first trip.

Columbus and the others were lucky. They didn't have to contend with the man working for the Hertz desk in the Oslo airport. A man who should be sainted by some Eastern religions for his deep understanding of the illusory nature of time. Or at least that's the only way I can make sense of him taking three quarters of an hour to add me as a driver in the documentation.

You can't even make up time when driving. On the main road linking Oslo to central Norway, speed cameras sprout up as often as post-pluvial mushrooms, enforcing a strict (and very non-European) 55 miles/hr limit. At least I had enough hours to work out why the seat in our rented Citroen C5 turned on its heating at random intervals (if you're curious, my water bottle was stuck on the control button).

But time and miles eventually passed, and we found ourselves at our midway night-time stop, a camping in Otta, welcomed by a party of young Norwegian girls:



Next morning, we picked up our friend Stuart and his son Rob (who had arrived by train earlier). The latter had just polished off four plates of sausages and egg. (Rob's main interests are eating and digging holes – but more about that later).

We're seeing the first snow…


…and I'm smugly happy


On the way there, we spot some nice lines on this little peak:


Around 10 am we show up at our hotel and things start going wrong - the hotel owner tells us that the road to the Stryn summerski centre is flanked by 30-foot snow banks and the snowpack stability is so low that the authorities are not opening the road.

When great men face disaster, they are spurred into action. We aren't. So we sit down for a few minutes and consider our options. When we get outside the hotel, Rob tries to start a snowball fight. He's doing well for himself until he decides to hide inside the rental car, and I sneak in the backseat. My cold-hearted revenge waiteth not.

Then we drive off to Folven camping to meet TGR maggots hemas, Tri-Ungulate, teletori and a few other non-maggots. We find out that Tri-U has flown all the way from Utah to make a few turns at Stryn, and is still coming to terms with the place being closed. He's taking it like a man, i.e. goes strong on the beer. It puts our plight into perspective.

Afternoon comes and we decide that the time for skiing has come. So we drive off to this place where you climb 500 metres of vertical on one side and descend 800 on the other side. Here's a photo of the road:



Walking up



The sun comes out to greet Irbis, who plays it cool:



At the top (fjord behind us)



The top third of the run has creamy boot-top powder, which for end of May isn't at all bad. The lower half is more cut up, but not bad enough to stop me from speeding up:



We arrive to find Rob digging the first of many holes. His dad tries to whack him over the head with the shovel and we report him to the Child Welfare Association. But this is the first day of a long holiday weekend - no one's in the office, so he's all right.



One climb is enough for these cube jockeys, so we head off to see the fjord that was in the background earlier.

Dinner leaves a burning hole in our pockets (a steak costs about 22 quid at our hotel. Rob wants more but his Dad overrules him). Irbis and I head off to Folven camping and drink beers with the mags and other telemarkers, in hemas's New Age tent, which is literally held together with duct tape and sports a hole in the centre, perfect for humidifying the atmosphere (and the ground).

Irbis thinks that hemas's collection of Pentax lenses is phallic symbolism at its best. I didn't ask him what that meant, it sounded dirty.

The next day dawns (at about 3.30 am). We wake up around 8 and find a little food left after Rob's tsunami breakfast.

Hemas reckons there's a lift-served resort about 2 hours driving away. But we call and they say the offpiste is poor. So we go to a hotel a few miles down the road to get Rob kitted out (the lad has seriously big feet). There, the owner (of the hotel, a snowcat, a snowmobile and two draglifts, as far as I can make out – not a bad deal) offers us a ride halfway up the hill on his snowmobile. Quick to avoid effort, we accept. No pics of the snowmobile as he took us beyond the allowed limit (Norwegians are eco-warriors) and we don't want to make trouble for him.

Stuart points out to Rob where the peak is.



Rob starts out enthusiastically but soon has second thoughts:



While Irbis and I enjoy the trek and the weather.





At the top, Rob gets back his panache, with a side serving of wooziness:



Here's Stuart making fresh tracks in some corn:



To be honest, the snow was pretty crap – at least for those of us who hadn't waxed our skis (Irbis? Hello? New skis need to be waxed, too!) and who therefore straightlined the gnar at about 3.7 miles/hour.

But it was a good hike, great scenery which somehow reminded me of childhood landscapes, but the kind of childhood landscapes one creates in a daydream, pairing things one liked in different places. I just can't wait to be back (not to childhood. Some say I'm still there anyway). Great memories.

...and some fresh tracks:



We get to do another short climb late afternoon (start at 5.30pm, finish around 6.30 pm, as the sun is setting down and the crust gets to be about half an inch thick). This time we're all flying down, teeth chattering. We narrowly fail to chat up two Norwegian girls who are telemarking their way down. (Does NOBODY ski alpine around here?)

Back at the hotel, Rob digs another hole but Irbis stops him before he gets to China:



Evening arrives and we decide to eat dinner at the camping café. When a pizza turns out to be about 18 quid, we're prepared and we stump up the cash for four of them. We're not prepared, however, for their size.

(this photo is taken the next day at lunchtime, which is when we managed to finish the fourth one)
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Third and final day. Stuart and Rob get the bus back to Oslo, while Irbis and I prepare for the longest hike yet. Same place as Sunday afternoon, but all the way to the top this time.

The sun's in the clouds and we're the only ones climbing:







and the only ones on the top (I'm not surprised, this wind is killing us):



There's an absolutely yummy bowl which I eyed on the way up. Looking down, things aren't so great. Flat light I could deal with, but this is 40 degrees and we've seen quite a few natural slides. On the other side of the bowl, there's already been a slide uncovering blue ice underneath. I spend a couple of minutes on the lip, looking down, until reason prevails (well, reason and Irbis, and a random teledude who showed up in the meantime) and we decide to ski back down on the ridge. Good thing we didn't ski in the bowl. Tried entering it more than halfway down and triggered a small slide, fortunately it didn't have enough incline and momentum to go any further than three-four yards.

Here's a bit of flat-light photo-slutting from the two of us (Irbis closer up):





This is me in the backseat, but the photo is included to show hemas that I've put the sticker he gave me to good use.



The snow is superb for the first two thirds of the descent, then it turns mushy and grabby, but we still get fresh tracks.

When we get down, we have another look back up. Did anyone say unstable snowpack?



(we didn't ski that aspect, it was too steep for the conditions – we came down on something milder).

Before we go back home, we disobey a key TGR commandment and we...

FEED THE TROLL!





(unfortunately, we lacked the raw materials to break the other cardinal TGR rule, 'first post, then smoke crack'. Maybe on an Amsterdam TR).

After a near-400 mile ride during which Irbis and I manage to chat almost incessantly (we're Latins, remember), we end up at a hotel looking like a hangar, enjoying a well deserved reward.

We love Rioja:



THE END
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
sounds like a fun time, Cedric. Thanks for the report!
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excellent report, very funny and lovely pics, thanks
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
nice
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You'll need to Register first of course.
Nice TR Cedric. Obviously I'll have to get working on those mad tele skillz to have any chance with the Norwegian ladies.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Cedric, Nice one, that snow depth on the road was crazy.
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