 Poster: A snowHead
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Dates:
six days' on the slopes (17 - 22 March 2012 inclusive)
Travel:
We flew SAS to Oslo. They let us take 23kg of main luggage, a ski bag and boot bag each, for no extra charge, which we thought was pretty impressive.
We booked places on the Trysilexpressen bus which took us straight from Oslo airport to Trysil Turistsenter. We then had to get a taxi up to our hut in the Høyfjellsenter area, which was not cheap (about £45 if I remember rightly). We could have avoided this taxi fare if we'd taken an earlier flight and an earlier Trysilexpressen bus since the ski bus would still have been running.
Accommodation:
We hired an apartment in one of the huts in the Fageråsen Panorama section within the Høyfjellsenter area. Strangely, we ended up choosing a 3 bedroom apartment for just 2 of us, because it was cheaper than staying in a hotel and there were no smaller apartments available at that time. It was, however, beautifully kitted out, with its own sauna within the bathroom (fits 2 people) and a good kitchen set-up.
It's not completely obvious from the maps, but we had almost perfect ski-in, ski-out: our bedroom must have been 5 metres from the transfer piste. The only walk was down the stairs and round to the other side of the building.
Layout of the resort, and getting around without skis or a board:
Trysilfjell is one big dome-shaped hill, mostly covered in trees but with a treeless "bald patch" on top. The alpine slopes pretty much cover 3 sides of the the mountain, and the runs finish up in one of four main places, going from left to right on the piste map: Skihytta, Turistsenter, Høgegga and Høyfjellsenter:
http://www.skistar.com/Global/Destinationer/Trysil/Kart_web_pdf/Alpinkart/Alpinkart_2012_NO_Trysil1440_n.jpg
There's no accommodation at Høgegga, so you have the three other locations to choose from, plus you could stay just across the river in Trysil town centre itself.
Most people drive to Trysil, and getting around without skis or a car is a bit tricky. There are few pavements to walk on. There are ski buses but they are not especially regular, don't run in the evenings midweek, and are not always reliable.
The scenery is very beautiful but less dramatic than the alps, quite similar to Scotland or the Pennines but with much better snow.
Skiing / Boarding the mountain:
On downhill gear, you generally have 2 options for getting from one side: either zig-zag across the mountain at tree-level, or go up to the mountain top and come down the other side. In high winds some of the higher lifts may close. The F2 chair was closed for 2 days whilst we were there.
There are plenty of choices of runs, with green, blue and red options in most areas. The runs down to Høgegga are mostly blacks, with few blacks elsewhere. The green runs at Høyfjellsenter are great for beginners, drills and finding your ski legs. Some of the longer greens elsewhere are simply narrow tracks used by most to get from one area to another. Piste grading and marking is fairly good, although we did miss a few turns.
One other great attraction of Trysil is that the rolling terrain allows cross-country trails and downhill pistes to happily cross and sometimes even converge into the same route. There are lots of cross country trails, with immaculately cut tracks with wide groomed corduroy in the middle. There were some good looking parks, black to green options, and a ski cross.
Snow conditions
We saw all possible conditions. Fresh snow on the first 3 nights meant fresh powder. We didn't venture far off piste, but managed to get the first tracks down some areas between pistes (off the side of green 74 and blue 6.) I'm not sure why more people weren't skiing these areas - maybe there was better to be found further afield if you knew what you were doing. But for us to get a feel for powder for the first time it was brilliant.
On the 3rd day the high winds left some blown icy patches, especially on steeper runs. Towards the end of the week things warmed up, leading to hard snow to start, soft snow at lunch and deep slush in lower areas by the end of the day. Piste grooming was very good, and snowmaking was used to replace what the wind had blown away from runs.
Lessons
The booking process was a bit annoying, with the online booking system not able to cope with us wanting lessons over 2 different weeks of the season. The skischool admin was not much better, it took 4 tries to book what we wanted. However, the actual instruction was very good.
I took 3 private lessons with Max, which were brilliant. Drills, suggestions and encouragement to finally get rid of my snowplough habit. Other half took a snowboard taster lesson (90 mins) and was able to link turns on the nursery slope by the end of it. We both took a cross country taster lesson, and finally managed to do a snowplough on skinny skis.
Food and drink
Expensive as expected. Mountain restaurants serve mainly burgers, chips and hot dogs. You're looking at about £7 for a burger and £7 for a medium-sized beer. We ate tapas one night in the Mountain resort pub, which was lovely. The rest of the time we cooked at home. There's supermarkets at both the Turistsenter and the Høyfjellsenter. You can buy beer and cider in them, but not wine or spirits. No alcohol can be sold in a supermarket between 6pm on Saturday and 9am on Monday.
On the mountain, we'd recommend the Restaurant at the bottom of the Skihytta area, good pub food and efficient service. We'd recommend avoiding the Pavilion bar at Fjellroa if it's even slightly busy, after a 45 minute wait for a burger!
Those of you who want a cheap drink stop can go to the Høyfjellsenter slopeside cafe and get a rather good hot chocolate for a surprisingly non-extortionate 10 NOK (about £1.10).
Nightlife
We didn't sample any clubs, but the apres ski bars were generally quiet. Låven had a slightly more lively, family atmosphere.
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