I enjoy morning, close to the the outdoors. Waking up on the sea by anchor - it's calm and beautiful - while later in the day the feeling of being in the nature is disrupted by all those fast-going noisy motorboats creating lots of waves. This time we were waking up on a cottage in the middle of the forest - being ready to go hiking or skiing right after breakfast, almost alone in freshly prepared skiing tracks. It was so nice to get out in the morning even before breakfast and enjoy the quietness and sunshine. One lonely sports-skier passed by around 08, a fast early bird. Of course we were as always quite slow in the morning, plan was to get out at 10:00, but we managed to get out 10:40. Well, could have been much worse.
When going for long multi-day hikes, walking (or skiing) for many hours every day, the second day is usually the worst. We had planned to go for 8.5 km, most of it in good tracks, but in my plan we would go completely off-track for the last 1.3 km, and in steep uphill with lots of forest - the two-hour estimate I had for that 1.3 km was perhaps a bit too optimistic. Still, we had very good time this day, the planned arrival was before 16:00.
Things didn't quite turn out that way. One thing; it is quite cold those days and quite big temperature differences between day and night. In the tracks the snow becomes very compact and hard - icy, outside the tracks there is a thin layer of compact and hard snow, and very soft snow under it (sometimes one can ski on top of it, sometimes one falls through). Absolutely not the ideal skiing conditions.
At one point we went down a steep hill, I was helping my son down the hill ... but in the end there was no chance, couldn't stop with such a heavy pulk, difficult to turn, the main skiing track went for a sharp left turn, there was a smaller track going straight a head, but it was with lots of bumps, it was just impossible for me to pass or stop with the pulk and my son and without falling. And my son got hurt and was crying so much ... it was terrible. Luckily he got in a better mood a bit later.
We did several mistakes;
Spending up my monthly internet quota on the cellphone before leaving out for the trip, and trusting that the "offline maps"-mode in the skiing app would be useful. Those "offline maps" were horrible.
Following a signpost, I even think it was a red one - but it took us on some alternative, shorter route. It was prepared with skiing tracks, but it was very bumpy. Would have been perfect if I was alone and if the skiing conditions were good - but the rest of the family ended up taking off their skis and walk by feet. In the next crossroad we decided to turn 90 degrees and follow the bigger skiing track again instead of following the signs, so nothing gained by taking the "shortcut".
Ignoring both signposts and GPS. Now we had already learned to distrust signs. The GPS was jumping quite a lot, so at one point I just stopped trusting it, believing we were a completely other place than where we were, and we had already learnt to distrust the signs. The detour via Kikutstua was not planned, but suddenly we discovered we were at a different place than expected and really quite close to it, so ... why not. Totally our distance grew from 8.5 km to ~14 km, but at least we didn't have to climb those really bad uphills. Or so we thought ...
Too long lunch break. Well, we were grilling sausages, it was nice, wasn't that much of a mistake - but still, I got a bit shocked when I saw how much the time was after our lunch break, and I knew we still had quite a distance to go, and I would like to get there before it got dark (later I considered it would be full moon, that made me feel more relaxed).
Again, being impatient and choosing the signpost showing the shortest path - without considering the color of the sign. I had also seen at the map that there actually were two skiing routes, and that we could save some hundred metres on choosing the southern route. Bad, bad, mistake - everyone except me ended up taking off their skis both when climbing up and climbing down. The alternative route would have been almost level, most of the distance on lakes.
We came to Sellanrå in the late evening, it had already become dark. The last stretch was quite bad even if it we had chosen the easiest way - even I had to take off the skis to climb up the last hill while pulling the heavy pulk.
While Kobberhaugshytta was like a hotel, Sellanrå was a very small and simple cabin. I may write more about it in my next post.
Kikutstua
A boat by Kikutstua
Some hundred metres of the journey went along a car road. Luckily there was still some snow left.
Quite much open water - is it really safe to cross all those lakes by skis?
Of course it's open here - it's a river, not a lake.
The water level in the lake Helgeren is regulated, as the level can vary there are warnings that the ice may be unsafe. Downstream is the lake Maridalsvannet which is a drinking water reservoir for big parts of Oslo, I suppose they tap down Helgeren if the water level in Maridalsvannet becomes low.
There has been so much snow, they had to increase the height of the fence over the bridge
All photos available on IPFS QmVzjPYuH1zTuRgUH2rgXnmn3FKgqF2rrBvD8G7vAyNemv. License: CC BY-SA 4.0