This was NOT a part of the plan:
A couple years back, I was hanging out at my friend Sigmund's dad's farm in rural Norway for the weekend. His dad was busy shining up a 1995 Toyota Hiace out in the driveway.
I had no intentions of purchasing a vehicle that weekend, but this van was getting sold one way or another the next day. Either it would be me, or it was going down to the used car lot to be sold at the going rate. 50,000 Norwegian kroner was what that was estimated to be.
"It's a Hiace, but its the Hiclass", he informed me, giving me a bit of a sales pitch.
That meant heated cloth seats and a rear ventilation system. As far as I could tell, most everything else was pretty standard and straightforward, not counting the Bluetooth stereo that was obviously not factory-issued.
That's what's great about this thing though. No frills, no fancy gadgets that have to be fixed every feew years. Just a straightforward, bare bones, just-what-you-need to get from point A to point B machine, with room to seat 5 very comfortably, and lots of cargo space in the back.
Not quite ideally suited to live my ultimate goal of true vanlife, but it felt like a stepping stone. This beast was not going to any used car lot that Sunday. Nope. It was going on adventures with me.
There was one drawback that I was not fully aware of on that sunny June day pictured above: this thing absolutly SUCKS to drive on slippery winter terrain.
Being basic means rear-wheel drive and of course no anti-lock breaks. Rather, getting this thing around in the winter depends heavily on the judgment and skill of the driver.
I had already found that out by the time we began planning a cabin and ski trip to Hovden, nearly 5 hours from Oslo under normal conditions, with plenty of curves and a mountain ascent along the way.
Whether or not the Hiace could be trusted for this was a matter of debate, but I didn't get this things to sit at home not going on adventures. Sigmund seemed confident, and he knew the vehicle fairly well, so it was decided.
The trip there eased my worries. It went off without a hitch, in spite of the layer of snow covering the road almost the whole way. Well, relatively speaking. We still needed to chain the tires after a failed attempt to ascend the steepest incline, resulting in a fishtail that nearly took us off the road.
Made it in time to whip up my special guacamole for Friday tacos:
Next day, time to hit the slopes with the gang. Hovden is one of my favorite ski places that I've tried out in Norway. It may not be the tallest or the most well known, but I find that it has a lot of fun routes and some off piste opprtunities (to try to improve my skiing skills while simultaneously risking life and limb).
I've improved a lot since the last time I was here, which mostly consisted of wipeouts for me (I wasn't joking about risking my life haha), while Sigmund was busy mashing 360s on the jumps. Here's the video evidence of both, from a previous trip (I've gotten better since this):
When Sunday came around, it was time to head back. Get an early start we figured, since it had hovered above freezing overnight and possibly even rained a bit. This is the worst as it can cause a refreeze condition with a slick layer of ice, but having tackled the trip here and feeling jazzed from some good skiing, we weren't worried.
No more than 5 minutes later, the feeling had changed.
A car ahead had slid off the road and put out their warning triangle a couple hundred meters back. Upon seeing this, I lightly touched the brakes. Too late, there was no saving this one. The Wagon turned sharply to the right for no apparent reason, slid right over the orange triangle, crushing it to bits, and right into the ditch.
F*ckin hell. 5-6 hours from home, and we might already be out of commission. It was beginning to be uncertain if we'd make it home from this trip at all.
We first had to wait an hour or so for a tow, hoping all the while that the Wagon would still be drivable once it was pulled out. Two more cars piled up in the ditch as we waited there, which wasn't adding to my confidence of driving the rest of the way even if the van was still in workable condition.
Long story short, the Wagon seemed okay after getting towed out. The conditions were pretty sketchy for the next couple hours, and we had to throw the chains on a couple times, but in the end we survived and got back to Oslo by late evening.
A memorable trip for sure, but I might think twice about having this thing out in the mountains again in the winter. Or will I?
I guess we'll find out in another adventure.
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