Ski-ing In Norway
by P. R. Harris
ALTHOUGH the art of ski-ing originated in Scandinavia, it was in the other European countries such as Switzerland and Austria that ski-ing changed from purely a method of getting from place to place during the winter to an art and a sport. It is only in relatively recent years that any attempt has been made to turn Norway into a ski-ing centre which would attract winter visitors in large numbers, and there are no resorts of the type that exist in Switzerland and Austria. Certain resorts are being built up and Geilo on the Bergen/Oslo railway line is one of the most important in Norway, whilst to the east Lillehammer is also becoming quite important.
Downhill ski-ing holidays and tours are organised in Nor¬way by the Norwegian Tourist Association and one of these tours is in the Hallinskalv range of mountains and is from hut to hut accompanied by a dog sleigh team. The particular tour which I joined started at Finse, which is the highest railway station on the Oslo/Bergen line and was the base at which Scott trained with his ponies before his expedition to the South Pole.
I had travelled from Newcastle to Bergen by ship and was due to stay on the ship overnight in harbour, catching the train to Finse first thing in the morning, but decided that if I travelled that evening I could use the next day as an extra to get some well needed practice. I jumped ship, made my way to the railway station and booked a seat for the next train even though the through tickets were dated for the next day. The Norwegian State Railways were extremely obliging even to the extent of ringing Finse Railway Station and asking them to inform the Finsehutte that I was going to arrive that night instead of the next day.
When I arrived at Finse Station at 1.30 in the morning, I found a guide waiting for me with a sledge to haul my gear across the frozen lake of Finsevatn to the Finsehutte. This is a very large hut and is in permanent use during both winter and summer; the accommodation is excellent, and as I was to find out later in other huts in Norway, exceptionally clean.
Next morning, breakfast was, of course, typically Norwegian with porridge followed by cold fish and meats. During break¬fast I could hear dogs barking and assumed that these were from the dog sleigh team which was going to accompany the party on this tour, but on talking to the mixture of Norwe¬gians, Swedes and Danes and the lone Swiss who were staying in the hut, I learnt that I had arrived on the last day of a course for Lavinehunden—Avalanche Dogs—the first to be held in Norway. I went down to see the dogs in action and as this last day was for tests and the first test was to find a man buried in the snow, I was asked if I would allow myself to be buried in the snow to be found by the dogs. On thinking this over I realised that this would lose me a day’s ski-ing and I regretfully apologised for refusing the kind invitation. That day was spent on the slopes nearby practising turns and getting the lang-lauf rhythm, hoping that the weather, which was dull and windy and with visibility down to 100 yards, would im¬prove by next day.
That evening the Lavinehunden and their owners departed and new faces began to appear. These were soon found to be members of the party I was joining and were all Norwegians apart from an American and his wife and an English woman who had been winter ski-ing in Norway for several years. By next morning our party was completed with the arrival of the Tour leader and the dog sleigh team with their handler. Two of the five huskies—Caesar and Mutt—had been with Sir Vivian Fuchs in the Antarctic and the other three, including the leader, were Norwegian bred and trained.
The first day was to be an easy trek of about 19 kilometres and as in the first two hours we climbed from 1214 metres to just over 1600 metres, I for one was very thankful for the short day. The weather was far from kind with a strong, bitterly cold wind blowing and the stop for sandwiches at mid-day was only for ten minutes with everyone very glad to make a start again.
The dog team caught up with us by the time we left—it had been left well behind on the first climb out of Finse—and it led us downwards to cross the frozen Geiteryggen lake to the Geiteryggen hut. This was a typical two storey Norwegian mountain hut with quite comfortable bunks and a drying room for clothes, with the lavatories outside—very stark and cold. I was interested in seeing the dogs bedded down for the night—there were no kennels and the dogs were staked out about 10 ft. from each other, where they dug holes into the snow and settled down.
The next day was glorious although the temperature was well below freezing and the sun shone as we went on a round trip southwards through a valley called Kyrkjedori, known as the Church Door, and up on to a small glacier in the Halling-skarvet area—a height of about 1700 metres. The view to the south west, right across to the Hardanger joklen which rises to 1876 metres, was incredible and to the east the ridge of the Hallingskarvet was a very impressive sight.
On the return run, having taken the very steep wall of the glacier at a much quicker speed and in a very different position than I had intended, I tried my hand at driving the dog sleigh team. I quickly found, however, that the dogs had two speeds—fast and stop. Their normal running speed was much faster than my trekking speed and I found it extremely ex-hausting to run for a quarter of an hour with the team, rest until the main party caught up, run again for another quarter of an hour and rest and so on. Controlling the sledge while traversing a slope and running downhill at the same time was, to me, an impossible task and during my short spell as a team driver I received many reproachful looks from the rear dog as the front end of the sledge kept butting him in the backside.
On the third day we travelled to another hut called the Iungsdalshytte and this was quite a long run of 31 kilometres. From the point of view of scenery, this was not a very good run—we seemed to climb in and out of valleys interminably— but it did get us to the next hut from which, on the following day, we made a very fine round tour of 23 kilometres and climbed the Klevahavda before swinging round in a circle and returning to the hut over another smaller mountain, the Mjolgent.
The next day we crossed the frozen lake, Stolsvatn, and crossed over the Flyane to the small hotel of Raggsteindalen. This was the only place which sported a bath during the tour and we made the most of it by sitting in this very hot dry room for over half an hour, then taking a very quick cold shower.
The next day we did another round trip to Raggsteinn and on to Hellevass and the Folarskardnnuten—which was 1933 metres high. The glacier we crossed was frozen into ice waves and was extremely difficult to climb. The run down across this glacier was equally difficult and I found that although I could ski across the top of the waves, as soon as I hit a frozen wave bigger than the rest my ski tips dug in and I turned a complete somersault. We returned by another route to the Raggsteindalen covering in all 39 kilometres and the next day made the short trip of 20 kilometres back to the Geiteryggenhytte.
The Norwegians, Swedes and Americans in the party were only out for seven days and the next day the leader was due to take this party back to Finse and pick up another one to bring them back to the hut. I had volunteered to go with him but when we woke the next morning, the weather, which until then had been very kind with the sun shining all day, had changed drastically and a blizzard was blowing. The leader told me that he quite appreciated the fact that I would not now be going to Finse with him, but throwing caution to the winds— and blizzards—I decided that the experience would be very well worthwhile.
The trek to Finse was extremely unpleasant. The party was in a long line each just able to see the back of the person in front and every now and again the leader stopped to let us file past him as he gave instructions to rub either cheeks or noses to ward off frost-bite. The snow was very soft and it was even necessary to walk downhill as it was too soft to run through. When we arrived at the Finsehutte we found that everyone had decided that we would never get through and the new party had resigned themselves to spending the night there. They soon got ready, however, and after a quarter of an hour’s break we started back again to the Geiteryggenhytte. Fortunately, I had become quite acclimatised to mountain ski-ing by then and even though the trip’ down to Finse had been fairly rough, I found that I could keep up with this new fresh party going back up the steep slopes out of the village.
The weather was still very poor next day, so we did a relatively short trip of the same pattern as we had done on our second day out when the tour started. On the following day the main party went on, but the English-woman and I who were due to return to Finse to catch the train to Bergen, were very gratified when we were permitted to take ourselves back without being accompanied by a guide.
In all we covered some 252 kilometres on the tour and I would certainly recommend such a holiday to anybody wanting to do something different. The Norwegians and Swedes were most kind throughout and always made a point of speaking English whenever English or Americans were present.
Skins are never used for climbing and two or three types of climbing wax for different kinds of snow are a necessity. It is certainly advisable to use the special skis for cross country running and climbing which are longer and narrower than Piste skis and it is most important to use boots which are made from very soft and supple leather with soles that will bend—Slalom type boots are too stiff and will very soon cripple the unfortunate wearer.
Now that I am getting to the age when piste ski-ing or downhill racing are losing their attraction, I find that such a tour gives me a great deal of satisfaction and far more enjoy¬ment than I thought possible—I shall most certainly be doing more of this in the future, no doubt feeling very sorry for the younger generation speeding down the racing slopes, who have not yet found that first ideas on the use of skis are often the best.