Ski and Paddle Norway 2009

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I woke at 0630. The wind which had showed promise of deminishing last night was back with a vengance. The sound of it was howling down the stove chimney. I looked out of the window but it was black so I went to the door to look out side. I got a face full of spindrift.

I went back to bed and got up at 0730. This time I needed to go out to the toilet. I dressed well and put on my head torch then braved the 20 metres between the cabin and outhouse. It was a maelstrom of spindrift. My head torch barely punched a couple of metres into it. On the way back I took a sack of wood and the filled the water pails with snow again in case I was staying another day. I went back to bed again.

For the third time I got up at 0830. It was just getting light. The view out of the windows was as I suspected. A good gale with spindrift flying everywhere. The visibility seemed to be only about 100 metres. Even if I could make it the 20 km to Bleskestadmoen cabin it would exhaust me. I might break something like a pole, ski or even leg stumbling over some cornice. It was to be another day at this cabin.

I slowly prepared to stay another day and cleaned out the stove, which was full of ash. I then lit the stove and became quite house proud about the cabin. I tidied up the books and kitchen utensils and swept the floors.

I found an old radio and fashioning and ariel from a whisk and changing batteries managed to get it going. Just in time to get a weather forecast and some news. The weather forecast was grim for the next few day with gale force (kuling) winds from the south to south east.

Indeed on the news it said the road I was heading for at Haukeliseter 3 day away was closed due to “uvaer”. Uvaer translated means “unweather” and is used to describe particularly nasty weather. It was not really uvaer but it was not pleasant.

I had another good read of some of the books in the bookshelf. Most of the books were old yearbooks of various mountain walking associations in Norway These books hold a wealth of information on nature, archaeology, cultural history especially the now vanishing summer farms, and suggested walks. Luckily I can read Norwegian so was able to explore them.

I had a lazy day reading in front of the fire. I saw in the larder a barely touched half bottle of famous grouse whisky. Some previous walker had left it behind. I actually saw it when I first arrived but after a year of abstience dident feel drawn to it. They few drams I had this evening tasted medicinal at best, but warmed me.

I spent the evening reading by candlelight in front of the fire with a dram The wind outside was getting stronger and I could here waves of spindrift lashing at the window. The radio playing easy listening golden oldies with the odd bit of news. It was a very cosy setting but I would soon start to get bored.

Unfortunately I have just heard the weather forecast and it is predicting servere gale to storm force winds for these mountains tomorrow. We will see. I could be here another day yet bored or not. Maybe I will have another dram after all.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.