Vindølbu Hut Weekend

Last weekend Ally Chris and I finally got round to our planned mission into Vindølbu hut in the Trollheimen National Park. We wanted a very easy randonee ski trip with lots of time to lounge about in the nice warm hut. We left Trondheim quite late after curry round at ours, and didn't finally arrive at the carpark until 11.30pm. But given that it had been pitch dark since 3 this didn't seem to matter so much.

It was quite magical skiing in the moonlite alongside a frozen river. There was lots of snow and it was super fluffy, so at one stage when I fell over I couldn't stand up again. Finally we made it to the hut for a midnight feast and off to bed under the ice duvets - it was about -8 inside the hut.

Nevertheless we had a very cosy night and woke late. The sun was shining on the other side of the hill so we chased it, but never quite got it. We skinned up a gentle hill side, unfortunately the fluffy snow of the night before had been damaged by wind, so it was a bit crusty. We had a fun but chilly descent, although for Ally on the split board getting up enough speed was a bit of a problem on the gentle slopes.


The little blob above Ally's head is the moon
Sunset at about 3!
Rather frozen we arrived back at the hut just it was getting dark and spent the next hours eating, knitting, chatting, playing chess and eating some more. The hut got up to an amazing 21 and it was about -15 outside!
The cosy Vindølbu
After another cosy night under the ice duvets we decided to take on the steeper and more treed slopes above the hut. IT was great skinning up through the forest and before long we had some precious rays of sun. We had a short but sweet descent, then spent some time videoing Chris and Ally throwing themselves off a small cliff (I will attempt to upload the video to this post).
Up we go - Ally in the front on his new split board

Skinning up into the sun

That rare and majestic thing - a sunray
We tidied the hut and skied out in the dropping temperatures, arriving back to Trondheim to a charming -17 feeling a little chilled - our hut weekend was a pretty cool way to spend the darkest time of year in Norway though. The temperatures have continued to decrease since, today was -20 all day! But on the positive side school holidays have just begun so I have 1.5 weeks off as of today. So I am sure there will be some more chilly adventures shortly to be posted on this blog (-:

Comments

Mark said…
You left your house late and didn't get to the car park until nearly midnight? Doesn't sound like you guys at all ;-)
December 26, 2010 at 11:36 AM
Frances said…
Would love to stay in that cosy hut. But not by travelling in the "moonlite"(sic)perhaps.
December 27, 2010 at 6:20 PM
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