Winter Time!

The last few winter months have been really busy and lots of fun for Chris and I. Knowing this is our last winter here has made us appreciate how cool it is even more, and we have got out exploring Bymarke and surrounding Trondelag as much as we possibly can. I have posted some photos from various weekends and a couple of weekday excursions into the mountains.

At the end of January Ally celebrated his birthday in Oppdal with us and we made use of a deal that was running there where you got a hotel for 1kr per night if you had a ticket for the ski area there. So we stayed two nights and had two days skiing with Helen, Ally, Tim, and the Czechs Tomas and Paja.

The weather was a bit average, but we got lots of nice powder on the Saturday, even if we couldn't really see anything. On Sunday the weather was a bit clearer, but the wind was unbelievable. We took a tow up to this little 'warm hut' to eat our lunch - no one else was up there and the lift closed straight after we arrived - we were not surprised given we were almost blown off the mountain on the way up, clinging desperately onto the swinging T bar!



The peisestua and the blizzard - wind doesn't really come out in pictures unfortunately
Inside the nice warm hut and out of the wind at last

A rare sun ray shines down on Oppdal

Interesting visibility on the descents!

In the first week of February I got the flu )-: But then we headed down to Sjusjoen for the next weekend to get some fresh air and it seemed to get rid of the bug I had been battling all week. We decided to be budget, so spent both nights camping. It got to about -8 both nights, so it was good to have my trusty Fairydown Scorpion sleeping bag.

Camping in the park in Lillehammer

On the second night we discovered a lovely day shelter with a fresh supply of firewood on the ski field up at Sjusjon, perfect for us to hang out in and also to pitch our tent!

A good warm place for a tent!

The skiing itself didn't go so well for me as I was still a bit sick, but Chris enjoyed himself and triumphed over some real Norwegians (!) to come third in the Men's recreational class.



My fast paced ski O action. I missed any photos of Chris because I was still out on my course!

Since then many of our weekends and week nights have been spent in the Bymarke forest above our house, we are always discovering new trails, and the snow conditions have generally been great. It's really cool to have this on your back doorstep!

Wonderful winter trails and snow on the trees

Refueling on our 5 hour 'classic bash' with Ally

I thought I should also add a picture of the porridge I got on Valentines day - it was so cute (-:

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