#skitur

Was jokingly said to me this weekend. It was at the end of a long weekend of skiing and staying in a cosy cabin. The group was three Germans and my partner and I. At multiple occasions over the weekend when questions were asked in German I responded with the answer in either English, Norwegian or by pointing to the lost object and making a suitable noise. It wasn’t deliberate and I wasn’t even aware they weren’t speaking a language I spoke.

It’s funny how much you can pick up from context but this was beyond that. I guess due to speaking now two Germanic languages (and Scots dialect so let’s say two and a half) and further more having hiked and skiied with two of the Germans in the group a lot I have subconsciously picked up some nouns.

It is one of the closer mountain regions, however it does not have very good public transport links, so C and I usually head somewhere else. This time we went on an overnight ski trip with our two German friends who live in Trondheim. So hiring a car and driving makes more sense. Radio on and backseat boogieing is a requirement even when you leave early in the morning.

I handled the drive there and back without travel medication or being sick (yay). To do this did involve the two tallest in the car sitting pretty much on top of each other in the backseat. As it was packed to the brim with backcountry skis and bags for all of us.

We stayed in Jødalshytta which was lovely and cosy. We arrived during blåtid as the temperature began to drop. The most impressive thing of the trip was the night sky. There was just a hint of a crescent moon and clear sky. Even in the darkness we could still see the hills and each other suprisingly well due to the snow. We saw the northern lights, 6 of the 7 sisters, milkway bright in the sky and almost a dozen shooting stars. C and I even watched as a meteor hit the atmosphere, changed colour and broke up as it raced across the sky.

On the Sunday as we took a longer route we noticed that there wasn’t a thick snow covering yet. Hence the occasional scramble over brooks was necessary. As was improving our turns around trees. When coming down the steepest slope I fell several times as I am not yet used to turning as I come down in deep, uncompacted snow. We spent the last hour skiing in the dark using our headtorches.