Hi all! Since I told you about my moonlight ski trip last week, I couldn't resist but show you a photo and tell you a little bit more about it. I'm the skier in the first photo, with my head torch set on max. The second photo is a farm we passed near the car park.
Last year I was so focused on my marathon training that I didn't do much skiing. That's a real pity, because here in Oslo we're surrounded by forests. It would take me 10 minutes to run from my house to a skiing track - but that would be too difficult when carrying skis, so I tend to drive somewhere and ski. Apparently Norwegian pensioners spend all day skiing in the forest in the winter. It must keep them in good health because the people I tend to meet all look ancient and wiry.
There are lots of tracks with lighting, but last Friday we picked a track without any, which was great for trying out my new head torch. I haven't done anything like this for over 20 years, so I was a bit nervous. The temperature was a decent -11. It wasn't a huge problem, except for my wearing new, fairly thin gloves, so it took my hands a long time to warm up. And there was no wind, so whenever I exhaled steam it just settled in front of my face, which was a bit tricky with my head torch. It blinded my on a couple of hills.
Our goal was to ski 4 km to a café in the forest that was open late for "full moon skiing". There are a few cafés dotted around the forests here in Oslo, so I almost never go skiing without visiting one of them. I'm not a very fast skier, so 4 km on skis takes me longer than 4 km on foot, but we were in no rush.
Things went mostly well. Except that we hadn't got the wax quite right on my skis, so I actually got stuck when trying to go done very small hills. You have to apply ski wax every time you go out, and use wax that is suitable for the conditions - we generally have 3 or 4 to choose between at this time of year, so it's hard to get it right. I don't want my skis to be too slippy either!
We got to the café, which was really busy, and served a nice tikka masala, which is really unusual for a Norwegian forest café, where traditional and mostly boring fare is par for the course (rice porridge or stew). We had waffles for dessert (Norwegian waffles are flat, and shaped like hearts), which was just what we needed.
Then we headed back, and had lots more descents to deal with. I was pretty nervous, as I've never been flexible to be able to move my legs in and out of ski tracks easily so that I can brake. I'm usually fine, but even with a good head torch it wasn't easy to see how long the hills were. Luckily there weren't too many people out there, so I let my nerves loose and hollered and made other weird sounds as I went down some fairly steep hills.
Back in the car, I was pleased with my trip, and am definitely resolved to get some more skiing in before the season is over. So hopefully I'll be out there - in daylight - next week. Maybe I can fit in another night-time excursion as well?
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