Geilo
Literature | Movies | Pictures | Training
23 January 2021
5:58 AM - My alarm is set to go off at 6 AM, but as often happens I wake up a few minutes before that. It's going to be an exciting, challenging weekend so my brain is immediately up and running. So I get up and get dressed. My bags I packed last night are standing by the door. While I'm taking my vitamins Lars texts to see if I have snow pants. I have the ones Ane gave me last year, so I'm good. For him this is a regular weekend, but for me this is like my annual ritual of masochism. Every year here I say I'm going to learn to ski and end up going once. The first year Maxwell and Zara came and we went to Voss. They immediately went up the lift to the most exciting slope and we spent the rest of the day slowly making our way down. After that they nicknamed it the day of terror. The past two years I've gone to Myrkdalen and received instruction in slalåm and langrenn in 2019 and 2020 respectively. This year I'd really planned to be different (of course), but the ankle injury last month probably makes that unrealistic. I'm still not 100%. So yesterday during lunchtime I picked up the same equipment I used last year, fellesskier, from the BUA. Skiing can be quite expensive between equipment, travel, and lift tickets. BUA rents the equipment for next to nothing (100 kr for adults, free if you're under 25) removing some of the barrier there. Still many Norwegians are born on skis and the country of just 5 million people regularly cleans up at international winter sports events. Just imagine if Colorado (a state with a similar population) was so competitive.
6:45 AM - Catch the bus to town. It's raining in Bergen so I have a completely different set of protective clothing on that what I'll need in the mountains. I dropped off my plastic recycling on the way to the stop. It's winter so this means it's still quite dark so I have a reflective bag cover and a reflective vest I picked up in Svalbard. It has their iconic roadside warning of polar bears on it. Somebody got eaten in Longyearbyen last year, so the danger there is no joke! On the way to the bus stop I realize I've forgotten my good snow gloves. Guess I'll be making do with the regular ones. It's amazing I manage to have half the right clothing for an activity that seems only to happen once a year. I'm the only on the bus. Another couple people get on before we reach town though. Because I can't travel anywhere without my laptop I'm typing this as we drive through tunnel after tunnel. Norway is nearly 100% mountains and those are often divided from eachother by fjords rather than valleys. Since oil wealth off the coast also makes them one of the richest countries in the world in addition to the most mountainous, they've smartly used the opportunity to build out their infrastructure. Whether all the roads and tunnels and bridges will be maintainable in the Norwegian climate after the end of the fossil fuel age is yet to be seen.
and there are even more coffee selfies
7:54 AM - Spor 3, Bergen stasjon - In the corona age one automagically gets an empty seat next to them on the train. So I can have window or aisle depending on my whim of the moment. The trainride inland is always beautiful though, so I'm totally sitting by the window. The train is pretty empty, but most of the people getting on appeared to have skis like me. Other times I've taken this train in the winter it's been packed to the gills.
10:18 AM - Hoth - Okay, so the Hoth scenes for The Empire Strikes Back where just shot here in Finse. In the summertime it's easy to pick out the glaciers, but today everything is covered in deep snow. The hardcore skiers are getting off here to journey across the highlands from hytta to hytta with backpacks. I am not to that level yet, but maybe one day. Thus far I've spent most of the trainride working and enjoying the scenery. As the sun has come up the mountains have gone from blue to white. Everything is white outside actually: white snow falling from the white clouds to the white ground. At 1222 meters above sea level this is the high point of the journey.
10:57 AM - Geilo stasjon
Afternoon - Geilo - After checking into my hotel I take my skis down the hill to do the Winter version of the Ustedalsfjorden Rundt, which I ran here last summer.
16ish PM - Dr. Holms Hotel - After 15 kilometers and a half dozen falls I was exhausted and headed back to the hotel. The plan was to meet Lars for dinner at 5, so I wanted to get in a little soaking in the hot tub before that. In these travelogues I often appear to jump between Clark-Howardesque penny-pinching and imaginary european opulence. Skiing in Norway is an everyman's sport though, and I'm a novice so smoothing the rest of conditions around me maximizes my change of success, that is, improvement to a level of competence where small children don't come up to me after I've fallen to offer me help. Not that I mind their kindness. On the trail today I fell down and a little girl who couldn't have been more than seven came over and offered "trenger du hjelp?" as I struggled to get up. There I am halfway through the most exhausting ski trip of my life so far; out in the wilderness where if I don't make it back I could possibly freeze to death; and this little girl comes up with not a parent in sight. What is this! It's the sort of thing which really forces you to adjust your perspective... Anyway, so back at the hotel I'm carrying my skis, poles, and groceries for tomorrow since all the stores will be closed. Up to my room on the top and my key doesn't work. Walk back down the stairs to the front desk. Can I have a new key? This one doesn't work. Walk back upstairs with my recently injured ankle reminding me of itself every step of the way. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Back to the room. Try the key. Still doesn't work. Slower now I go back downstairs to the front desk again. This one doesn't work either. Oh, then it's probably out of batteries. she says. I never really thought about the electronic door locks in hotels all needing batteries. I guess I just assumed that they were hooked up to the power somehow, but come to think of it I've never seen a cord coming out of a hotel door. So I'm kind of surprised this has never happened to me before. Back upstairs again she disassembles my door and I put on my swimsuit now with a much shorter time window for the hot tub. Down the stairs again and follow the signs to the pool. But for some reason I have to go up a flight of stairs again to get to the pool. My ankle is screaming when I finally get there and "Please bring a towel from your room" the sign says. Back down the stairs to the front desk, pick up a towel, and back up again. And then, finally, hot tub.
17:15 PM - Bardøla - The restaurant Lars wanted to show me was closed so we're hitting this hotel café instead. I am emaciated by this point, and so I very happy to the eat røkt hjort they're serving. Then we chatted for a few hours and caught up and planned the morrow.
8ish PM - Dr. Holms - Reading The Economist for a few hours just so I dion't fall asleep too early and wake up at 3AM. Need plenty of rest for another day of skiing!
