Only three words to describe today, awesome, awesome and awesome! We had decided to get an early start and get the jump on those travelling in the same direction, that being Geiterygghytta. I'd had a restless night yesterday, going over in my head the possible options for routes over the next few days. One leg in particular, a distance of some 36 kilometres, I had decided was not realistically achievable. That being the case, I had decided to miss one of our intended waypoints, Raggsteindalen. No great loss, it just means another night at Finse tomorrow. Todays route is the shorter more Easterly marked route from Finse to Geiterygghytta, about 18km, and I had decided we would spend the night there before returning by the longer more Easterly route tomorrow. And so it was that the alarm went off at 7am and we were first in to breakfast at 7.30am. We quickly ate our fill and made our pack lunch for the coming day before waxing skis and heading off to Geiterygghytta. The sun was shining and the sky was clear, but we did have to contend with an 8m/s wind from our left. Before leaving Finse we had checked with the staff there, Andreas the guru again, who advised that we would have a wonderful day with great weather, so we wern't too perturbed by the wind.
And so we left Finse, following the same path we had skied along the day before. The start of the journey was pretty much all uphill and I was pleased to see Sean coping with it admirably, in fact, far better than I had expected. The problems only started when we were faced with our first rather steep downhill. Snow ploughing on Alpine skis is one thing, but translating that over to cross country skis is not as easy as it may seem. The route we were following had no prepared tracks, the path being denoted merely by the regular placement of Birch branches along the path by members of the DNT, (Den Norsk Turistforening). The bad weather over the previous few days had left a very uneven surface with sudden deposits of quite deep powder snow. We began to tackle our first slope, Sean carefully zig zagging his way down the hill, until the inevitable happened, I fell!!! And not just once, THREE times. It was strange though, it was like I'd got it out of the way and the demons in my head that were telling me I was going to fall quieted down, and all went well after that. Sure, I was nervous on a couple of the steep downhill sections, but all went okay. Sean himself, although looking slightly awkward on occasion, was taking to the skiing like a duck to water.
We met no one else on the trail, neither head on nor from behind. I'd felt certain someone having taken the same route from Finse would have caught up with us , so that was quite comforting in the knowledge that we were obviously making an acceptable speed. Certainly, all things taken into consideration, everything was going well. Although the initial stretch had been mostly uphill, the path started to level out a bit and the going got a bit steadier. We eventually met a trail that leads from Halingskeid to Gieteryyghytta and, from that point onwards we followed the terrain that skirted and crossed several lake. Sean, never having even conceived of skiing across frozen lakes, thought this whole procedure quite amazing.
Factor in to all this the fact that the wind had died to nothing more than a whisper and the sun was shining down gloriously, and things couldn't be going any better.
By now we were getting quite hungry so began looking for a place to stop and eat. As we approached the lake, Omnsvatnet, we thought it might be quite nice to eat at the side of, or even on, a frozen lake, but when we got there we found it quite breezy with no shelter, so we continued our journey. We eventually came across a large slab of rock on a small rise which made quite a nice table top for our mid-day snack. For me, waffles with goats cheese and strawberry jam followed by the mandatory Kvikk Lunsj, and for Sean, cheese, salami, cucumber and mayonnaise sandwiches, all washed down with hot chocolate while we bathed in the sunlight. The setting was so idyllic it almost seemed a shame to move on, but move on we must.
Eventually we crested a small rise and, there in front of us, was Geiterygghytta. Several ski trails converge on Geiterygghytta and we could see several people travelling along these paths toward the hytte. Knowing it was a "first come first served" basis at these stops I suggested to Sean we move a bit quicker. The two groups we had in our sights were closer to the hytte than we were, so we had to motor a bit to catch and pass them, but we did. I suppose, in the interest of honesty, I should point out that both groups were families with quite small children, but all is fair in love, war and hostel accommodation!! It actually turned out that the families were booked in for several nights so already had their rooms assured anyway. They had both been out for short excursions from the hytte.
As we approached the reception area of the hytte, I immediately recognised the owner from my last visit here two years ago, and he jovially informed us that we were the first people to arrive. We had covered the 17km in about three and a half hours which I was quite chuffed with. Sean had done brilliantly and there were neither injuries nor, more importantly, any blisters between us. The last time I had skied in the mountains I was wearing a brand new pair of boots which I hadn't had a chance to break in. After four days of skiing my heels were wrecked and I could only wear sandals for a week afterwards. This time I was taking no chances. Here's what I was wearing;
A pair of long merino wool medium weight socks as outer socks.
A pair of medium weight short socks as inner socks.
And finally, a pair of 15 denier girlie socks as liner socks.
I have to say that, having never worn tights before, I found the experience strangely satisfying and may even explore such delights further!?!?!
Anyway, we booked into the hytte to find that there was only one room left in the main building, and they were hanging on to that in case any "old" people arrived. I am apparently a "young" person, which I was quite pleased to hear! So Sean and I were denigrated to a dormitory that was situated in a separate building. This meant getting our boots and rucksacks back on and traipsing another 100m's to the "annex". As we trudged through the snow, I had visions of the old public school type dormitory, so the rooms we found ourselves in were really quite quaint. In our room were six separate vestibules, five of which contained 2 bunk beds, sleeping four people, and one containing a single bunk. Each was closed off from the main room by a curtain. We selected one of the rooms with a window, stored our kit and hoped we might end up have the "room" to ourselves. We sorted all our kit and placed our ski gear in the drying room before enjoying a luxurious 4 minute shower, a whole extra minute than at Finse!!
When we had booked in, we were told by the host that dinner was at 6 o'clock. "Not 5 past, but 6 o"clock!" So we gathered they were quite keen on punctuality. We duly turned up at 6, beer in hand. Not being a big beer drinker myself, I am inured to the complaints of most British people about the cost of alcohol in Norway. Or for that matter, the cost of everything. However, after a strenuous days skiing, there is nothing better than to sit down to a nice cold beer. To enjoy it, you have to put out of mind that you have paid nearly £8 for a large can!! We made our way into the dining room and took our seats at a small table for six.
Unlike Finse, the food is brought to the table and left for you to help yourselves. The first course consisted of a small cauldron of soup, the ingredients of which we were not quite sure of, but which tasted divine nonetheless! This was followed by meatballs made from reindeer meat together with slices of reindeer meat, vegetables and potatoes served with a rich gravy, which Norwegians prefer to call sauce. This was followed by a small desert of pear, frozen yoghurt and whipped cream. Not quite as copious as Finse, but more than adequate. After the last two nights of 9pm dinners, we were left with quite a lot of time on our hands, but too tired to really do much with it. Thus, we retired to our bijou room, watched an episode of "The Vikings" and were in bed before 9pm.
Just as a by the by, this year marks Geiterygghyyta's 100th anniversary. It was built originally to form a bridge between the ski trails of Jotunheimen and the areas of Hardangervidda and Skarvheimen. For this reason they were selling a limited edition mug, buff and T-shirt at reception. A quick inquiry revealed the mugs to "only" cost 100NOK. £10 for a mug that would probably end up in pieces at the bottom of my rucksack was maybe a little too much.
