Anyway, I digress. The moral is, have a fall back plan/plans. The intention at the start of this trip had been to travel from Finse to Geiterygghytta, a long trip that is predominantly uphill. In view of yesterday's journey, I knew there was no way this trip was now feasible without either totally breaking Emma, or putting her off cross country skiing for life. So, time to re-evaluate. Instead, today, I decided to take them on a much shorter trip to a small hytte called Appelsinhytta. Right, what can I tell the curious reader about Appelsinhytta.
1. First of all, it is a half way stop on the way up to the top of the Hardangerjøkulen ice cap, a permanently frozen ice cap adjacent to Finse.
2. It is a small wooden hytte secured to the ground with wire stays to protect it from being blown away in fierce winds.
3. There are no apples there!
Now, therein lies an area of confusion for me as the Norwegian for orange, as in the fruit, is appelsin. So if you go down for breakfast in a Norwegian establishment and you see appelsinjuice on offer, don't be surprised if you end up with a glass of orange juice, you have been warned.
This often makes me wonder how this simple "mistake" came to be made. I have this picture in my head of Svein returning to his coastal village in Norway after having been viking for a couple of years. As he and his crew are unloading there longboat at the dock, along comes Bjorn to see what fares Svein has brought back with him from his journeys. Svein brings out a couple of new fruits he has come across, holding one in each hand, eliciting from Bjorn the obvious question, "What are they?". At this, Svein scratches his head. He remembers being told by the dark skinned native what they were both called, but can't for the life of him remember which was which. So, so as not to appear foolish in front of Bjorn, he proudly holds up the orange and declares, "App.......", but realising his mistake half way through the word, authoritatively continues, "Appelsin!". He then holds up the apple and declares, "Apple", before brushing a confused Bjorn aside and marching off to molest a slave girl! Anyway, the hytte is NOT orange, so go figure.
We ate a hearty breakfast, there is no other kind at Finse, before making our pack lunches, filling our flasks and preparing for the short journey, a round trip of about 8km. This meant we could ditch a couple of rucksacks and only take what was vital for the trip, food, waterproofs and some extra, warm clothing. It was then a simple matter of waxing the skis. I say simple, but this is actually an art form in itself. Cross country skis are waxed on the bottom in what is referred to as the kick area/zone. In other words, the bit of the ski that you want to gain grip whilst pushing forward on the other ski to try and gain the all important "glide". The outside temperature dictates what type of wax you use and the waxes are colour coded with temperature ratings on them. There is a whole scene around what wax is best for what, how to apply the said wax, how many layers of wax to apply, etc., etc. We try to keep it much simpler and just ask the hytte staff what they recommend for the day.
Today was a day for blue wax, which I liberally applied and then smoothed down with a prerequisite block of cork with some rapid going and frying wrist movements.
Once clothed and equipped, we headed from Finsehytta across the frozen lake to follow the marked track up to Appelsinhytta. It was pretty much uphill all the way and was quite a busy route. We were told by a couple of other skiers heading back down that there were strong winds to contend with ahead of us, which did not bode well for us. We continued on the long, laborious uphill, with no opportunity to glide on the skis on the flat bits due to the build up of frozen snow on the bottom of our skis, before eventually seeing Appelsinhytta in the distance at the top of a steep incline, and that was when the wind hit us. Wow did it hit us! We were nearly blown off our feet. Visibility was still very good though, and we were able to make headway, but I kept asking Emma whether or not she wanted to turn round. She doggedly refused to do so, pointing out that there was no way she was giving up when the place was in sight. Sean just manned up and got on with it, as he always does. Okay, so on we went. I must point out that we were not in any danger at this point, my only concerns were for the kids comfort, not safety.
On arrival at Appelsinhytta, we kicked off our skis, secured them as well as the poles outside and entered the hytte. The building was, for all intents and purposes, a garden shed that appears to have been turned into a half hearted man cave by a forlorn house husband and never really finished. It has benches all round, few windows and a fantastic wood burning stove bang smack in the middle. Unfortunately, although there was plenty of firewood, someone had pinched all the matches. Even so, the building is so well insulated it was still incredibly warm and we happily dug into our pack lunches and hot chocolate.
The return journey was a breeze. All downhill with the wind behind us so we were back at Finse before we knew it. By the time we had got to lower levels, the wind had dropped considerably, much to the chagrin of the kite skiers racing backwards and forwards across the frozen lakes surface.
We used the spare time we had to do a little exploring, making our way over to the railway station and the hotel, Finse 1222, so called because it is the height above sea level. There is a lot of history surrounding the area, from the building of the railway itself, the visits of the teams of both Scott and Amundsen through to the German invasion of Norway. It was even bombed by the British Royal Air Force.
One of the quirkie little features of the hotel is the old railway carriage that has been used to join two parts of the building together.
This obelisk outside the hotel always causes me a little confusion though. I am never quite certain whether it is a memorial to Scott and his men or some sort of smug gloating.
After exploring a little we paid a quick visit to the hotel before heading back to Finsehytte, showering and relaxing with one of their absolutely stupendous ciders. Ooh, that is another feature of Finsehytte that I neglected to mention, they also have a micro brewery, one of the fares of which is a cider any Cornish farm would be proud to produce.
Dinner tonight? A mouth watering array set out buffet style. One little surprise as we were awaiting dinner was the sight of a couple of familiar faces. When I had first visited Finse with Hanne all those years ago, we met a couple of guys leading a group of teenagers from a British private school. I would never have forgotten them anyway as one of the lads with them had received a rather nasty gash across his nose from the metal edge of his mountain skis when he had fallen and had to be medi-vac'd to nearby Voss for treatment. I had bumped into the same guys a few years later when taking a group of friends from work onto the Hardangervidda. And here they were again, looking no different.
