Way to go, Obama! Now bring on the snowstorm...

Aha, there they are... they're following me! Maybe they'll
chase me to Chamonix...!

OK, so has this guy had too much beer to drink?
The local brew.

It was a dark and stormy night...

The small car ferry

 

I caught the bus in the middle of the night, taking me down, down, through the strong wind and blowing snow to the coast, a deep fjord reaching quite far inland.

The bus ride was over before dawn, and I was in Sogndal town. It is very like Nelson in BC, except that the water here is a salt fjord not a lake.
- The way we crossed in a tiny ferry was just like in the Kootenays, and the bus drove into town across a bridge, so I could see the houses all spread out over the mountain fjordside.

It is nice to breathe the sea air, and see a real Norwegian town, rather than the ski resort of Hemsedal. Here are a lot of students, but mostly Norwegians, I think. Not much fishing, though, as I had thought. Its mostly fruit growing and forestry around here.




As the day brightened the clouds continued to let loose light rain in the town, which turned into flurries as I went up to 300m at the ski hill base, which is a long way from being open, but currently probably the most skiable terrain in the area.

   On the way up, about 10km along a valley, I passed several neat things, including some cows and sheep, and some roofs with grass on them. There were also some cute small waterfalls. It was all very nice and rural.

The small ski hill

It really looks like Nelson here!

They grow apples here... and sheep:

Some of the local (wild)life

When I got to the hill, it was a lot smaller than my research had led me to believe, and also looked a lot flatter. There was some skiable snow, though, even though it was a bit of a thin snowpack. I had seen the webcam with loads more snow on it last week, but the warm temperatures of last Saturday had compressed a lot of it.

It actually turned out to be dust on crust, which was a bit disappointing after the nice snow in Hemsedal, but it figures as it is still early winter, and it is a lot lower here. That is also a good thing, because you ski over the top of the bushes. The bottom pitch is semi steep - this is a red run:

A bit thin on the ground for Idris? Nope - they float beautifully

Higher up, the dust on top of the crust got deeper, then the crust disappeared altogether. Shame that it was pretty flat at that point!

Still, there was some quality skiing on the top half of the mountain with my versatile skis, and they are built to float nicely in powder.

 Back in town, the storm finally let loose properly, after all that preceding wind. Maybe this is the tail end of the New York hurricane after all. The timing is about right.

This afternoon in the harbour... - raining, until...

Oh Yeah...!

Tomorrows plan is to check out the other ski hill, maybe a bit steeper, and 15km in the other direction, then maybe head to another town further North again. We'll see what the storm brings. This truly is a great snow search!