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Norway

Ski Touring Paradise

By Alastair Todd

Easy access from Aberdeen, a Scottish winter on the verge of finishing with a paltry two tours and a few winter routes to show for it, tempted me back to Norway

I'd read of a classic ski tour from hut to hut in the "Hardangervidda" National park which never dropped below 1200m and which started at a railway station and ended over 75km later at a main road where a regular bus service took you back to civilisation. With more or less guaranteed two metres of snow and rumours of generally good weather this seemed an excellent late winter antidote and plans were quickly finalised for an early April escape.

Even before landing at Bergen airport it was obvious that my optimistic promise of European blocking highs and brilliant blue skies was way out. The 20min bus journey to the city through pouring rain and gale force winds confirmed the worst and was accompanied by a growing rant from Dougie about my yet again having deceived him. An hour out of Bergen as the train climbed into the cloud and the rain got heavier the ranting increased. No snow was visible and the only possible sign of winter were the skis at the end of the carriage, which, until Dougie pointed out they were ours, I had tried to persuade him were a good omen.

We entered a series of tunnels and according to the timetable were due to arrive at our initial destination of Finse in under half an hour. In an effort to maintain the deception I started to pull on the thermals, get the boots on and then zip up the waterproofs. Dougie by this stage was convinced I'd finally lost the plot and suggested we go to Oslo for a city break instead.

Emerging out of a particularly long tunnel suddenly snow and lots of it appeared at window height on both sides of the line. A few minutes later and we had been deposited at Finse platform in a raging blizzard and it was now my turn to moan as Dougie struggled to change into his gear before frostbite set in and I impatiently fiddled at the bindings and tried to make sense of the map. No signs of life were evident other than a few unoccupied houses where snow drifted up to the first floor and it felt more like we had been dropped onto the top of Macdui. The surreal but potentially serious position we were in sank in very quickly and after an argument about which direction to head we were forced to get out the GPS simply to navigate across a frozen lake to "Finsehytta" the DNT maintained hut (although actually more like a hotel!) where we planned to spend the first night.

So started a brilliant touring trip and in the following days we headed northwards moving from hut to hut via relatively short 14km tours through wild, remote and Cairngorm like scenery. The weather cleared up, each hut was reached shortly after midday and afternoons and additional days were spent climbing some modest surrounding peaks to take advantage of some brilliant powder snow descents. One of the highlights was the final day descending almost 1000m over 11km in bright sunshine and perfect powder conditions and landing at the road where a little over a hour later a bus arrived and whisked us off to the downhill ski centre of Hemsedal.

A couple of years later, as Dougie lay incapacitated following a serious accident skiing off Creag Meaghaidh, I cast about and Nick Jones was quickly persuaded that Norway would be better than a rock trip to Southern Spain. This time we flew from Manchester to Oslo, hired a car and drove 250km north to the Dovrefell mountains.

The Dovrefell is a more obviously mountainous area with a number of large peaks dominated by Snohetta. I had heard this was well worth an ascent and after the first day spent skiing in from the road to Rheinheim hut we skinned the 900m to the summit and enjoyed superb views in particular to the Vesttoppen a spectacular top with a knife edge ridge and a very impressive 600m north east face. Back in the hut, one of the few manned huts in Norway, the warden advised us the weather was due to close in but provided it was not too wild we would enjoy the tour to Amotdalshytta the next destination.

Goggles have their place - especially when you don't have them - and the wild weather of the following day forced us into designing Eskimo like face masks to prevent the worst of biting snow and spindrift. Small birch sticks planted in the snow every 5 metres on most of the major hut to hut tours guided us forward and after 5 hours of little visibility we almost tripped over "Ice Station Zebra" as Nick quickly christened the hut.

From Amotdalshytta we moved on to Loennechenbua a very remote small unprovisioned 4 bedded stone built hut which lies off the main trails and which has to be one of the most atmospheric huts I have stayed in. Nick had been responsible for food rations and although we had mostly relied on hut food we did carry some ourselves but insufficient for a full meal. Unfortunately this only became apparent after a hard days skiing from the hut to the summit of Grytkollen and back when a ferret about in the rucsacs yielded a pathetic range of chocolate, high energy bars and mixed dried fruit and nuts. A few nuts later and still thinking of imaginative culinary options open to us, the door opened and the most unexpected food source appeared out of the contents of a Norwegian ice fisherman's bag who had managed to catch 4 large trout earlier in the day as he headed up to the hut.

The following day revitalised and forced to use a GPS due to low cloud, we managed to travel over 25km before arriving at Dindalshytta, yet another brilliantly provisioned hut. A further night and the final day involved an excellent fast 600m descent through birch woods down into Lonset and the car.

In summary either for ski touring, ski mountaineering or ice climbing go to Norway in winter - you won't be disappointed!

Useful facts

Flights: Ryanair are proving popular but only provide good access to the south. Other than BA also check KLM and the cheap Norwegian carrier Norwegian. No. www.norwegian.no

Internal travel: Car hire is very expensive so consider using public transport, as the bus and train services are excellent. See www.nor-way.no (buses); and www.nsb.no(trains)

Accommodation: Join the DNT (Norwegian Mountain Touring Association), which entitles you for a small fee per night to stay in any one of literally hundreds of well provisioned huts situated throughout Norway. Contact Den Noeske Turistforening (DNT) at www.turistforeningen.no

Food: Normal day food should suffice for most tours as the majority of huts are extremely well provisioned with large food cupboards. The food is freely available and is purchased in the hut on an honesty basis. However if you want to ski in to some of the more remote huts then take full provisions.

Bedding: Norwegian huts are well kitted out with blankets and pillows so other than a sheet sleeping bag no other bedding is required.

Best time to go: Late March to mid April which gives longer daylight and warmer temperatures. Any later and be prepared for melting lakes which could be problematical to cross!

Places to go: Use the DNT huts and your imagination as the options are almost limitless!

Ski gear: Normal plastic or leather touring boots with any typical off piste touring / telemarking ski will suffice. Skins are useful for the steeper ascents however learn to use waxes and take a selection if you want to make far easier and faster progress. Take goggles and as an emergency back up, a bivvy bag and a snow shovel would not go amiss. Finally avalanche transceivers are a must if you wish to venture off the normal trails or ascend any peaks.

Maps: Norway is covered by the excellent Statens Kartverk 1;50,000 series. These can be obtained from Stanfords (www.stanfords.co.uk) or from the Map Shop (www.themapshop.co.uk).

Climbing: With the recent publication of "Heavy Water", Rjukan has never been more popular with British climbers. Ironically this is a good reason to stay away especially as Rjukan is a rather drab sunless valley with none of the scenery, for which Norway is justifiably famous. Instead head west or North where icefalls abound. Alternatively if you are really searching for adventure, carry your Cairngorm mixed gear in on some of the ski tours or hunt out your own quiet valleys where large cliffs are easily found. There is simply massive potential for hard mixed routes throughout Norway, whilst move away from the road and rarely climbed icefalls are also plentiful.