In the zone...

Day Four: Mårbu to Kalhovd

If a walk through sub-zero temperatures is not enough to wake you up, the stench of a chemical toilet should do the trick! Two sensations embed themselves into my consciousness when I venture into the frozen wilds. Coldness and whiteness might come immediately to mind, but these are not for me the things that most command my attention. On all my journeyings, I have always felt more aware of the silence of this frozen land, coupled with a sense of space: a realisation of the vastness of uninhabited territory, reminding me of my own smallness.

After a few repair jobs on my skis and heels, I am fired onto the icy Mår by the slope on which Mårbu is perched. It takes me two hours to ski the full length of the lake after which my route takes me back into the mountains.

I feel in the zone right now. I find any expedition takes a few days for me to acclimatised. I now have and despite the climbs being tough, my equipment being too heavy and not having as much glide as someone on Nordic Skis; I am loving being in the wild mountains of Norway. I am fast running out of exclamations of incredulity. I try to share these views through words, like the ones I write this very second and I share my stories through photographs, though nothing can quite capture the life of this place; but I try.

The final descent to Kalhovd is down a steep icy slope. A Norwegian I met enroute joked that it would be the only time on my entire trip that my skis would be suitable. My skis may have been tailor made for this slop, but any advantage I gained is quickly lost in my tired legs and heavy pack. As a result, I struggle to find my balance point and maintain control as I fly down the icy slope of death at over 50km/h.

I land in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the slope. Fortunately, the only witnesses to my disastrous run is a team of husky dogs who I swear are laughing at me!

Once I had found the entrance to the hut, I enter the time-zone of hut life. Here I eat when I am hungry and sleep when I am tired. It is a hard life in the mountains ;-)

Trip by numbers...

Distance: 19.4km
Vertical: 673m