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Skiing to Ny-Sverige (New-Sweden)

  • 25-27/01/19

Sb and I started our ski-camping season - and our physical preparation for Hardanger - with a cold but enjoyable weekend skiing to the east of Røros.

Røros BC Ski Route

With our pulks loaded for the first time this year, we arrived at the train station (having pulled my pulk through town, and had to carry it far more than is comfortable), just to find that we had to get a rail-replacement-bus-service.

 

We arrived later than expected, but we were expecting it to be dark already, as the days were still very short, and we left after work.  Even in town it was around -20'C when we set off.

 

We skied along prepared trails, a little past Avholdshytta, before leaving the track to find somewhere to pitch up camp.  We found a pleasant gap in the woodland - with very deep powdery snow - to set up.  It was very cold, so it was nice not to have to melt and boil snow to get our meal, as we already had hot water for our RealTurmat in our thermoses.  Melting and boiling snow started was the Turmat was sitting preparing, and continued as we ate.

We awoke to a cold grey morning.  Our motivation and enthusiasm from the previous night were sapped a little by the foggy weather as we skied along the prepped track, but improved as we left the prepped trail and headed out to make our own tracks towards Ny-Sverige (New Sweden).  The weather cleared as we skied, though remained mostly overcast.  After stopping for lunch south of Rundhaugen, Sb was struggling to get any heat back into his feet, and I decided to let him stick them up my top to warm up, as I was keeping good and warm - apparently that was quite effective.  As we climbed towards and up Skjevhøgda the clouds cleared quite a lot, and we had a very nice ski up.  Above the tree-line it got very windy, and fog or clouds swirled in the valley below us, giving us a very arctic feeling as we reached the rounded top.  We descended and had a scenic ski to our camp spot for the night, south of the saddle between Gråhøgda and Klettan.  We enjoyed the sunset, twilight and early nightfall sitting cooking pasta (tortellini with a chorizo, onion and tomato sauce) outside the tent.  I thoroughly enjoyed sitting outside, on my seat cut from the snow, as the night enveloped us, though Sb seemed less convinced that it was worth sitting outside in the cold, rather than inside the tent.

The ski back to Røros was a very pretty stomp through deep powdery snow, until we made it back to the prepped trail.  On the prepped trail we made quick progress, so I suggested we extend our trip by taking a longer route - by Sb's cold and blistered feet were looking forward to getting out of his boots; so we glided quickly down the hill and found a nice bar to enjoy a well-earned beer and burger.  Once we were sitting in front of the fire with a beer, I certainly wasn't complaining that Sb had encouraged us back to town with lots of time before our train back to Trondheim.

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