Out of reach
I’m not a big fan of ski touring with heavy packing in your pulk. Still I find myself saying yes time after time also for these tours. This time the idea was to put together two hopes. Hope for a ski tour to get out of the village for a while and at the same time to get some top tours on telemark skies. So we put on tour skies. Mine are old Åsnes skies with simply telemark bindings. So I took with me only one pair of ski boots. Randonnee telemark boots are not the lightest option for tour skiing, but this way I got to use the same boots in both skies. Antti used Oac Kar 147 skies with normal hiking boots while pulling the pulk and then telemark boots and skies on top tours.
We drove a bit more than one hour from Geilo on road 50 (the road to Aurland) and parked the car by road service place at Myrland (Statens Vegvesen, bomstation). From here starts a signed track (,but not always tracked ski track) towards Iungdals DNT-cabin (https://iungsdalshytta.dnt.no). Our idea was to ski close to the cabin, so that in case of bad weather we could sleep in the cabin. The other point was to get close to this cabin, because the good ski tops would be close by. From Myrland it is about 20km skiing to the Iungsdals cabin.
The first 3 km was most of the time uphill on a croomed ski track.
The skiing starts with 300 meters altitude climb. Sun was shining and holiday had just started. I think the good mood helped a lot with the tough climb. After the climb you get into high mountain area at about 1100 meters above the sea level with not many trees. This means as well often high winds. After about 10 km of skiing we decided that it would be enough for the first day. We sat our tent and decided to keep going the next morning.
Antti used Oac Karr 147 skies with normal hiking boots, when skiing with the pulk. These are skinbased skies that are called sliding snowshoes.
On the second day the wind picked up with heavy snowfall. It was hard to see forward and hard to ski. My semi-skins at skies tended to come off the skies every now or then and Antti’s pulk was sideways on snow often. We skied only for 5 km and decided to set up the tent in full storm. Maybe because of good concentration setting up the tent went fluently. At some point of the night the wind stopped and it was really silent. The tent was fully covered of snow the next morning. At these conditions you really appreciate the fact of having heavy, but also a tent that is made for heavy use. This is absolutely not a paid advertisement, but I really like the stability of our Hellsport Svalbard High 3 tent. The other good part of this tent in winter use is to have a big absid. We made all our food and melted the water from snow inside of the tent. Yes you need to be careful with your bensin stove, but when it’s cold temperatures and high winds this is a must for several days winter camping.
There was quite a white out on the second day.
This is how our tent looked like on the second morning.
High recommendation also for MSR whisperlite stove by being very reliable stove. It is amazing how much time it takes to melt all the water of snow what you need. At the same time it makes you slow your life automatically. With no phone connections all you need to do is to sit in the tent and let the snow melt into water. In a way, hot water becomes your best friend. You can forget all other bottles than thermos bottles home when the temperature drops down to -20 by nights. Of course, you can also keep water in Nalgene bottles, if you keep those in your sleeping bag during night.
I have always felt cold no matter the weather, but when you do winter camping your body gets surprisingly well use to the cold in a few days. I actually feel more cold at home than what I do out there camping. An extreme sleeping bag and warm clothing helps a lot. You can always add another layer of clothing. But more important is just to fill your body with warm food and drinks. We had dried all our dinners ready at home. It is a good tactic to think about one day in a time what you want to eat and pack the food in little bags for daily use. This time we did good job with main dinners, but more salty snacks would have been good to have.
Own tracks back to the ski-in & ski-out “holiday home”.
On third and fourth day we did some telemark skiing and let the tent stay at the same place as a basecamp. The location was not the best possible and there was a high avalanche risk by new snowfall with high winds. The base layer of snow was very little over here and the wind had made its job as well. We still got some little top tours and Antti managed to do his first off-piste telemark turns with new skies. It was amazingly quiet and we did not meet anybody while tenting here. On the way back we did meet some skiers though who had seen our tent. At the area there are also lots of mountain cabins and sheep shelters for summer. So actually this is not a total wilderness area, but we happened to be out there on a quiet week.
The moment of needing a snack :)
Top tour on a field.
On the fifth day it was time to back up everything and ski back to the car for 15 km. It was a fairly cold morning, but once we finally reach the parking it was plus degrees and slushy snow. The way back felt long as well even though we had less weight at the pulks and more downhill than on the way up. Five days outside had also taken away some energy of your body. But at the same time you already missed the peaceful and beautiful mountain environment. I feel also very pleased of having a husband who wants to join me on these crazy tours and even enjoys those. And off the fact that this and many other beautiful places are only in a few hours of drive away from our home in Geilo.
