Home > Non-rowing > Holidays > 2004 Espedalen
I took my GPS receiver (Garmin Etrex Summit) with me on this trip, with the aim of trying to record each day's trip. Mostly it worked, but sometimes the unit cut out and there are gaps in some of the tracks. Take the recorded distances with a bit of a pinch of salt; they may not be 100% accurate, but they'll be close enough for government work.
Day 0 - Sunday 22 February
Flew out from Heathrow to Oslo Gardermoen airport, then onto a coach for a two hour journey to Bjorn Kro just outside Lillehammer. There we transferred to a minibus for the 90 minute trip up the hill to the Espedalen Fjellhotel (photo) via Dalseter to drop off a couple of independent skiers. Arrived at 9.30 pm or thereabouts to be met by our other leader, Mary, and our Swedish Chef, Carl-Johan aka Charlie. Had a "very special" dinner tonight with a nice wine and cream sauce. Or was that a cream and wine sauce?
Day 1 - Monday 23 February
Spent the morning trying to remember the basics. Which ski goes on which leg? Or even more basic, skis? what skis? Slapped loads of blue wax on, and thanks to the iron in the ski room, we were all saved the arm-aching hassle of trying to get a nice even layer with our corks. Lesson 1 for this year - slap as much wax on as you can, and iron it in (being careful not to set off the smoke detector right above the waxing bench). Hardly anyone needed to stop and put more wax on out in the snow, and there was almost no herring-boning all week!
Went on a gentle ski round the 10 km loop by the hotel, and tried not to fall down too frequently. Failed. Sorry, no map today. Technical problems with the GPS logger. Um, I forgot to turn it on.
Day 2 - Tuesday 24 February
Skied round to the bottom of the Dalseter Høyfjellshotel's downhill slope for some more lessons on snowplough turns, emergency stops and (for the brave) parallel turns. It all looks so simple: crouch down, lift up, plant the downhill pole and turn. I got the first three components right, but the turn section normally ended up with a face plant. And all the while we were being bombarded by kids on mini-skis and snowboards putting us all to shame. Oh well. Off up the hill a short distance to the Ruten Fjellstue for a very comfortable setting for lunch and some excellent hot chocolate. From Ruten we split up into a harder / longer and an easier / shorter option. No prizes for guessing which option we took each day. Well, it's supposed to be a holiday! We skied round the peaks of Stamphaugen and Steinhamrom, before turning onto a section of the Peer Gynt Way (photo), before turning onto the red (photo), then yellow loipe on the north-east side of the valley to return home. Mind the last bit of the yellow descent to the road, or you'll end up coming straight out into the traffic (such as it is).
Map - 24.5 km
Day 3 - Wednesday 25 February
A drive this morning to Dalseter (to save our legs) and off up the Peer Gynt Way towards the hut at Bingsbua. The faster group were just leaving as we arrived for our lunch. A good job, too as the hut's only small and shortly after we arrived, a large group of snowshoers (if that's a real word) turned up and it was standing room only. We beat a retreat and headed off round the south side of Sprenpiggen and Sprenhoa. The weather had turned unpleasant for that part of the day and we were skiing into a nasty wind and lightish snow. The views around the hut (photos 1, 2, 3, 4) were good, spoiled only by some power lines (not that there was any power in the hut though). We dropped down to the junction between the read and yellow loipe, where two decided to head back the direct (yellow) route that we took the previous day, while the rest of us skied on to return on the other side of the lake for a change (via a short stop at Dalseter for, you guessed, a hot chocolate) (Tony and Martin and some dead hot chocolates). How very civilised.
Map - 21.5 km
Day 4 - Thursday 26 February
A visit today to another hut on the west side of the lake. The day started with a long drag up out of the valley following the blue loipe up towards a lake with a couple of private huts. They provided a good place for a spot of lunch. From there we skied on to the hut at Tonebu, where we managed to light the fire and have another well-earned break. Very toasty. From Tonebu to Fredrikseter is a nice steady ski, heading generally downhill. At Fredrikseter, the track turns sharply to the right straight down the side of the valley, but thankfully it's more or less straight and very wide. Probably one of the fastest descents we skied this trip. From there we opted for the longer but more gentle descent back to Espedalen, turning off the orange loipe onto the green 10km track we'd skied on day 1. Comparing the GPS track and the map, either something weird was happening with the GPS signals (unlikely) or the track cutter was having a bad day!
Map - 19.3 km
Day 5 - Friday 27 February
Today was to be an attempt on the summit of Ruten (1508m) for those who felt up for it. An intrepid group of seven lead by Mary decided to go for it, leaving the two of us, plus one other, lead by Martin to have an "easier" lower level ski down to Slangen. Easier! Ha. We skied down towards the bottom of the Dalseter slope again, but this time using the longer way round the orange route. This provided a change of scenery and some excellent descents. Sadly another GPS gremlin crept in, and it stopped recording halfway along the orange track until we got down to the road alongside lake Olstappen, so the track distance recorded today is shorter than the distance we actually skied. I've manually corrected the route shown on the map where we followed the orange loipe to the junction with the dotted red one down through a very scenic gorge linking the two lakes. The trek along the edge of the lake was a bit of a slog, although the scenery more than made up for this (photos 1 2 3 4), and there was a super pale blue ice fall next to the road (which sadly the camera / photographer doesn't really do justice to). We found our way to yet another hotel, Slangen Seter (sorry, can't find an English version of this one). This system of having your packed lunch inside nice warm fjellstues is very civilised. As we left after lunch we spotted a sign to Espedalen - Espedalen 6km it claimed. Funny that since according to GPS it was 9km in a straight line, and more like 12km round the edge of the lake. Another sign, 1km further on, still claimed "Espedalen 6km". Some new kind of kilometer perhaps? As we returned towards the top of the gorge, Martin noticed that the other part of the dotted red track seemed to have been properly cut for a change. So we decided to follow it back up towards Ruten and Dalseter. Silly us. It was fine until about halfway up the ascent, where it abruptly stopped, and turned into a skidoo trail. Still, at least the red markings were still visible on the trees. So we persevered on a very narrow track through the trees. Although these markings are normally very reliable, on this occasion they led us to a dead end. Not good. After some head scratching we retraced our steps a short distance to a junction in the skidoo trail, and followed it steeply up towards the main track. The wax was just starting to give up by this stage, and we were getting fairly tired after the slog through the forest, so we were relieved when we finally made it out onto the main track back, where there was a clear sign suggesting that this was a proper track. Comedians. We skied back to the Dalseter ski slope and took the easy, but very monotonous, route back along the lake to the hotel. Those last 3km seemed to last forever.
Map - 23.3 km
Day 6 - Saturday 28 February
The last day's skiing, and the weather forecast was pretty close to perfect. Some new snow had fallen overnight and it had been very cold (-20°C). When we set out there was not a cloud to be seen, and the blue sky was only disturbed occasionally by the odd airline contrail. We set off up the blue loipe as we had done on Thursday, but turned off to follow the dotted green loipe off the edge of our local map out towards a hut at Megrunnsbua. This was another of those protracted climbs out of the valley onto the plateau, which ended up as a bit of a slog. However, the views from the top were stunning and well worth the effort. Thanks to the cold clear night, the snow crystals on the surface were fantastic, and everywhere you looked, the snow fields sparkled. Magical. After a welcome stop for a snack we headed off back towards the route we'd skied on Thursday, round the lake and out towards Tonebu. Another stop there for some more snacks and a drink, and we headed off towards Fredrikseter. As the sun was starting to get a little low by this stage, the west side of the valley was in shade, and the temperature was falling fast. The thermometer outside Tonebu put us firmly into green wax territory, while we were still using the warmer blue. Still, the way back was mostly descent, and some of it quite steep, so the remnants of our blue wax probably wasn't going to cause any problems. The loipe back to Fredrikseter was every bit as long as it was on Thursday, but from there there were some superb descents round the south edge of the orange loipe. Probably our longest day, but some very satisfying skiing to end the week on. Damage report - a couple of minor bruises and the odd blister, but nothing unbearable.
Map - 27.1 km
Day 7 - Sunday 29 February
The long, long, long transfer back to Oslo via Bjorn Kro, followed by the single worst part of any holiday (IMO) - hanging about at airports. Still, there were plenty of bars to while away the time in, and at least you get to watch the planes unlike many airports. As airports go, Gardermoen is pretty good really.
Us, looking almost, but not quite, like competent skiers.
The obligatory "view from our room" photo.
Oi! Who's taking the photos round here?
So farewell Espedalen - and thanks to all for a great holiday.
1:50,000 Statens Kartverk (Norwegian Mapping Authority) Sheet 2561 Skåbu - Espedalen - Fefor - a double-sided map; winter one side, summer the other
1:50,000 (showing local marked loipe) Skiløyper - available from most of the local hotels.
Well, if you've got this far down the page, I thought I'd share some of the crazy suggestions the TextPad spell-checker came up with while I was writing this report.