Weekend in Sirdal

We just got back from a great weekend in Sirdal where we stayed at Knut's brother's cabin. This weekend it was Knut, myself, Thomas and his friend Eivind up there. Linda went to Knaben with some other friends for a weekend of alpinen skiing while the four of us planned on cross country skiing.

There is more snow up in the mountains than I've ever seen before. A welcome change after several years with very little snow. It was beautful and it snowed on and off all weekend. It must have snowed 50 cm just during the weekend.

On Saturday we took off down Flatstøldalen. It's a utility road in the summer and a ski trail during the winter. As it looked like a windy day we thought that a relatively proteceted valley trip would be nice. It turned out that it was a good idea as the wind picked up and was blowing really hard at times. Of course when it was right in our faces it seemed worse, when we finally turned to head home, slightly downhill with the strong wind at our backs it was really quite pleasant! So pleasant in fact that we decided to take an extra loop on the way back to the cabin. All in all we were out there about 5 hours and did about 16 km so it was a successful day!

Today just Knut, Thomas and myself took off on a short trip. It had snowed heavily all night and the whole world was covered by a thick blanket of new, white, soft sparkling snow. The sun was even trying to peek out from behind the clouds so we decided to head straight up hill from the cabin to see if we could get a view out over the whole valley. That was an experience. The whole mountain side was new and unexplored, covered in a fresh layer of snow. The trees were draped with soft white snow and as the sun peeked through the clouds, the crystals of ice and snow sparkled like a million diamonds. So pretty. The higher we came, the more the wind picked up. Then a big patch of snow filled clouds came in, bringing wind and snow so fast that it was almost dramatic. One minute it was bright and sunny, the next minute zero vision, wind, snow and icy cold. We got to the top we were hoping to get to and even got a kind of view from there, but turned quickly as the weather was pretty rough. We made it home in no time as it was downhill all the way.

Safely back at the cabin which we had already emptied and washed before leaving, we just ate our lunch and carried our packs to the car. It's a good thing we left so early as the main road was closed and we had to take the 2 hour longer way around to get home.

It was a really beautiful trip and a great weekend. Thanks to Jorunn and Tore for letting us borrow their cabin this weekend!

Reb