I wasn’t feeling so healthy in the morning so Hana and Johannes headed off to find sunshine and snow and I moped about the Air BnB. They posted photos to make me jealous and once the sky turned blue outside the window I decided I was healthy enough. I attached my skis to my pack and set off in running shoes. I walked around the side of the fiord and down a street that looked on the map like it would lead to the start of the tour. Sure enough, at the end of the street was the beginning of a cross country ski trail. I skated along the trail and once I could see a potential route up the hill, I put my skins on. I ascended fairly slowly, plugging up through the sparse trees. The snow was still wet from the rain. A little higher and I could see out across the fiord. I toured to the top of Rødtinden and then continued on to Storbogtinden, as we did on the our first day. The weather was much better than on our first day and I could look down to the fiord on the opposite side of the mountain and out to the ocean.
WhatsApp was active again with Johannes helpfully telling me I’d missed the best tour of the week. Hana suggested another evening tour and so I got rid of my skins and began to ski back down. The snow was much nicer than yesterday and it was easy to put in the turns. Taxi Hana picked me up at the bottom and we headed back to the flat for an hour or so before driving out around the hills in the evening. It took us about half an hour to get to the start and the sun was low, creating long shadows and warm colours. The Norwegian’s red cabins looked good against the blue of the sea.
We realised we’d foolishly chosen a tour on the shady side of the hills but it was too late. We started with a short walk along the road before following an access road up into the hills. We strayed once into trees and grass before returning to the road. The snow cover was complete further up and we skinned up with the crunching sound of the snow. We got to a flat peak of probably Kvitbergfjellet and took our skis off. The sun set and there was a cold blue polar light around the hills. A few jumping photos later and we started skiing down. The snow was hard packed and the skis ran quickly over it. With each turn we scratched our way down the mountain scraping off the top layer of snow.
Driving back to the Air BnB in the last of the light, there were still rich reds and blues and other warm colours.
