Chaussures de ski

=french for skiboots. We have many of them. The orange ones in front however is Knuts ”tøfler”..

”Supernøtter???”

Anyone knows where one can buy these super-nuts that Goofy eats to be super-strong and fit? Knut was talking about them the other day.. Skiing so many days a week all of a sudden, the body is not keeping up. We have obviously not done enough training preparations the autumn..

Havregryn

We have nothing really to complain about with the supermarket. Maybe only that there are too many variations of each sort, which makes it a hard time choosing. But just one remark has to be done: We have been searching every time for havregryn! (porridge oats). The conclusion is there is no havregryn in France. Then we wonder: Do they not eat havregrynsgrøt (porridge) in France? We have even found the french word: ”gruau d’avoine”. But the answer is ”desoleé” (No, sorry).
Well there is no browncheese either, but that was expected and we will not claim for any other country to sell this strange cheese. But havregryn, come on, we see you have it on top of the bread!

Knee-care

We have come to that conclusion that the knees are our most vulnerable body parts right now and should be guarded as never before. Anne have found the magical-joint –medicine Glucosamine again (which is sold without prescription all other places than Norway), and Knut went out of bed the other night to eat Omega-3...
Anne is considering knitting knee-warmers, but is most likely to buy some knee-supports.

Telesiége and diesel aggregates ... (Ski-lifts pleasures)

I am not always so happy with the skilifts in Serre Chevalier. Some of them smash into the back of your knees and then goes like a snail. Sunday the electricity went in the whole area, all the gondolas and skilifts stopped, and we were lucky to be in one of the seats in the sky.. We didn’t know what had happened, but when seeing white smoke from the ski-lift station we understood it wasn’t a normal stop. I started imagining french lift-men peddaling for powering a generator, or pulling the whole lift up by hand, but luckily that diesel-aggregat worked and we finally came up..

Equpiment tuning..

Yes it is many months since I fixed my legs to a pair of skis, so obviously it would feel a bit awkward. But when I put my feet in the telemark-shoes first day of skiing, it felt very strange. After some complaining and thinking I discovered the inner-boots were switched..
Also one of my ski-poles was not cooperating. It was stuck on 90cm (prob after spending one summer at Fannaråken..), and the first day I skied with one short and one normal pole. Back home we tried with oil and raw power, but no success.
Second day I asked the Aravet lift-men for help, hoping they had some tools to loosen it. Watching them trying all different methods was quite funny; putting the pole in the door, the telecabine, one frenchman in each end of the pole, but always smiling and probably wondering what the hell this silly girl had done to her pole..
They didn’t give up though and got it loose.

Serre Chevalier

We live close to the Aravet telecabine-lift, just a few meters walk with the skis on the shoulder. I actually skied to the stairs outside the appartment block where we live the other day. Ski-in, ski-out!
It snowed monday and night before saturday, and tuesday! I have never skied so many height-meters of so much fresh-snow. It was powder to the knees saturday, the same tuesday!

”Und de unterärme sind steinharte!......”

Me and Ines... :)




Ines Papert
Markus Bendler... (winner of mens comp.)
Two years since last time I was in Kandersteg, and it hadn’t changed much. Peaceful as usual, even when hosting the Ice Climbing Festival, (www.ready2climb.com/wePages/content/kanderstegfestival/frame.php?lang=D)
with quite many participants and spectators. Where did they all hide when not being around Hotel Ermitage? Well, anyway, that was the arena for the festival with a wall with ice and climbing holds, for mix and ”drytool” routes, plus a tent for slideshows and party.
Saturday I was one of the lucky ones to have a place at the ”climbing clinics” with instructors from the Black Diamond Team. My group had Ines Papert as teacher, and 2 hours under her guidance I cannot complain about! She is one of the best iceclimbers in the world. (www.ines-papert.de) Very nice lady, we spoke about Rjukan and her last trip to Iceland. (Iceland looks great, with waterfalls down to the sea...) In the fun-competition after, I had the start-number after her, tried to do the moves like she did, but somehow I couldn’t quite manage... Surprise! ....☺
Saturday evening there was the finals; the mens final was an entirely drytool route. To advance one has to do some acrobatic moves, and be creative with the axes. A bit like bouldering this, I like it. Markus Bendler and Petra Müller won the finals.
After there was a party, and in Switzerland it seems Party=Cheese. They had some interesting special equipment to melt cheese, toast bread and shave the cheese... the whole tent smelled cheese... Nam!
Sunday the 6th me and my luggage went travelling again, with the CisAlpino through the alps, over Domodossola, Italy, and to Milano. Changed there and in Turin, and late in the evening in Oulx my friends Karina and Knut came to pick me up.

Grüezi miteinander!

Loaded like an average donkey I started my trip at Porsgrunn station in the middle of the night 3rd of jan. Never got the time to weigh my luggage but sure was no ”light travel”... Changed in Oslo, Gøteborg, Copenhagen, before boarding the lovely nighttrain taking me to wonderful Switzerland. Oh, land of joy, I love Switzerland. Like it more for every time I visit. I ate ”birchermuesli” every morning... (yoghurt, muesli, grated apple, dried fruit, fresh fruit, all in a mix)

New Years

The "longest holiday" since kindergarten started with New Years weekend in Hemsedal. Four lovely days at a cabin, with friends from Trondheim and friends of friends.
One day spent in Golsjuvet with iceclimbing (toproping for the unexperienced ones like me), got superpumped of just a few shots! Bouldering maybe not the best training for this.. Some hints picked up though from the experts (the Grynnings).
One day spent in the Hemsedal Skisenter, with rental alpine skis, as my dear telemarks are in the car to France! (Got some abuse for this choice of skis from my free-heel friends..)
One very sunny day spent at a crawling-expedition with Ila.. :)
Rest of the time spent at snow acrobatics, in the sauna, cooking, learning from chef Steinar, and celebrating that New Year..