”You’ve won a ski and sail trip to the Sunnmøre Alps, Norway”
A month ago, the phone rang when I was at my internship in Stockholm. I’d just talked to Magnus at Husky Podcast who wanted to get hold of my number for ”a possible job.” The phone was ringing before I managed to give my number. It was Calle Ringborg from Addnature. At that moment, I didn’t think of the fact that a few days earlier I’d entered a contest to win a quite epic ski and sail trip in Norway.
– Your motivation was the one who stood out the most. Also, you’re a female snowboarder and we would like to highlight that.
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Sometimes you’re lucky!
Wow. My mind was barely present when Calle continued telling about the price. I was flying on clouds. I had seen the contest on Instagram for some time and thought that I would attend – but why on earth would I win such a trip of all people? I had given up the idea to submit anything. The day before their deadline, I saw the picture on Instagram again. I had some free time and decided to write down a few lines and send my application anyway. I am incredibly glad that I did! Actually – what’s the worst that can happen – you spend some of your time to write something with the risk of getting a no or no answer at all. The best that can happen is that you win – which apparently is quite possible!
Prepared with a lot of workouts and equipment purchases
Four weeks later I was ready to go. I had set up my training schedule of five days a week, two days at the gym and three days with intervals. I had procured all the equipment – a new split board with all the accessories and I had picked up my fancy Haglöfs set which also was included in the prize. I’ve never been on a split board before, I’ve only done tours on snowshoes. I was dying to see how the stuff would work! Daniel at Haglöfs picked me up early in the morning – the same day as the clock would turn to summertime. It was hard to sleep that night because of nervousness to miss the flight.
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Towards the Norwegian Alps
We flew to Aalesund with a stopover in Oslo. Once in Alesund, we were picked up by our captain, Steve Stewart from Fjord Adventures, who drove us to the port and the week’s floating hotel – the old warship Gåssten. At the ship I met the crew and it was a lovely group of adventurous people. We received a warm welcome by Tash – the second captain of the boat and the chef Annie served us sparkling wine. The Haglöfs flag was hoisted at the top of the mast and we headed out to the fjords. Just outside of Aalesund the ocean can be a bit wavy because it’s open to the Atlantic. For the seasick it’s great to prepare with seasickness medicine in advance! Once we got into the fjord, the water turned flat and it was quite warm but rained a bit.
We took port in Saebo, a super cozy little village located in a valley where the mountains are rising right next door. Imagine waking up to that view every day! Last year during the same trip they saw killer whales, and for this trip Daniel had bought a flute which was used extensively to call on them.
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Skårasalen 1542 m
The weather had cleared up a bit the next day. Uteguiden took us by car for the first bit, because the snow starts too high up. There is a fee of 50 NOK to drive up the mountain. You begin the tour at about 500 m and the top is at 1542 meters. However, half of the gang and I skipped the last part because the visibility became extremely poor – a total whiteout. At first it was a quite smooth tour, we went on a pretty flat road alongside meadows. It was hot and the sun appeared occasionally between the clouds until the visibility disappeared. The last part was tougher with fairly steep terrain and rapid ascent. The idea was that we would go down on the other side to Skår (see map here) where Gåssten would pick us up, but due to poor snow conditions and poor visibility, we went back the same way we came up.
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Splitboard vs. snowshoes
My splitboard is so light, it is a huge difference from snowshoeing. The disadvantage of snowshoeing is that you must carry the board and you have to lift your feet with the heavy, bulky snowshoes at every step. A splitboard is designed for touring and made of light materials. Even the bindings weigh very little if you buy the right ones. With a splitboard you can slide instead of lifting the feet, and this is of course a great advantage and saves your energy. I bought my splitboard at Höjdmeter. There is an extremely bad range of split boards in my size in Europe. I was unsure of what length I would buy, but ended up buying a 4 cm longer board than my normal board, and it feels absolutely perfect!
The snow was extremely heavy to ride in because it was so hot. I was really tired in my legs after the hike and it was really nice to come back to the boat and sit back with a beer and freshly baked cake while gazing out over the fjord on our way to the next port.
More about that in the next post! Stay tuned.
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