Norway, Here we Are!!! Day 2

Kissing the perfect tracks at the beginning of our first real ski out of Natrudstilen. We are SO happy to be in Norway!!

What a day! Blue skies and sparkling, new, hard tracks! We were giddy off the start and couldn’t believe our good fortune. We had planned quite a long loop for the day, but we did not foresee the actual adventure we were to experience. On the map, the route to Pallastova looked mild. We had visions of a long slow tour, the destination a waffle house in Pallastova, and then a slightly different route home. Our tour started easy enough, with some wind across the open areas, but a lot of rolling terrain in the trees that led us from Sjusjoen to Nordesetter. After that we made the (choose your own ending: bad/good) decision to get to Pallastova via the hill (if we could call it a mountain we would, because it FELT like one) of Nevfjell, which looked easy enough, as we gazed up at what proved to be the first of three false summits. Our cheeks, as well as the tracks, were wind-blown and icy by the time we finished the climb, but the view up to the top was spectacular. What awaited us on the summit was a charming little cabin, heated via solar panels, which we hunkered down in as we waited for the tail end of the group to catch up. Natalie entered in a wave of hysterics: was she on a skier’s high or did someone slip something into her trail mix??

Down the other side we went: it was rut-filled thrills and spills to the bottom where we found a parking lot and some English-speaking friendly Norwegians who informed us that the waffle place was “just down the ski trail a bit”. 1.5 km down we were ecstatic to find the warm, food and beverage-filled lodge at Gaiastova, an alpine ski lodge. We thawed out as we ate waffles, self-made sandwiches, and drank cupfuls of syrupy-sweet hot cocoa piled high with whip cram (5 dollars a cup, and neither Amy nor I hesitated at drinking a second!).
We made a unanimous group decision to skip the hill on the way back, instead winding to the right of the hill and bypassing Nordsetter to take the shortcut straight to Sjusjoen.

Evan, Katie, Kirsten, Amy, with the mountain in the background, happy (now that it was over) that we climbed it!

There we stopped for more groceries and snacks (waffles!!) before heading home toward showers and piles of pasta. It was a full 8 hour day, probably 6 of which were spent on skis for the 50km tour, and we were a very tired and very happy bunch.

Robbie orders the typical Norwegian snack, waffle with jam and sour cream, at a cafe in Sjusjoen.