Korsvoll - Ullevålseter - Bjørnholt - Kikut - Sørkedalen

A quick, 29k trip in glorious weather. 70% of Oslo's population skis, and they were all out today. Strangely, however, the most pleasant leg of the trip, from Kikut to Sørkedalen (summertime picture of the view down into the Sørkedalen valley), was pretty empty. After some nice, long steep uphill after the Bjørnsjøen lake you get rewarded with one of the longest downhill runs I've experienced. Never out of control steep either--just good and fun.
I decided to be a bit lazy and not do a ski version of the Bataan Death March this weekend. I've done one short and pleasant trip and I'll do the same tomorrow. There comes a point when you keep pushing your limits that it ceases to be fun or pleasant. Time to calm down a little.
It should snow tomorrow so I'll have some fresh stuff to work with and a little more peace and solitude too. Should probably get over 60k for the weekend but who's counting.

Tasty Living in Moose Central

Went for a quick ski tonight and saw three more moose. Coming back I was inspired for dinner. This was a bit of a simple improvisation but turned out very nice on rice:

Moose fry:

1. 1 Onion
   
2. Some ground moose
3. Red currants
4. Rice
   

I sautéed a diced onion in some olive oil and then added the ground moose. That looked like it needed something so I added some frozen, destemmed red currants. A little salt and pepper and I had myself a delicious, quick meal.

The lovely redcurrants I used came from some bushes I found in the forest and harvested this past summer.

Fra Grua til Grinda i Korsvoll

Did a 53k slog from Grua back to my appartment in the Korsvoll neighborhood of Oslo. Went through light to moderate snowfall the whole time. On the train I realized that amongst ski-people, I belong to the lunatic fringe: only two other skiers got off the train at Grua.
One of them took the same trail as I did. I let him get ahead and lay tracks for me (the prepared tracks were full of new snow). That guy, an unassuming, slightly balding fellow in his forties reading the paper on the train did a hell of a lot of good work for me. I appreciated it and followed the tracks he laid down quite religiously.
The trip went smoothly in spite of the weather. I think, actually, it went well because of the weather. The trail that crosses the Bjørnsjøen after Kikutstua and goes to Skar is a single track (photo above) whenever it gets off the ice of the 5 lakes it crosses. And it's dramatically steep in some places. Even in loose, powdery snow I was inevitably at some points on the bleeding edge of in control. Were there anyone coming up the trail, I would have been forced to butt brake. But, such as the weather was, there was very little uphill traffic, thus letting me blast down the trail at ludicrous speed.
Another positive point: the Norwegian weather website yr.no did a great job with their hour by hour weather forecast. It started to snow like all hell at 16.00. At that point I was back home. I'd planned my trip to fit a fairly clement weather window. It would have been pretty bad to do this route in such heavy falling snow.
No blisters this time. My secret: take along an extra pair of dry socks and change them mid way.

Nordic adaptation strategy no. 1 - fårikål!

This is not a hospitable country for hairless bipeds. You either need heavy fur or a good strategy to survive here. Norwegians have done a fairly good job of devising adaptation strategies. They, for example, invented skiing. Snow is a major hindrance to travel. But on a good trail a decent skier can manage 50Km at an average speed of more than 12Km/hour. Much faster then walking on dry ground.
Norwegians have perhaps done less brilliantly with diet adaptation. Someone famously called lutefisk the food equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction. But they did invent fårikål.
Fårikål literally means lamb in cabbage. It really is that. Making it just requires cooking in the most primordial sense of the word: cut your cabbage into wedges, lay down layers of fatty-bony-cheap cuts of lamb then cabbage in a big pot, throw in a little salt and whole peppercorns with each layer. No more prep required--5 minutes max. Just leave it on a low flame.
Then go ski. Ski for 4 hours. Come back home and from well down the block the siren call of fårikål will enchant your nose. Go inside and it's almost unbearably good smelling. I had a hard time waiting the time needed to rip off my ski clothes before eating.
I think sports nutritionists have now debunked the carbo-loading theory, that you should eat a lot of spaghetti before running a marathon. I find carbo-binging roughly equivalent to sugar binging: a quickish high then a crash. Good, nutritious slow cooked fat is far better body fuel. And great comfort food after a hard cold night of ski fraught with rampaging moose danger!

Hi there Mrs. Moose!

I was out skiing late last night and came nose to nose with a big Moose. I really wasn't paying attention ahead of me and I mistook the beast for a weird looking skier stopped on the track. When I got within smelling distance of the thing and realized what it was, it took a couple of aggressive steps toward me. I did an instant U-turn and poled myself back down the hill fast.
Then began the waiting game. These things are normally reputed skittish. Not this one. I tried pleading with it to move. It ignored me and continued munching on tree stuff with its giant body blocking the whole trail. I tried yelling at it and waving my sticks. Munch munch munch. No effect. I couldn't really go around it because that would mean slogging through 1.5 meter deep loose powder. The moose also recognized the difficulty of going off trail and was happy staying on the hard packed ski løype.
I spent 5 long minutes waiting and freezing. Mrs. Moose finally decided that a tree slightly off the track looked tasty. I then skied by and back home. On the way there I spotted a mother moose and its young. Those two were far more reasonable and quickly scurried off as I approached.
There are no more moose burgers in my freezer. I'll be stocking up.

Skippy walk

I've always been a skippy walker. Classmates called me "skippy". I reacted badly, which only encouraged them.
But now I've figured out the purpose of my skippy gait. With very minor changes a skippy walk becomes a good cross country skiing diagonal stride. The skip comes from a little hop off the back foot propelling you forward onto the front one. When skiing the "hop" gives you good compression for forward power. After the hop you just let the back foot follow through into the "kick". Repeat process with the other leg, gliding forward each time on the front leg.
So to all the nasty little brats who made fun of me: a retroactive shut the **** up, I can ski better than you (not that many Southern California people ski much, but anyway....

Skiing Havnabakken hill

Went out for a little night skiing on Havnabakken hill just down the street from my house. First did a 10k warmup on some nearby cross country trails and then skied down the street to this pleasant ski hill. Havnabakken hill is nicely lit by some lamps and the city lights below. In a addition to being a fine ski hill, this place has one of the best views of Oslo anywhere. Stayed out going up and down the slope until 1am.

Back in Siberia...

Boy, you don't know how lucky you are! Back in Siberia...
My favorite neighborhood trail hasn't been groomed in days and the snow's still wonderful. Temperatures in the minus teens keep the crowds down too. Did a fast little 10k this afternoon. Explored a single track turløyper. I've probably been there on foot but didn't recognize it. Everything looks so different with a thick layer of snow. Happy, happy, happy, gliding around wherever I wanted to go.

In a warm place dreaming of snow

I'm currently in Southern Spain and so off the skiløyper. Found a great ski video from Australia. Really good telemark skiing on regular skate skis with crazy fun jibbing and jumping. The video mentions that the footage comes from the only snowfall they had all winter:



Everything's relative. For me the wait seems long but I'll be back on the snow in Oslo next Saturday.