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.
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