I observed serveral advantages and disadvantages while doing sport in the cold winter. Ok, it is not THAT cold. It is only -10°C. But wearing shorts is not possible anymore. The same is for shirts. A fleece jacket is needed. In addition I wear Roeckl gloves which prooves to be VERY warm.
While jogging in the dark I am carrying a small bike lamp with me for the possibility a car is coming in my way. I don’t want to get running flat.
The mp3-player quits its service when it cools down. This is pretty annoying because this happens very fast. This is twice annoying because the running stop watch resets this way.
Despite all the disadvantages I love it to run in the cold dark and here the snow crunching beneath the shoes. The body has to work but the mind relaxes

But where is the snow, and why is it so hot? 9°C

The storm from the previous evening was turning into a wild winter gale. Although the tent is a 4 season tent it is not build to brave a storm. We didn’t want to let the storm crash the tent, so we decided to dismantle the tent. By the way it was something 0130 AM in the night. The storm was very strong. It already loosened the tent pegs. If we both would leave the tent at once the storm would have blow it away instantly. So one of us had to stay in the tent as an anchor. Since I am the heavier of us both, I decided I stay in the tent and clean it up while Julia was dismantling the tent. This went pretty well and half an hour after we decided to dismantle the tent we were inside the car and tried to sleep there.

Around 0730 AM (it was beginning to get brighter, the storm was gone but it was snowing silently) we decided to down down to the valley. To drive 30km on a pretty dark, snow covered lane with only snow chains is pretty exhausting. One hour later we were leaving the foggy snow area and reached the not-so-foggy rain area.

On the way we had one funny episode. Two young Norwegians wanted to drive up obviously heading Aursjø but due to the mist one of them seemingly decided to sound out the situation. He was just getting back to the car well wrapped up in winter clothes and the other one wearing only a fleece jacket or similar was just getting out of the car. They both stared like they have seen an UFO. They probably were shocked at the fact that a small Renault Clio was getting through this area without any problem (as it might look) but they hesitated to drive into the fog and snow. Those faces we’ll never forget

Down in the valley the weather looked very miserable. Because it was a Sunday there were much less traffic than on normal days. As we discussed a couple of days earlier we were driving back heading Oslo. Although we knew we never would make it back in one day we had to get as far as possible on that day.

We were driving back to Eidsvåg along the Sunndalsfjord. We were passing Bogge where we had some trouble to find the amazing rock carvings one day earlier and had to drive over a small pass. Although it was on 600m a.s.l. there was snow also. This way we could determine the snow line to be at around 550m a.s.l.

Driving through rain can be quite relaxing but sometimes (especially after a sleep in the car) one needs some variety. No sooner said than done and we were driving to the small stave church in Rødven. This church is still under restoration. The oldest parts of the church are from the 14th century.

We then had to drive a big detour along the Romsdalsfjord because the Trollstigvegen we wanted to drive for a shortcut and for taking photos was closed. Our goal for the day was to maybe find a camping ground near Geiranger. The journey to Geiranger took several hours. We tried to look at sights as much as possible but there weren’t many.

Above the Geirangerfjord there is a observation deck for all the tourists like us This fjord is not for nothing that famous. A very impressive relief where one has to look twice to see the proportions. Because the weather didn’t look very promising that day we took the famous ferry from Geiranger to Hellesylt through the Geirangerfjord. This way we enjoyed the mass tourism journey with only a couple of fellow passengers. The seven sisters waterfall (De syv søstrene) was barely a waterfall. The sisters were reduced to a skeleton. While the Suitor on the other side of the fjord didn’t look so thin. The abandoned farms along the fjord looked very spectacular in combination with the heavy relief.

When we arrived in Hellesylt it poured like hell. It was now very dark. We were driving in the direction of Hornindal and had to pass another pass. We didn’t recognize the dropping of the temperature but it now snowed down to 400m and below. We soon had to realize that it was not good to drive home to Oslo for better or worse. Because of the summer tires and the snow chains we were quite a traffic block and had to halt permanently.

We were looking for a camping ground which is still open. This is not that easy in this area but we managed to get a (very) small hytta. It looked more like a built out garden shed but we were lucky to have a bed and a stove. The hytta was pretty cold because it only had something like small immersion heater above the door (the hytta actually had only one door). But we didn’t wail, cooked something, ate and went to bed.

The first night in a tent for a long time was great. Fresh cool air mixed with no noise at all. Only a gentle picking on the tent wall. The picking was the noise of small snow flakes landing on the tent. What a morning! Snow everywhere and that happened in the night from September, 30th to October, 1st. At home it could happen that there is no snow at all until February or later. Hooray! But the good news also have a bad news. The car was equipped with summer tires. Luckily we had the tire chains with us. These were brand new ones and were built in a way that the montage was a work of 2 minutes per tire maximum. After packing all our goods (including the wet tent) into the car, we drove down to the valley. We bought some food in Øyer and while discussing the route to Rondane we observed some hilarious magpies. These birds only exists for fun I guess

On the way to Rondane we stopped at the Ringebu stav kirke. The oldest parts of this curch are from the 13th century. The curch was continually expanded. The last part is a organ made by Åkerman & Lund in baroque style. Although I love organs, Baroque is definitely not my favourite time period. The church is open for visitors from end of May till end of August.

We were quite close to the Rondane national park and despite the bad weather we decided to go on a short hike to Rondvassbu, a quite big hytta with service. The hiking guide said the walking distance is 1 hour. We really almost ran to the hytta but didn’t get there in 1 hour. I wonder how fast good hikers should ran. The mountains around us were hidden in clouds almost all the time, so we had no panorama. When the clouds disappeared over a mountain for a short while we could see that they were completely covered with snow. No wonder.

After we were back at the car, it already had begun to get dark. So we looked for a spot for our tent. But one thing at a time. Before discovering a spot for the tent we visited the Kvitskriuprestin. These are small towers made of moraine material from glaciers. On the top they have a huge rock which protects the pillars from being eroded. The walk from the road up to the Lvitskriuprestin is really steep. Although one walks only 10 minutes (or less) ones heart is pumping like hell.

Although the weather looked like it would rain through the night we looked for a spot for the tent and decided to erect it on the parking lot for the Kvitskriuprestin. The lot was made of coarse gravel and so we had to flatten it before building up the tent.

Two weeks ago I announced I wanted to loose weight. I was weighing 110kg at this time and today morning the scale showed 109kg. With an error of 1kg I didn’t loose any weight. I try to hike every saturday. Those activities are a good way to proove my fitness.

This saturday I was in Eberbach in the Odenwald (Forest of Odes) stopping at the ruin of the castle (build in the 11th century) and visiting the Arboretum which was my major goal at this day. But the Arboretum isn’t finished at all. The North America section is missing and this was why I wanted to visit the Arboretum. From the start of the hike it snowed really much. I enjoyed the falling snow because it is so seldom that it is snowing in this part of Germany. The most joy I had was walking in fresh pure snow although I was wet all over which I recognized when I arrived at my car. After hiking two hours the snow stopped to fall and the sun came out and burned all the snow away (calling it melting is too harmless). I will show images soon when my homepage is finished.

Vor zwei Wochen habe ich geschrieben, dass ich Gewicht verlieren will. Damals wog ich 110kg und heute morgen zeigte die Waage 109kg an. Mit einem Fehler von 1kg habe ich also überhaupt kein Gewicht verloren. Ich versuche allerdings jeden Samstag zu wandern. Solche Aktivitäten sind eine gute Methode um meine Fitness zu testen.

Diesen Samstag war ich in Eberbach im Odenwald, bin an einer Burgruine aus dem 11. Jahrhundert vorbei und wollte mein Hauptziel, das Arboretum, besuchen. Aber das Arboretum ist noch nicht fertig gestellt. Die komplette Nordamerika Sektion fehlt, dabie bin ich doch wegen dieser überhaupt ins Arboretum. Vom Start der Wanderung schneite es wirklich stark. Ich genoss diesen Neuschnee, weil es hier so selten ist, dass es überhaupt mal schneit. Den größten Spaß hatte ich aber im frischen, reinen Neuschnee rumzustapfen. Nach zwei Stunden allerdings kam die Sonne raus und hat den Schnee weggebrannt (“wegschmelzen” wäre viel zu harmlos). Ich werde bald Bilder bringen, wenn meine Homepage soweit mal fertig gestellt ist.