Despite the complete disappearance of the snow down in the city there is plenty to be found high on the hills. I wanted to see just how much so I had a few hours running around, scoping out possible bivouac sites and trying out some new gear including some much needed warm gloves. Up at 600m things got interesting...
The whole playground at the school where I work is a awash with slush and ice as the low pressure settled over Bergen and washed the snow away. Rivers of snow melt are running down the road past our apartment. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
Low pressure imminent. 9C and rain arriving. Just enough time for a mid-week early morning trail run in the snow. Warm sunny days followed by severe freezing winds left the snow with an icy crust that was slick in the rocky parts of the trail so I put on my £10 Normark Isbrodder that I primarily wore up the hill to give me traction on the pavement which was covered with hard water ice. The six small metal studs per foot, mounted on rubber straps, proved themselves to be a great bargain giving me 4x4-like grip on the ice and rock on the trail. It was a fantastic stolen morning and I'll miss the snow while it's gone. Fingers crossed it'll be back in January.
Yes the snow is still here, in fact there is even more of the stuff. Myself and M took a wander around the Nattlandsfjellet Rim on Saturday. It was hard work with the extra snow and at times we were postholing through knee deep drifts but the sun was out, the sky was blue and wreaths of mist span up the hillsides from the city far below. When the mists periodically blotted out the sun you could feel the air chill discernibly. We took a short break in the shelter of large boulder, drank coffee, ate chocolate, peanuts and cashews and soaked up the rays like a couple of solar panels. M employed the arse crampon on a frighteningly frequent basis, so much so that I was starting to think that she was actually enjoying it.
On the way home we passed several local families enjoying the terrifyingly steep forest tracks on their various sleds and glissades. We must remember to pick up a snow shovel of some description. It looks a much more enjoyable and faster way to get down off the mountain and it's not often that a piece of safety equipment can be so much fun too.
Well it kept on snowing. Luckily I had a late shift so I got to go out and play. As I walked up the road I could see the whole city had been blessed with a dusting.
At the trailhead, behind the recycling bins, the world went eerily quiet. Six inches of snow muffled the sound of Friday morning suburbia behind me and I headed up the switchbacks.
Up on the ridge overlooking the city of Bergen I could see a fjord cruise ship leaving the docks, firing it's water cannons in celebration. High on my chilly vantage point I was grinning from ear to ear.
All around me snow storms were rolling in. I pulled on my Flux, battened down the hatches and with the time for me to head to work rapidly approaching I turned my back to the maelstrom and headed towards home.
The wind blown snow scoured the hillside and obliterated my footsteps coming the other way. The storm blew over after ten minutes and after a while I was back down in the trees under skies that changed from blue to washed out gold and back to leaden grey. It was only a quick 'morning constitutional' and I apologise to anyone who regularly gets to enjoy this kind of weather but I come from the south coast of England and I hadn't seen this much snow for about 25 years!
At first it was a light dusting of the hills that I can see from the school where I work...
Then by the time school finished it was settling down in the city...
Then by the time we got home from our evening Norwegian classes it was like this on the street outside our apartment...
A good three inches of the stuff and it's still falling steadily. I may have to take an early morning run up the hill tomorrow morning....
With the death throes of M's cold still throe-ing and my cold well and truly dead ("Ere, he says he's not dead", "Yes he is", "I'm not", "He isn't", "Well, he will be soon, he's very ill", "I'm getting better", "No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment") I went out on my own this morning but it wasn't until I climbed onto the Nattlandsfjellet ridge that I discovered that there was snow to be had high up on the big hills! The sun was making one of it's rare weekend in-store appearances but there was a mean wind accompanying it, coming straight off the North Sea and up over the ridge. I cinched my hood up, put my head down and up I went. Plenty of people out enjoying the cold crispiness. My day was capped when I got to see another (or the same) Arctic Hare racing across the whiteness. It was in almost the same place that I saw one last time but without a telephoto lens and sharp shooter reactions you'll just have to take my word for it. It was a good few hours of frosty fun and a great way to get over my cold.
A wet, dark, windy afternoon in Bergen. The death throes of a cold. Nothing better than feasting on chili-chocolate cake and going to have a look around a stunning Ansel Adams photography exhibition at the Bergen Kunst Museum ('Language, Timothy!'). Much inspiration too be had. Jaw dropping, super sharp, b&w images of Mount McKinley, Manly Beacon and Half Dome.
A slightly mis-timed Sunday afternoon hike towards Storfjellet ('The Big Hill' - 623m) resulted in us being chased off the hills by malevolent darkness and murderous hail storms. We'd had a good few hours up in the clouds, each of us lost in our own tunnel-vision existence inside our hoods. Then someone turned down the dimmer and switched the hail on to 'Stun'. No dishonour in retreating. Although we were largely dry and warm (M loving her merino longs and Rab troos) we both agreed that proper winter gloves are needed from now on! The top photo was taken at 4.30pm on the ski trail, heading home, fantasising of Shepherd's Pie. The photo below was taken at 7.30pm. Good times.
Not really the thing to be eating just before bedtime but when someone brings over some of the best cheese in the world then you make exceptions.
Could these pretzels be the best snack in the world? All natural mini pretzels filled with peanut butter! These just might have to be one of the Two Shared Luxuries allowed on backpacking trips into the mountains (the hipflask is NOT open to discussion).
What a difference 24 hours makes. Yesterday we woke up to beautiful wall-to-wall sunshine and frostiness everywhere. We managed to free ourselves from the confines of the duvet, donning beanies, fleecy gloves and running shoes we gambolled up the road and along our new favourite ridge path overlooking Bergen. We marvelled at the rock hard frozen ground that a week before had threatened to swallow my left Roclite whole and almost skipped up to the summit, no rucksacks, no spare clothes, just a bottle of water and a few boiled sweets in our pockets. There was ice everywhere due to the unrelenting days of rain we've had recently and we struggled to find any free water. We found huge icicles and ice columns falling from giant slabs of granite and we had to watch our footing in several areas where widespread groundwater had turned into a skating rink.
Unfortunately I forgot M was with me as I am so used to going out on my own and without thinking I ripped a perfect Air Hanky with M in full view. She didn't seem to appreciate the speed, efficiency and (excuse the pun) green credentials of the Air Hanky that requires no trees to be cut down, pulped, bleached and sorted into little plastic bags that sit in your pocket as Kleenex Balsam Travel Tissues. The Air Hanky's coup de grace is it's ability to be performed in full flight, negating the need to call everybody to a halt while you dig around in your pockets for a new Kleenex, imitate the mating call of a bull elephant and then discreetly plant a Tissue Timebomb that will catch out the unsuspecting laundry doer.
Unfortunately as both of us were about as 'fast and light' as it goes we forgot to pick up any digital image capturing device and vowed to return tomorrow to take photos of all the pretty things we had seen. Until we woke up on Sunday morning to the sound of rain drumming on the window. M suddenly didn't feel like going and I procrastinated quite a bit when I realised that low cloud was covering the city to a height approximately 50m below our balcony. But up I went, only to find most of the ice gone except in a few northerly facing areas and the previously rock hard ground was back to it's usual custard consistency. The cloud cover wrapped around me as I made my way up the mountain blanketing out any view that we stood and gawped at yesterday. I pulled my Paclite cap down around my ears, plugged in my iPod (which is something I rarely do in the mountains) and got on with it.
Once I got to the ski trail I headed towards home and started running, riding my luck in a couple of places with speed winning out over careful footing. There was still a lot of ice on this side of the hill that threatened to dump me on my arse if I didn't take it easy but my old Berghaus was wetting out, I was getting hungry and the rain was getting heavier. Thankfully I was back down into the forest 20 minutes later and onto graded paths that swoop down steeply back towards civilisation. I had managed to take a few photos of the stubborn ice that hadn't quite relented from the day before and I'd had a good few hours up in the clouds.
