Yesterday we took a chance and drove up to Golsfjellet after work in the hope of finding ski tracks that were still usable. Damae carefully prepared the skis using klister which is a very sticky fluid type of ski wax. This is designed to give you some grip on slippery, warm, old snow.

The road up to Golsfjellet was completely ice free. Our car parking spot was covered in a thin layer of slush and as we walked through to the ski track through Kvannhøgd campsite there was slush and pools of water. Although the sun was shining, it wasn’t warm. There was as stiff breeze from the West, a lazy wind, one that couldn’t be bothered to go round us and just went through us instead.

We could see ski tracks but were they usable?

I made an executive decision and headed off in an easterly direction. The wind was in our backs for the first bit. If we’d done the loop the other way round it would have been a kilometer into the wind on what turned out to be rather dodgy snow. We sank into the snow, or rather the wet ice, on a few occasions which slowed us down a bit.

We turned the corner into the wind and headed towards Lægret Fritidssenter. By now we realised that even with sticky klister on our skis we had little grip. At the Fritidssenter we gingerly went down the very gentle slope that runs through the campsite as the snow was extremely slippery. Then we had to take our skis off and walk. Not only was there not enough snow for us to ski on but there was also a big puddle in the way.

We had to walk here.

Once past the puddle we carried on. The first gentle slope was no problem as the headwind was strong enough to stop us getting up too much speed.

Into the sun, into the wind.

The next bit was a long slog into the headwind. On the second part of this leg the snow was especially slippery and it took us a while to reach the next junction, where, to our relief we turned out of the wind. With the strong tailwind, the slight downhill and the wet snow we slid along with little effort. All we had to do was push with our sticks every ten metres or so and then stand upright to catch the wind. It was a hoot and we made it back to the Syncro and our thermos of soup in record time.

It does rather look like this was the last chance to go skiing on Golsfjellet. Well unless we get some significant snowfall in the next week or so. If it doesn’t snow then there will be little chance of going skiing at Easter, which is usually the last winter holiday of the season.