Christmas break moving towards the end…
| Date | Peak/Place | Height | PF | Location |
| 28.12.2020 | Synet | 1137m | 124 | Nord-Aurdal, Norway |
Monday: We were still at the rented cabin at Vaset in Valdres. The plan toay was that we would go for a ski-trip to Syni (aka Synet) – an estimated 20km trip. But due to a big snowfall last night (30cm) we realized that it would be too tough for Karma, even if we could follow a prepared track almost all the way to the top. So, we ended up going on separate trips. Anne would take Karma and I would go for Syni.
Note: Apologies for crappy pictures. I traded my Canon for a lighter backpack. Mistake!
The weather wasn’t good at all, and I didn’t have any high hopes about reaching the top. Especially since the tracks didn’t run all the way to the top.
Another thing that could go wrong, was the combination of skating skis and wax. It was fully possible to get that wrong. Anne gave her recommendation for wax the night before and I prepared the skis accordingly. There was absolutely no chance that I would go on this trip with mountain skis and Scarpa T4 Telemark boots!
11:08am, I headed out. I had a lot of uphill ahead of me and “prayed” that the wax would deliver.
It sort of did. It was slippery at times, but by applying a true classic cross-country style in the uphills I got the necessary grip, although it was hard work. But when I was approaching Gomobu, the worst part was behind me.
I had never been up here before, and looked forward to enter “wilderness“. But the cabins never seemed to end. I had to remind myself that there are summer roads everywhere up here.
As I passed Nystølen, I felt that I stood a good chance on reaching Syni. The weather was stabile – not good, but certainly not terrible.
Fast forward 1 hour – Anne took Karma and followed “in my tracks” up to Gomobu and then up to the Nystølen cabins. I wonder if Karma could pick up my scent?
Many thanks to Anne who took care of Karma today. I also know that Anne was quite happy by picking her own destination and her own pace. Normally, I set the tone for both…
Back to my trip; I was really enjoying myself. The skis were “flying” and if it hadn’t been for other skiers blazing past me, I would have felt like a true cross-country skier. But no complaints. I was still one happy dude.
Eventually, I reached the end of the track. With 0,7km to go up to the high point and no track. That is – there was a track. The only problem was that it was hidden beneath 20-30cm of snow and I had no idea where it was. I could feel the other skiers were giving me a strange look – entering the forest full of snow with matchstick skis…
After a little while, I got Syni in view. It felt like a small lifetime to get to the high point and it was very strenuous at times.
But I got up there eventually, and I was most certainly the only person up here today!
This felt really good. Not that this was a challenging trip in any shape or form, but I really didn’t think I would be standing up here when I got up this morning.
I followed my own tracks back to where the main track ended. There were two skiers there and they didn’t see me come down the forest. I was able to pick up some speed and blazed past them, and noticed two very confused faces. WHERE did this guy come from???
Back at the fork near Nystølen, I took the other route back to Gomobu and now there were skiers all over the place. The majority surely came from the higher cabins and I gave myself an extra bonus point for starting all the way down in Vaset.
I looked forward to all the downhills. The sunglasses I had brought didn’t work at all, but I had alpine goggles in my backpack and could keep a good pace down the hillside.
At 2:01pm, I was back at the cabin and could join the others.
We were running out of wood, and as I had no interest in spending 30 minutes getting the car free of snow, we had to come up with a different solution. As the local store was only 500m down the road, the following solution would work just fine…
Trip statistics: 19,1km, 400 vertical meters, 2h:30m
