Tell a story

[greatgt]

Seems that is a story that repeats itself....I just got tired of downhill repetitions...Scored some ancient Asnes and hit the gonz....When the e99 came out and Telewheels got a set....I was set!...TM

[greatgt]

Was up on Little Mountain with Telewheels and Telekid back a few....If we ski down to the Village it's about 1600 verts with about a thousand up.....If we hit ridges here and there like Cherry ridge (Cherry trees)....we ski down it and then head back up to find the bush whack track that exists in our minds....One day after riding down a wonderful East South East side and getting over a thousand we headed to a ridge that would bring us down to Mud Pond.....Big Granite Erratic s....BIG! Blue and green ice in the crags and ledges and steep drops over there and that's where I saw Telekid who had avoided the crazy zone and would get there shortly and I was having none of that...BS< I'm the MAN....Teleman and I immediately pushed off toward the steep hardwood slope to the side of Blue green erratic zone....Left ski didn't instantly come around....One ski heading down the other in space picking up speed with trees barreling by....Telewheels could probably relate the rest as he had an eye witness perspective...My mind said get down FAST....as in drop my ass into the snow....which i did....problem....the blue and green popped me back up and I had had it...Forced my skis so they were below me as I flew over a 6-8 foot ledge...my poles disappeared as did my gloves and hat....Breaking a (LUCKY) two to three inch branch ended up at the bottom...Telekid was already down there Damn!.....Took a while to find my stuff and one pole was 8 feet up in a tree....Great ski...TM

[Musk Ox]

I have a story to share. I think it encapsulates the position that the fjellski holds in the Norwegian psyche and the extraordinary beauty of the northern mountainscape.

At the the bitter end of last season, I went up a mountain with Mrs Musk Ox to do some skiing on our skis. I wore my skis, and she wore her skis. Conditions were, at first, not ideal: steep, and icy, refrozen snow on the sunward side of the berg, compacted by traffic, requiring a lot of traversing and a fair deal of slippage, even with the attachment of conspicuous mohair pubes.

The view at the top was extraordinary; one of the most beautiful things I've seen in my life, what felt like hundreds of kilometres of white peaks, the sun shining on the fjord, and so on, fresh snow, absolutely wonderful.

We had some hot chocolate and took some pictures, and it was time to go back down again, and we went, making 'playful arcs' on the snow for maybe 150/ 200 metres, before coming to the icy bit.

The trail up was gross and knobbly, and the weekend's traffic had made the descent on the steep section to the saddle really hairy. So I decided I would come down above that, doing some graceful arcs on the grainy but forgiving shite, rejoining the trail on the hard but flat bit as my lady came down the steep bit in a grownup snowplough, taking selfies and answering emails or whatever good skiers do instead of being frightened of dying.

Down I come! I turn, and I slide, because it's abrasive lemon granita and I'm not sinking in as much I would like, and balls I'm going too fast, but I'll do a parallel turn here because I have an audience now, watching down there, going 'Why is he up there? Why isn't he on the trail like a grownup?" and I've got tons of room, but fuck me I'm going too fast but I hold it together, and make another 'turn' with some tactical flailing and then I'm already at the bottom and I fall over at some speed, right in front of a party of people.

"Går det bra?" this nice Norwegian asks me. "Jeg har det fint", I reply in my shit Danish, I'm fine. He nods, OK! nothing broken, good good, skis on, meets my wife, and I see them both looking down at me, and they're both smiling and it's all good.

Apparently he said to my wife: "He's not doing too badly for a Dane!" and she replied "It's worse than that, he's British", and then they both laughed.

[Stephen]

It’s all good if nothing is broken!

I wonder, where do people from the USA fall on the scale of “worse-ness?”
Or, is it Norwegians, then Danes, and then everyone else?

[Musk Ox]

It’s all good if nothing is broken!

I wonder, where do people from the USA fall on the scale of “worse-ness?”
Or, is it Norwegians, then Danes, and then everyone else?

Honestly the Danes are almost certainly WELL below North Americans on the scale, the highest point in Denmark is 170m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Møllehøj, it's a hypnotically flat country, but you'd have to ask an actual Norwegian, I'm definitely not qualified to say, ha ha!

When my wife was at school and they went skiing on a school trip to Norway, the Norwegian kids would whizz down the hill flailing their arms as if they were out of control (I think maybe with no poles?) going "Heeeelp, I'm Danish!"

(We used to live next door to the middle school a couple of years ago and they were doing literal jumps over a snow mound down the hill in the school yard at playtime, with hockey stops, so I have no doubt believing this story).

[CwmRaider]

I was alpine skiing in Switzerland for 30 years, pretty good at it too. Whatever that means? I found it less and less rewarding to take lifts up and ski down prepared groomers, then stand waiting for my turn on the lift, like sheep. Always surrounded by hundreds or thousands of others.
Getting a challenge required going too fast or jumping too high or going in dangerous terrain.
Two weeks into my new job in Norway I went with a group of colleagues to a mountain cabin, in March. There was stacks of snow and with a few other unprepared (ie. Without skis) people I was plodding along the 4 km trip to the cabin, Following tracks which had been made by skiers. I wasn't the worst off, one woman had brought along a roller suitcase which was the least practical item of luggage I have ever seen in deep snow...
I bought skis the next week. They were 3/4 steel edged Atomic Sierra with almost no sidecut, as I wanted one pair of XC skis that could "do it all". I fell a LOT the first years using them.
Those skis were quite OK in retrospect, but track skis are much better in tracks and wider skis are much better outside tracks. I now happily have 6 pairs of xc skis and they all have clearly defined uses. And I find it much easier to have fun with xc skis (as every turn feels like an accomplishment).