Easter skiing trip vacation - day 3 - Sellanrå - Ammerud

Hm, I never finished blogging about our easter vacation skiing trip ... so I'll try to get it done now.

Our first night was at Kobberhaugshytta, which I would say is more or less hotel standard. Sellanrå is a quite much different offer:

• no employees (the offer is maintained on volunteer basis, the volunteers will typically visit the cabin some few times a year). I got the key in advance. There were other guests in the cabin when we came, so luckily it was quite much organized ... otherwise we (being totally exhausted from the skiing trip) would have to fetch water, make fire in the oven, lit some candles, etc.
• No electricity, no running water. Water from a well.
• Quite small and dense - advertised to be space for 15 people, but that would be really crowded.
• Of course, much cheaper
• There was actually a food storage, it's branded as "self-service cabin" meaning it should be possible to come there without bringing any food at all. One takes whatever needed from the food storage, write a list of what one has taken and pay for it. Totally based on trust - and it works. Though, the food storage was relatively empty when we came, and we had relatively much food with us that we anyway had to eat, so we didn't really take benefit of this offer.
• Firing wood and candles is also taken care of, and usage is included in the price.

This cottage had three rooms and four fireplaces! I've never seen anything like that before. It wasn't very much insulated and it was quite cold throughout the night, so it sure took quite some wood to keep it warm.

My eldest son (who denied joining this trip anyway) introduced this easter-egg-candy-hunt-tradition into the family some years ago, and it has become great fun ... for me, organizing it. My wife usually tells me to keep the hunt small with fewer posts; one year the children simply got fed up midway, before the best parts. I usually try to do some research on the place we're at and put posts nearby sights and attractions, or otherwise try to make it a bit educational. We usually have the hunt late Saturday morning - but this year I postponed it one day, so we did have it this Sunday morning. At every post there will be some candies and a note giving hints on how to find the next post (and I help them if they go in the wrong direction). There was a great view of the valley, so at one of the notes it simply said "go watch the view" and if they went in that direction they would easily find the candies at the top of the snow. On another note there was "find the sign for the well", and afterwards "find the well". I guess water is something they usually take for granted. One note said "find the biggest birch there is outside the main entrance" and another "find the nearest pine tree south of the living room window", so then we got to talk a bit about different types of tree, as well as how to find out "where is south" by looking at the clock and the sun. I was very much surprised the kids almost didn't like any of the candies though! That's why their eggs are almost empty at this photo ...

We left quite late from the cabin. Despite the cottage being a bit outside the regular skiing tracks, we met several people in the area before we managed to leave, some by skis and some by feet - those going by feet commented that it was no fun skiing in such conditions (very hard snow). I went by skis from there, but the rest of my family went by feet until we got to the skiing track. The terrain was a bit rough, the day before the pulk rolled over 360 degrees with my daughter inside - she was luckily fine. The return trip towards the skiing tracks was much easier, we had daylight and ... new month, my internet quota problem was resolved so I had access to maps with very good resolution.

At the photo below we have almost reached the main skiing track.

When we came to the skiing track, things were great. Downhills, and not so steep. 150 metres of decline over 4.3 km. No need for me to take two turns with the two kids, my wife managed fine with my youngest daughter.

I said the water on the cabin came from a well - that's not entirely true. I filled up two buckets with water from the well just before leaving (since the other people there were staying longer), but we didn't even taste that water. The other guests on the cabin thought that the well of course was completely frozen and couldn't be used, so they were melting snow for water. That's the water we filled up in our thermoses. The melted-snow-water tasted completely horrible, even the instant hot chocolate powder didn't mask out the foul taste. Me and my middle son stopped by a river and drunk water there. It was perfectly refreshing.

We had a break some 200 metres from the train station "Movatn", I took the garbage and went over there. Funny how different things may look in real life as compared with photos. One notable thing I saw just nearby the train station (and I've been there in the summer time as well and noticed it) is a "no-parking-zone"-sign apparently standing by the rails, like forbidding the trains from parking at the train station.

When seeing the full photo I made, I see something much more boring, something I haven't noticed before - there are indeed two signs standing at both sides of a car road telling people that after the signs it's only allowed to park on explicitly marked parking places.

A train to Bergen passed just as I had found a garbage bin that wasn't completely full. Passenger trains to Bergen usually don't go this way, but during the easter there were maintenance on the main lines.

Back to the family and the skiing track. The skiing track does pass the rails, over a bridge.

While we were crossing, a local train passed - though I didn't take a photo.

Then came the worst part. 2.8 km of climbing, gaining 130 height metres. The kids wanted a snack break, but my wife pressed on, no breaks before we got to the top! One thing that eventually helped a bit, our youngest daughter could sit at the top of the pulk. It was much easier to get on and off like that, and we didn't have to repack the pulk to get space for her - so she could sit on the top of the pulk when it was relatively flat or going a bit down, then jump off and walk by feet in the steepest uphills, relieving her dad from some weight.

Finally. The top. Sinober.

Still pretty much snow at Sinober ...

From Sinober there was 7.6 km to Ammerud, where we had a car parked - but around 200 metres of decline, only some small uphills on the way. We wanted to get home, so no photos taken. Most of the decline was towards the end. My son was thrilled, I usually have him in front of me when I'm helping him down hills, this time he was parallell with me, we were holding the skiing rods horizontally between us ... and my daughter sat on the pulk, she was also really thrilled ... in the biggest hills it went really very fast. Safe? Probably not. At one point my son fell, and he even got a bit under the pulk before I managed to stop - but no crying - "it's ok!", and we continued down the hill. We were of course all a bit tired, but still fine when we got down to the car. Except my wife, she said she couldn't drive the car because her legs were still like shaking a bit after all the breaking down the hills.

So that was it. Almost 40 km of skiing and two overnight stays, entirely within the Oslo municipality borders. It's probably just a day trip for one of the more extreme sport skiers, but for us, with small children, lots of luggage, skis that are optimized for mountain trips rather than trips on prepared tracks, and quite some non-optimal routes as well as non-optimal skiing conditions, it was quite a lot. One of the best things with a great hike or great skiing trip is to get home ...

All photos available in better resolution on IPFS QmWNEnDhXNc2UkYhdgZ2467ggDUv4YALRoxp8TF4vbhLhd. License: CC BY-SA 4.0