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| Sod roof, and of course, Norwegian Wood. |
Skiing here in Sjusjoen is everything you’ve heard about skiing in Norway. Deluxe. We skied almost 3 hours this morning on VR40, at -5C and lightly falling snow. There are trails all over the area. This tiny village is surrounded by 1000km of trails, and I’m pretty certain that I could ski all the way to Stockholm (if I had enough time and energy and places to sleep along the way).
I’d like to give a big Thank You to Mike Myers for loaning me a nice pair of Rossignol Xium classic skis today. My skis haven’t arrived here yet, and Mike’s skis were great! Mike used to live in the USA and was part of the Rossignol ski team; now he lives in Sjusjoen and is part of the family at the Rustad Hotell!
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| A few of my favorite things, all in one place: Rode, Maplus, Start, Swix, Toko, Rex. |
We skied a big circle, heading south-east from Sjusjoen, and skiing through the valleys and over high hills, before heading north and looping back, finishing on a few kilometers of the Birkebeiner trail. It happened that the Half-Birkie was taking place today, so we skied along with the racers for a few km (staying out of the way, which isn’t hard when there are 6 sets of tracks). It was just the perfect finish to a great morning of skiing, and definitely got a bit of pre-Birkie ski stoke going.
Skiers are everywhere here. Young, old. Teenagers. Teenagers skiing with other teenagers, with no coaches supervising. And they seemed to be enjoying it. When we can get that mojo going in the USA, then we’ll really have succeeded in growing our sport.
And they ski well. Mostly. But what seemed most striking to me was that everyone simply looks comfortable on skis.
off track…
Our clothes and skis have arrived at the Oslo airport, and are supposed to arrive here at the hotel late this afternoon. With a bit of luck we’ll be on our own skis on Monday afternoon.
Speaking of Monday… …We’ll be visiting Per Wiik at Madshus ski company in Biri bright and early on Monday.
Okay… Naturally you can watch the World Cup cross country ski races live on the television here (on two different channels, I might add), but it was in Norsk or German. Dang, no british eurosport! If that’s the most that I can complain about, then life is pretty good.
