Skiing in Sälen

Liam and I have just returned from another ski trip. This time we drove from Göteborg up to Sälen for a long week-end. Sälen is close to the Norwegian border, and has five or six large resorts within a very small area. It's the closest large-scale ski area to Göteborg, and so very many families go up there during February week (`Winter sport holiday´ in Swedish). Often people go together with their children's friends from dagis, but Liam and I had to time our trip to coincide with Mary and John Desmond's absence, so we couldn't.

Anyway, we drove up on Wednesday, a 6-7 hour trip, and stayed at Sälen youth hostel. Liam loves the bunk beds in youth hostels, and insisted on taking the top bunk, which I readily agreed to!

There followed four days of skiing, each at a different resort.

Lindvallen

On the first day, we drove to Lindvallen resort, close to Sälen village. Liam wanted to go there because it was there that he skied for the very first time, two years ago, when he was three. At that time, he skied in the very flatest of green slopes, and wasn't able to go to the top of the hill. But he remembered Lindvallen's `trade mark´: they build a giant snowman at the top of their main slope, and he wanted to go and see it. Here it is:

Liam is the figure waving in the foreground.

We had a good day skiing at Lindvallen, but you couldn't really call it exciting: all the pistes run down the Eastern side of the same ridge, with the result that the view is much the same from every one, and the slope is pretty similar. The black pistes didn't really seem much steeper than the blue ones! For the most part, the slopes aren't so different from the ones at Ulricehamn, just an hour from Göteborg.

The exception was a gully with natural snow, which we skied by skiing down one side and up the other, and then back a little lower down. The snow was pretty icy, and we took it slowly and carefully to avoid accidents. But that was fun!

Stöten

On the second day, we skied at Stöten, close to the youth hostel. What a contrast to Lindvallen! Here the height difference from top to bottom is considerably greater -- 360m -- and there is a definite mountain with a wonderful view from the top.

Here Liam is about to ski down the `World Cup´ slope, over the edge behind him.

Stöten proved to be a very enjoyable resort: from the mountaintop there are several satisfyingly steep black pistes down to the valley station below, while on the other side of the resort there are some very easy forest trails. We skied one called `Granny's downhill race´ which was over 2.5km of very gentle descent through sparse forest, just steep enough to keep the skis moving. The nice thing was that the forest was so sparse, that it was very inviting to leave the piste and ski the natural snow, dodging the trees and bushes. The natural snow is full of bumps and jumps, even on such a gentle slope, with the result that Liam is hooked on `off piste´!

Hundfjället

On the third day, we drove to Hundfjället (`dog mountain´), where Liam was ever hopefull of seeing dogs on skis! Hundfjället resort is spread over both sides of a valley, and in the bottom of the valley they have prepared `Trollskogen´, the troll forest, with statues of trolls and their friends, and tape recordings, beside a very easy piste.


Liam entering the trollskog.	The singing trollgirls.

However, one could also leave the piste and ski between the trees in the forest, down narrow paths and gullies and over sudden jumps and pits. Liam loved it! Actually a sudden pit isn't easy to ski over: one's skis accelerate down into the hole, leaving one's behind all to far, well, behind! The answer is to lean well forward when going over an edge, which is rather counter-intuitive, and to get down low beforehand and press one's legs down into the dip. Anyway, we had a lot of fun there!

We also enjoyed visiting the restaurant near the top of the mountain, with a wonderful view:

After our meal, Liam insisted on `having fun´, which turned out to mean climbing the snow-drift beside the restaurant. You can get up a steep drift by making your own foot-holds: you kick your ski-boots into the snow until you have a satisfactory platform to stand on.

Liam climbs the snow drift.

We also had a little mishap in Hundfjället: we skied a slope that was really too steep.

Actually, we approached it twice. The first time, we went close to the `edge´, and could only see the cottages at the bottom; we couldn't see the slope itself at all. So we decided to climb back up and take a different route down instead -- very wise, as it turned out. But after that, I reconnoitered the slope from the lift, and I thought it looked steep but possible, so we made a second attempt. It was the steepest slope I have ever tried to ski down! The steepest slope at Hundfjället is called `Väggen´, `The Wall´, and slopes 45 degrees. For comparison, it's said that a black slope should slope at least 23 degrees, so Väggen is twice as steep as a black slope need be. The slope we skied wasn't Väggen, but it was one of the slopes beside it, so the slope was probably close.

Anyway, Liam went first, and made a few successful turns, but then he slipped, fell, and couldn't stop sliding: he slid all the way down to the bottom, a vertical difference of about 200m. When I saw that, I tried to follow him down, and of course I slid also! I tried to do a `self-arrest´, by sticking the end of a ski stick down into the snow, but this slope was so steep that even that didn't stop me, and I too slid all the way down to the bottom. The self-arrest cut my speed, and therefore the risk of injury, but its main effect was to bend the end of my ski-stick by about 45 degrees! (I managed to straighten it again, however). Luckily I didn't run into Liam, and we could both pick ourselves up again, somewhat shocked but uninjured, and go on skiing.

This kind of sliding accident is a common cause of skiing injuries, by the way. In the piste, the resort designers make sure there is nothing to hit if you slide, but off-piste you could go over a precipice or land in rocks or whatever.

I reckon I know why I slid. Just beforehand I felt a powerful vibration in my right foot, as I braked on the slope. The piste preparation machines leave a kind of `wash-board´ effect in hard snow, which explains that. Now I had noticed in the morning that my right binding (the thing that holds the boot to the ski) was a little loose, but I foolishly did nothing about it. I reckon the vibration shook my boot off the ski, leaving me with only one ski, after which a fall is virtually inevitable. The same thing has happened to me before, although not in such a critical situation. Moral: check the bindings before skiing steep slopes!

Finally, Liam wanted a sequence of shots of himself skiing: here he is on a black slope at Hundfjället:

Kläppen

On our last day, we skied at Kläppen until the lifts closed at 16:30. Kläppen is maybe 20 minutes outside Sälen village along the road to Göteborg, so we had a start on our long journey home. The nice thing about Kläppen is that the slopes lead down from the cottage on the mountaintop in all directions, so one can enjoy many different views, and avoid the wind no matter what direction it blows from... To my amazement, the chair lift also had wind shields, a kind of coupé that one could pull down over oneself for protection from possible wind. Actually the wind was pretty strong when we were there, and the chair lift did go above all sheltering forest, so it was probably a good thing the wind shields were available.

Kläppen has some good black slopes, and many enjoyable easy slopes, so the day was a success in every respect.

When the lifts closed we drove back home to Göteborg, again a journey of seven hours or so, and we are now gradually returning to everyday life. We'll see if this winter holds more skiing for us -- hopefully so, since every day of practice gives a noticeable result -- and hope for more practice in a few weeks.