The First Ski-trip of the Millenium

Liam and I just returned from our first real ski trip of the season, a long week-end in Dalarna in Central Sweden. This was also the first one with the digital camera and the Palm Pilot for recording impressions, so with the help of modern technology here is an almost instant account of the trip! Liam is really making a lot of progress, and we had a really wonderful time. Although the terrain isn't the most dramatic imaginable, there is great variety up there, and we enjoyed a different resort every day. Our diary follows.

Thursday

Today we set off on our long week end skiing in Sälen. The morning was spent packing, and the rest of the day on the drive - a journey of 320 miles which took us 8 hours including stops. As we approached Sälen on the last leg, we were delighted by a sudden display of fireworks in the sky ahead. I have no idea what they were for, but Liam is convinced they were to greet us. And why not - we felt greeted anyway.

We left Göteborg in grey, drizzly +5 weather, but as we drove North it gradually improved, and the heaps of snow by the roadside bode well for our trip. By the time we arrived at Sälen youth hostel the temperature had fallen to -10 - balmy compared to the -30 we experienced last year! The place was deserted - few people ski so early in the season - but we had the door code and let ourselves in.

Before turning in we ate a quick dinner of 'sandwich cake', a very Swedish dish consisting of layer upon layer of bread and cream cheese topped with prawns, ham, grapes, cheese, you name it. The overall impression is of a wedding cake with prawns - yummy!

We washed it all down with a bottle of Robby Bubble, a kind of blueberry fizz from the Czech Republic which Liam was unable to resist in the supermarket. It's disguised as a champagne bottle, with authentic plastic cork and wire to undo, and you might almost be fooled were it not for the grinning cartoon elk on the label! To my amazement it was really good, not oversweet like so many fizzy drinks - hardly more than blueberry juice and cardon dioxide! Look out for it.

Pretty cosy for £13 a night -- for two!

Friday

We spoke too soon about the balmy temperature! When we went out to the car this morning, it was -21 degrees! That is cold - even grasping the steering wheel is a trial - but the sky was beautifully clear, and in the heat of the day it got up to -10. In warm sunshine, and with a little exercise, that is actually quite pleasant. And there is no evil that doesn't bring with it a little good - the snow was beautifully crisp and crunchy today.

We skied at Stöten today, just a few minutes from the youth hostel, and I must say I like the place. In the morning we skied in the steep slopes, and they are very fine - they make for lovely carving turns, and the views are beautiful. In the afternoon we moved over into the easier slopes, and found some very enjoyable green slopes, inviting to high speed or off-piste.

The only fly in the ointment was that Liam's new ski boots proved impossible to get on. In the last couple of months his feet have grown at least a complete size. So there was nothing for it but to rent a pair today, and drive in to Sälen town this evening to buy a replacement pair. The things are not at all cheap, but one can't ski without them, and renting is a real hassle. Anyway, we bought a pair with plenty of growth space, so hopefully the problem is solved for a while now.

The World Cup slope in Stöten	Snow cannons hard at work
Näcken at Stöten	There's more than one way to ride a pair of skis!
Sunset on the mountain top	View from the chair lift
Industrial archeology? No, the lift machinery on top of Stöten mountain.

Saturday

Smoked reindeer with whipped horseradish sauce on thin flatbread for breakfast - a local speciality! Yum!

Afterwards we drove to Hundfjället (Dog Mountain), where last year Liam was ever hopeful of seeing dogs on skis! Today we did actually see a pair of 'dogs' (Disneyland style) in one of the lifts, so perhaps the idea wasn't so far fetched after all!

Ever wondered why we use studded tyres in the winter here in Sweden? Here's what the road to Hundfjället looked like! Yes, the white stuff is snow. The darker stuff in between is ice. Here and there, if you're lucky, a bit of tarmac might stick up through. Don't ask why they don't plough the roads -- this is what the plough leaves behind! It shifts the top layer of snow, but the hard stuff underneath is proof against mere scraping! Unlike in milder climes, the scrapings don't melt away when the sun comes out. The bottom layer of packed ice just builds up after each snowfall, up, and up, and up all winter long. Just before Spring comes you could skate on the roads here and there! Metal studs in the tyres make an enormous difference, but even with them, braking distances are loooooong on this kind of surface. Doesn't stop people cruising happily at 50-60 m.p.h. though!

Hundfjället is a million miles from skiing in the wilderness, but fun even so. We began in Trollskogen (the troll forest) which Liam remembered from last year - a gentle trail through easy forest with model trolls along the way. After exploring a few more slopes we were ready for lunch, which we ate at a grilling place half way up the mountain. They have built half a dozen small shelters with grills in, with a little shack selling raw sausages and bread rolls beside them! Very pleasant, actually.

After lunch we crossed over to Tandådalen, another resort, via a horizontal lift that connects the two. There are several good black slopes near the connection that we fancied trying, and I must say, Tandådalen seems worth a day's visit by itself.

On our first descent we saw a parachutist - turns out Tandådalen have a parachute-flying school also! The breeze blowing over the mountain provides a perfect updraught. We took the lift back up and crossed over to the next piste to watch, and saw them launch from close at hand. Fascinating, thought Liam.

Liam is making great progress with parallel turns, although he calls them 'speed bolts' since they enable him to ski faster, and insists they aren't turns at all! Well, it's true he turns less with them than with plough turns - that's why they're faster! So I have to say 'This is a good slope for speed bolts', 'Let's see some speed bolts here' and so on, to encourage him. Goodness knows what people who overhear us think!

When the lifts closed Liam was desperate for a drink, so we made a quick visit to the resort restaurant. While there we experienced some Sälen afterski - a singer with a synth, which he played very skillfully, and some well lubricated guests who provided dance entertainment. Musician (to lubricated guest, incredulously): Did you ski in carpenter's pants? (Ski trousers usually come well up above the waist, like carpenter's pants, to keep snow out of the undies in the event of a fall. But they are usually in waterproof material!). Guest: Sure! Musician: Are they any good? Guest: Not at all, but they're cheap! Liam thought it was great, but I know Mary wouldn't have set her foot in the place!

Quote from Liam, on drawing the Mountain of Mountains in the youth hostel afterwards::
I'm so excited to be able to draw such an exciting thing - now I realise I really am a good artist!

Sunday

Today we crossed the border into Norway to ski at Trysil, which is as close to our youth hostel as some of the Sälen resorts actually. And what a day we had! Trysil is a much higher mountain than the ones we have been skiing on; it towers above the surrounding landscape. Close to the first lift there are some long, easy slopes for cruising among the trees with a great view, but unlike the Sälen resorts, the tree line is only half way up the mountain!

We made our way up to the upper slopes, where you ski in a genuinely high-alpine environment - snow drifting on the wind, frost caked on the rocks, and so on. Not to mention the view! Close to the mountain top a ravine begins, that runs all the way down to the tree line. Liam and I concentrated our efforts on that. It was so much fun! The idea is that you ski backwards and forwards across the ravine, accelerating down into it, and using the opposite wall to brake again. In the ravine the snow is unprepared (you couldn't get a piste machine in there), so you get all the variety of natural snow. Great!

We also saw some extremely good telemarkers skiing there. One fellow was skiing down into the ravine so fast that when he came up the other side he kept on going, and could turn somersaults in the air! Great fun to watch.

Of course the ravine was difficult - but then it was marked on the trail map as a black off piste route! But we could get down in one piece, even if we did fall now and again, which was satisfying. And in the lower, less steep reaches we could also swing back and forth across it, which was tremendous fun! It was Liam's most exciting skiing to date!

Liam skied with ski sticks for the first time today - he was so proud of himself! Yesterday he really noticed how much more easily I could ski on the flat than he could, thanks to mine. So last night I bought him a pair. They are actually harder to use than you might think - I think he was hindered rather than helped today - but he doesn't care! It's a mark of being a grown up skier to him.

Monday

During the night the wind blew so hard it shook the entire youth hostel roof, and the forecast spoke of hard weather in the mountains, so when we got up we were quite unsure if there would be any skiing today at all. But by mid-morning the wind seemed to be weakening a little, so we set off to Tandådalen to try our luck anyway.

When we got there, we discovered only one lift and a few slopes were gpen because of the wind. Sure enough, when we got to the mountaintop we found it pretty unpleasant. In the mild temperature the snow had stuck together in icy clumps, which the wind whipped into our faces. Ouch! We even found it hard to ski down against the wind - it was so strong that we were blown back up the slope at times! However, we didn't need to ski down far before the wind became much more tolerable, so were able to enjoy skiing even so.

Tuesday

Note the language on the green sign! Feeling stereotyped?

This morning we packed up our things and left the youth hostel on the long journey home. But after half an hour, we stopped at Kläppen, the closest Sälen resort to home, for a last day's skiing! Once again it was a windy day, and we found that the main chair lift to the mountain top wasn't running. Although there are other lifts (drag lifts that run on the ground), we gradually realised that we could only reach a relatively small part of the resort, not including any steeper slopes. After an hour or so, beginning to feel that we had more or less exhausted the possibilities, Liam saved the day! "Life is like Baloo", he said (remember The Bare Necessities from Disney's Jungle Book?). "We can try skiing on one ski!"

That was a great idea! Suddenly the easiest slopes became almost insurmountable challenges, and we had a whale of a time in the green slopes! Skiing on one ski is extremely difficult, at least for me. As if balancing on one leg as one slides along isn't tough enough, one must also turn the ski in both directions to keep one's speed down. Turning left with the right ski, for example, isn't too hard, because that's the ski one uses to turn left anyway. But turning right with the right ski demands that one use the wrong leg entirely! You have to get all of your weight onto the outside edge of the ski, that is lean right over to the right of your right ski, without immediately falling over to the right! It's extremely hard, and we had so many laughs! Still, we had one good idea: we kept the other ski on our feet and just held it off the ground, instead of taking it off altogether as we have done when we tried this in the past. That means if you lose it, you can just put the other foot down and ski on both skis. Putting a naked boot down on the snow in the same situation invariably leads to an immediate fall.

In the afternoon the wind dropped, and we could move onto the other side of the mountain, which is easy terrain but a bit wilder, with chances to go ski touring or off piste between the trees. Liam found bumpy snow which he loves jumping on, and on the way back down to our starting point we enjoyed beautiful views of the surroundings. So all in all another successful day.

At four thirty, tired but happy, we set off on the long drive home, to arrive seven hours and one kebab later. It had been a wonderful trip.

Click here for a panorama of the wilder side of Kläppen
(a bit dodgy, with a couple of ghosts)