Easter skiing in the valley.

A ten minute drive from our house we find this - a picture perfect place where we go skiing. In summer we drive up here to go for a walk - a long walk - in the mountains, during winter there's snow everywhere.



I ski once a year and this is where I do it.


I hate skiing. I do. I suck at it. I don't want to get out of my bed, put on lots of clothes and walk around in the snow all day, worrying about going downhill cuz I know I'll hit something; a person, a tree or simply trip over my own skis.

Nowhere to go but forwards.

But when we get there it's not half-bad anyway. The sun is shining and it's a beautiful day. It's always like this - I hate skiing until I actually get there. And I'm well aware of it - I told my parents I won't like it until I get the skis on my feet, then I love it. It's always like that. I just hate getting ready, that's all.

One of the places we go hiking in summer.

I hate hiking too. Until I start walking. I love being outside, you just always need to prepare to be outside. You need to prepare for everything, unless you do like Hobbes in the last post. A lot of the time it doesn't take much to be happy. I'm happy when I'm outside. But often it takes two tractors and a bulldozer to get me out there.

A cabin / hut / little house on the 'seter'.

I've tried to explain the Norwegian concept of 'seter' before... Basically they were places where someone in the farmer's family, usually women - a 'budeie' - stayed during summer, or went during the day to milk the cows. Now they're used as places where people build small cabins and go to get away from home for a weekend, or stay longer during summer.

Another 'seter'.

We went past four 'seter's on this trip: Hjortedalssetra (Deer Valley Seter), Storesetra (The Big Seter) Bruasetra (Seter of The Bridge) and Grendasetra (Grenda Seter - a 'grend' is a small area of a town). Where you live in the town - which farm your land used to belong to - decides where your family has or can have its cabin.

A lot of snow - a roof and a chimney.

We went past a cabin with ski tracks on the roof. There's usually a lot of snow this time of year and some places can be hard to get to. You can't get up here with a car or even a tractor - you ski!

Taking a break - bring cocoa.

We sat down and had lunch, afterwards my dad said the children were to go play while my mum and he had coffee - that's how it had always been. So my sis (who is 11) and I grabbed the things we sat on (plastic something or other) which we put in plastic shopping bags, and went up a hill. And another hill. Takes a while when you sink down a foot or two every step you take. You don't walk on snow, you walk in snow. Then we sat down on our plastic covered plastic and tried to see how fast we could get back down. After a few times, the snow had gotten hard and we went fast, even got a jump in there and we went uuuuppp-we-go-and-thud! down again.

Looking back as we're going down.

Our behinds soaking wet and our shoes full of snow (at least mine were) we put the skis back on and started the journey back down. I didn't crash even once! I probably look like a Dane when I start out (they really don't ski), but then Norwegians aren't born with skis on their feet for nothing. I think I managed pretty well.

The first thing I asked my dad when we got back where we started?

"Wanna go again?"