Dovrefjell Tour - Take Two

Since last year's attempt to go touring in Dovrefjell had been abandoned due to ill health, I wasn't too optimistic when Matthew turned up at the airport with hardly any voice and coughing violently. The journey to Kongsvold Fjellstue was rather less eventful this time, as the train did not break down, and we were eating our minimalistic, but very tasty, dinner by about 8pm. There looked to be less snow than last year, a view confirmed by Knut, the proprietor, at breakfast the next day. He warned us to be careful near water features as they would not be as well covered as usual.

Having put a serious dent into a credit card, we packed up to head for Reinheim, our first hut. The wind and blowing snow moving South along Drivdalen was very reminiscent of last year, and the way that the wind strengthened as we climbed into the hills was also very familiar. After a couple of km, we were plodding into a strong headwind, with very poor visibility, the next stick barely visible at times (exactly like last year). We passed the turnaround point from last year at about 2:30, and another 2 hours found us settling in to Reinheim, a very nice self-service hut. The food cupboard was well stocked, even down to the choccy biccies. There were a couple of other Brits in the smaller hut, but we had the main hut to ourselves.

The weather looked very much the same the next day, so we decided to sit and wait for an improvement. Much Sudoku ensued. A couple of Norwegians skied in mid afternoon - they had been camping, but had decided to have a few easy days in a hut. With 2 stoves going to melt snow, the common room and kitchen were very cosy, but the bedrooms were staying at about -2C all the time.

Tuesday was a much nicer day. Blue sky and sun overhead, the valley below us filled with cloud. We had intended to ski up to the West top of Snohetta, but didn't get that far due to slow travelling conditions. There were lots of patches of rocks scoured clean of snow, and where the snow was deeper, it was very slow going. This was probably due to the temperature, -22C in the morning, -15C at midday (and it stayed pretty much the same all week). We got excellent grip on VR30 wax (one coat lasted all week), but glide was almost non-existent. We saw a couple of animal tracks, one of which turned out to be a wolverine (so the Norwegians told us when we showed them the photo later on). This trip is the first time I have had problems with camera batteries in the cold. My digital compact would only manage about an hour or so before complaining about low battery level. I kept the spare battery in an inside pocket to keep it warm, and kept swapping the batteries over.

The good weather left us overnight, but with only 9km to Amotdalshytta, we were expecting to be there in a couple of hours. The route beyond Reinheim wasn't sticked, but GPS and map make large scale navigation relatively easy - the devil is in the detail. The route that the sticks normally take goes over a pass, but we could see from a distance that the whole width of the pass was corniced. We took a higher route over the shoulder of Snohetta, and by noon-ish, were looking down on Amotdalshytta in the valley, about 4km away. This took us another 2 hours or so, picking our way round rocky areas, and avoiding patches of water ice. Not such an easy trip after all.

The two Brits who had been at Reinheim were now at Amotdalshytta, so the chill had been taken off the hut. They told us that a dead stoat fell out of the chimney when they opened the flue in the kitchen!

The next day we moved on to Loennechenbua. Windy and spindrift again, though mainly from behind us. We again made slow progress on sticky snow, but were about 500m from the hut by about 1pm. Unfortunately, at this point the hut was on the other side of a pass, which once again was corniced. We started to climb up the side of the valley to cross above the cornices, and for a while I thought we might have to turn back. We were sinking over knee deep in soft snow under breakable crust - with our skis on! Exhausting stuff. After thrashing uphill for a while, we got over the pass, and dropped down to the hut. Loennechenbua is a 2 man hut, small but beautifully situated. Wood burning stove, gas rings to cook (you take your own food in), and 2 bunks - what more could you need? Fortunately, we were the only occupants. It would have been very cosy with any more people there.

Friday morning and a decision on which way to go. We had to start skiing out today. It was either back over the pass with the cornices that we had struggled over yesterday, then 20km down to Dindalshytta, or 12km in the other direction dropping down to Gammelsaetra. There were no sticks either way, but we didn't fancy going back over the corniced pass in poor visibility, and the wind was blowing towards Gammelsaetra - so that's the way we went. We had just about every snow condition imaginable this day. Deep soft stuff, sastrugi, windslab, hoar crystals, and even a couple of km where the skis slid downhill nicely for a change. We also carried the skis across rocks for a while.

We were within 2km of Gammelsaetra hut by early afternoon, but decided to carry on down to the main valley at Gjora and get a bus into Oppdal. I'd had a bit of stomach upset that morning, and the prospect of a hotel was more appealing than another hut. We snowploughed a few km down a scooter track to the road, then hoisted the skis onto the packs for the walk into Gjora. A short bus ride brought us into Oppdal, and back into civilisation.

The skiing hadn't been great, we would probably have moved faster with snowshoes than skis given the snow conditions. We had been travelling through difficult terrain in less than ideal weather, on hugely variable snow conditions, mostly navigating our own routes rather than following sticks. Despite, or more likely because of these factors, the trip felt like much more of an adventure than previous tours. "A poor ski but a grand journey" as Matthew put it. I totally agree with that sentiment. After a totally committing trip like last week, I'm finding it very hard to raise much enthusiasm for the mundane concerns of work. And Matthew's cough? He got rid of it while we were away, he gave it to me!

author: Nick Davies
publish date: March 2006

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