Rondane in Winter
Because our friend Lars' family has a cabin in Mysuseter, at the western edge of Rondane National Park, we have been there many times, mostly in the snowy months (but see also our page on a summer visit). But that's another friend, Gunnar Austrheim, in the photo above, with Rondslottet and Vinjeronden looming over his head. Gunnar's office at NTNU is across the hall form Rick's, and Ellen, his samboer's (essentially common-law wife) family also has a hut in Mysuseter, so they invited us to stay for a long weekend in February. Their hut was high up above the main village near the tree line, so out the front door we had several million acres of snow to mess up.
Gunnar and Ellen with son #1, Jacob, here feasting on some of Rick's homemade ice cream.
That's Nancy and Ellen above. Ellen wasn't very ambitious with her skiing because she was just a few months shy of giving birth to son number 2, Erling, who is now a healthy and happy baby. The gorge behind them, Spranget, runs right behind the hut.
Gunnar and Rick took an afternoon off from family responsibilities to ascend Ljøsåbelgen, the peak on the right. The bowl in the shadow to the left of the peak was filled in with nice soft snow to make for some excellent skiing on the way down.
We also found time to rendezvouls with Lars and do a little cornice jumping. But that's Rick, not Lars. Later we jumped off the rocks in the upper left of the picture. Good clean fun.
Back in November, Rick visited Lars (while the rest of the family visited the US) and took a hike from Mysuseter down to the mysterious Kvitskriuprestene ('the White Priests'), formed in clayey glacial till where the capping boulders act as umbrellas to slow down erosion of the sediment underneath. And what about the mysterious Lars? You can see him and his family on our pages about the Oslo area, where he lives.