Day 8, Norway backcountry skiing

Today was a truly incredible day. We had checkout the ski lodge yesterday just to make sure we knew where to go today and timing and such, so we arrived a little after 8am, walked in and went upstairs to have breakfast and make some lunch for our day. We met our ski guide, Sami and Fredrick, both from Finland. They brought us to the back and gave us skis and adjusted our boots to them, gave us skins and poles and we were set to go. Andy and I had brought our own avalanche gear, but Aaron is renting some avi gear for the couple of days. Then we were off on about an hour and 20 minute drive north to a mountain in an area with a V, that I can't for the life of me remember or pronounce. We put our skins on our skis, got all ready to go and started our climb. It was 8 degrees F and quite cold! Within five minutes I was so hot, I needed to shed a layer! Of course, I had on at least six layers, so I was toasty. We skinned up for about three hours, stopping every now and then for water and snacks and food. I ran out of water before we got to the top and started having snow. I had no choice!

The skin was not too challenging, it just took a while! They taught us all the proper techniques for skinning up and turning steep corners, which the boys had more trouble with than I, just because of flexibility. It was quite amusing to watch and frustrating for them. If it were not for Starbursts, I would not have made it up. They are a lifesaver and the only thing I use for quick energy when I'm normally skiing. They really helped here too. Aaron got a huge blister on one of his feet and luckily Frederick had some second skin that Aaron could put on his blisters so he could continue up. When we reached the top, the view was incredible. It was also freezing! So we stayed up for a little bit, flew the drone, ate some food and then skied down!

We were all pretty exhausted when we got to the bottom, and not looking forward to the long drive back to the ski lodge. We were sore and like old people aching every time we got out of the car, which ended up being a few times because we just couldn't resist stopping to take photos! When we got back to the lodge, they had a make your own waffle station which was heaven. We all made heart waffles and put chocolate spread on them. They were so good... or we were all starving! Then we went back to our cabin, grabbed our bathing suits and a change of clothes and headed to the sauna and showers!

Dinner was family style at the lodge and very nice. Unfortunately it was fish, again. Lol. Seriously, I cannot eat any more fish! However, I did since I knew I needed some energy for skiing and to replenish the thousands of calories we burned. We ended up going up about a 1000 meter mountain; my Fitbit claimed about ten miles, though my Fitbit does not do well with elipticals so skinning is very similar to that.

We stayed and talked with some of the ski guides until almost 10 and wanted to go and shoot Aurora, but there wasn't any at that time and we were so tired, we came back to the cabin and all passed out!