Norway training report

Only a matter of a few months ago I would never have thought that I would spend 3 nights in a tent at minus 20, cocooned in a sleeping bag and waking up to a thick layer of ice that has built up on the inside of tent. Let alone with two crazy other individuals who have quickly become my trustworthy Standard Bearers team mates. However there was something very exhilarating about waking up in the middle of nowhere. It has to be said — the Norway trip was a huge success.

After weeks of preparation, we finished work on Thursday night and headed down to Heathrow to check in our ‘highly over the limit’ luggage. In order to attempt to conquer my fear of flying we took a short detour via the departure lounge bar for a small vino (just for the nerves of course). On landing we discovered that Avis Car hire was practically on the verge of closing, so with a mad dash and leaving the boys to collect all of my luggage, I just managed to catch the assistant who was coated up and ready to retire for the day. After she kindly upgraded us to to a larger car (due to our highly oversized luggage) we ventured off to find our weekend vehicle. The excitement was beyond us when we arrived at the allocated numbered spot to find a brand new flashy Saab Estate awaiting us. Only to discover seconds later as we heard the familiar ‘beep beep’ of the central locking system, that our actual car was indeed four spaces down and a not so exciting Vauxhall Safira — first comedy moment of the trip. However it did its job well. So off we went to Geilo, about a four hour journey inland encountering amusing unmanned toll stations, Moose like creatures with a death wish and a shockingly bad garage bought compilation CD. There’s only so many thimes you can listen to ‘Eye of a tiger’ and ‘The Ballad of lucy Jorden’ — bizaarly the one that ‘does it’ for Anton.

4am and a quick call to Katrine-Marie who kindly saved us pitching our tent at such a ridiculous hour and allowed us to stay in her lovely little wooden home — all in exhange for a bag of crème eggs and wine gums. Not a bad deal at all.

We got cracking bright and breezy the next day (after a chatty breakfast with Katrines Mum and Dad), collected our ski’s and boots and headed off to Haugastol our starting point. The weather was not exactly our friend that day (ideal for training of course) and after sorting out the pulks, we headed off for those first amusing comedy steps on cross-country skis. Luckily it didn’t take too long to get back into the swing of things and so began the first few tough hours dragging our pulks across the frozen lake. Heads down to avoid the biting wind I kicked myself for thinking I wasn’t going to need my balaclava in Norway. After a few hours and a short climb we set up camp and the first nights tent routine sprung into action.

We woke up to glorious sunshine and truly stunning scenery. The unbelievably pure mountainous air clearing out the London stresses as we put the morning tent routines into action and planned the route for the day. Feeling brave we decided to undertake a difficult climb up a mountain towards Kreakkjahytta. However with the additional two foot of snow that had fallen overnight, it made the climb even more ridiculous. Skis off, onto our knees, attempting to keep up some team humour, we dragged, pulled and pushed our pulks until we reached the top….OR SO WE THOUGHT….

And off we went again for yet another huge steep climb for another few hundred metres. Finally we reached the top to be rewarded with a glorious view and another slighly insane person to wish us a good day.

A great day was had on the Saturday, around 23k and numerous stops to put the tent up and tent down which we had now got down to a fine art of 5 minutes with the stoves lit and ready………perfect.

Around 6pm we reached Kreakkjahytta village (or approximately 3 houses in London terms) and decided to camp nearby. As we arrived a very friendly neighbour decided to come over and ask us all about our challenge — but with the light prevailing and a polite “would love to chat but am on stove duty” we once again got cracking with our night routine.

‘Whoopsee’ became a familiar word used as we accidentally spilt water in the tent, left the plastic funnel a little too close to the stove and forgot to bring in the playtpus which were drying out our boots so they froze solid overnight. All lessons to be learnt now rather than later — exactly the reason for why this trip was so important. The Arctic is not a forgiving place and mistakes like those can cause big problems and delay us for far too long.

A very chilly night all round on the Saturday, with the temperature dropping to around —20 degrees but we only had one more full day so we were up bright and early to scrape the ice off the inside of the tent. Double portions of porridge later (not Antons favourite at all), a quick cuppa and we got under way…that is after we finally managed to get out of the tent after all of the zips had frozen solid…….(note to oneself — DO NOT FORGET ZIPLUBE)….