Home from the holidays
Mar. 15th, 2011 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nineveh_ukI'm back from my holiday, wondering how on earth some people manage to do two weeks of skiing. I had a great time, characterised particularly by natural phenomena.
Natural phenomenon (1) was the worst snow in twenty years - only about a third of what they would normally have. This gives some indication of what is normal, as there was still snow everywhere. It was very thin on the heights, which weren't really tracked - we had a go, but it was a mixture of skittering across ice and bouncing through heather with frequent faceplants. The lower tracks were not fresh, but generally OK.
Natural phenomenon (2) was something called "kjøving". I have absolutely no idea what this is in English. It's something to do with cold weather and little snow, and causes water to be pushed out of the ground and freezein great solid sheets. It's ugly and nasty, but generally was only a minor inconvenience involving skittering round at a couple of places. At its worse, it looks like this:
Natural phenomenon (3) was the northern lights! Not quite green and red dragons dancing in the skies, but then we weren't in Alaska. It still did the big bands of light, pulsing, and curtain effects. Very exciting and impressive. Alas, photos of course show nothing at all. Also, after watching the first bout from the road below the hotel (later, more impressive sessions were from my bedroom window), we came upon a enormously furry cat that was presumably Norwegian forest cat, given its happiness to sit in the middle of the drive at -15C (it had a cat flap).
I have done photos of mountains before, so this time have photos of wildlife footprints:
Hare
Capercaillie
Oh go on, have a mountain
Natural phenomenon (1) was the worst snow in twenty years - only about a third of what they would normally have. This gives some indication of what is normal, as there was still snow everywhere. It was very thin on the heights, which weren't really tracked - we had a go, but it was a mixture of skittering across ice and bouncing through heather with frequent faceplants. The lower tracks were not fresh, but generally OK.
Natural phenomenon (2) was something called "kjøving". I have absolutely no idea what this is in English. It's something to do with cold weather and little snow, and causes water to be pushed out of the ground and freezein great solid sheets. It's ugly and nasty, but generally was only a minor inconvenience involving skittering round at a couple of places. At its worse, it looks like this:
Natural phenomenon (3) was the northern lights! Not quite green and red dragons dancing in the skies, but then we weren't in Alaska. It still did the big bands of light, pulsing, and curtain effects. Very exciting and impressive. Alas, photos of course show nothing at all. Also, after watching the first bout from the road below the hotel (later, more impressive sessions were from my bedroom window), we came upon a enormously furry cat that was presumably Norwegian forest cat, given its happiness to sit in the middle of the drive at -15C (it had a cat flap).
I have done photos of mountains before, so this time have photos of wildlife footprints:
Hare
Capercaillie
Oh go on, have a mountain