Norway Sweden - day three

So more than half a year has passed and I still hadn't written about the third day of my trip to Norway and Sweden. Sweden was for a software workshop organized by Jimmy Nilsson, an event that was really worthwhile and enjoyable, and has been the fodder for lots of discussion, blogs and what have you. Norway on the other hand was just for fun.

The story of my third day actually began early in the morning. More precisely, it began the night before at a fabulous dinner party that I was miraculously invited to. Some friends from Wisconsin just happened to be there, one teaching on a Fulbright and the other to take in Norway like myself, but for an extended stay. The party began with the worlds strongest margaritas, and went uphill from there. The conversation never fell short until we all gave up after 2 AM.

The 8 AM train was not much fun. My lips were still buzzing. Coffee filled my mind like the One Ring in Mordor. I was planning to meet a Norwegian I had met on some skiing newsgroups and who had very graciously offered to put me up for the night and take me skiing on a nice tour with his son in the Nordmarka. We hadn't connected by phone that day, so I figured I could 1) get to Oslo, 2) find coffee, 3) finish some shopping for my family and get a house gift, and 4) call Terje and 5) head out for a casual ski that wouldn't be too adversely affected by my previous nights activities. Terje on the other hand, extremely resourceful and energetic guy that he is, had gotten the phone number of the place I had stayed that night, called and figured out what train I'd be on, and then found me and picked me out of the crowd at the train station. I was cheerfully whisked off to his home to change and head for the hills.

And I do mean hills. The casual tour with his son had fallen through and instead, we would go on a route he especially loved and included what he described as a very challenging hill for a Nordic skier that he wanted an American to see. As we drove to the trail head, he pointed out a long lift served slalom run. We would be skiing on a different part of the same hill on our classic skis. No problem. It turned out to be a klister day, and that ended up being a real life saver for me I think. Terje is a good skier and much lighter than I, and if this wasn't to be as casual a ski as I had originally thought, I didn't want to slow him down. He said he had no concerns at all about that, we could go at what ever pace was comfortable. We started out, and sure enough, the trail started on a climb. A long climb. I'm not exactly sure now, but it could have been a 5 or 6K climb, basically never letting up over a series of ridges and switchbacks. Fooorreverrr! Here's where the klister worked in my advantage. I had put my klister over a slightly longer part of my wax pocket and it had turned out perfectly. Great kick and great glide, the perfect klister day. Terje had to accommodate more slipping and that evened out our skill levels a little, just enough where the climb was actually pretty enjoyable. There was one exception.

I was born a flat lander. Along some of the switchbacks, you could do a herringbone shortcut through ungroomed snow. The snow was deep and the incline steep. Probably beginner mountain conditions, but for a flatlander like myself, who hasn't really bushwhacked on skis in twenty years, and then sans hills, I could have just as well been climbing Everest. I could only laugh, and if Terje hadn't been this gracious, patient sort that he is, he should have been rolling down the slope from laughter watching me. I would plant a pole, only to have in disappear into the snow up to my elbow,  I'd push off and one end of the ski or the other would sink into the snowbank. There was some packed snow, but it wasn't as wide as my long skis and the tip would bury. I was completely inept. Of course there was nothing to do but work my way up the hill, all the while seeing Terje climb up like the hill was a gentle rise on packed snow. Film would have been worth a fortune in the wrong hands.

But we got to the top. If ever there was a Nordic god, s/he would have created this area. Lakes, forest, frozen swamp land, skinny trails, little hills, big hills, all perfectly groomed classic skiing. And this goes on for hundreds of kilometers, perhaps thousands when you consider adjoining trails. Then, as if this wasn't enough, ski clubs maintain cabins along the trail. No, not some lowly hut with a metal stove and an outhouse. A heated, overnight ready lodge, that is manned by skiers who bake fresh goods and serve great coffee and other goodies. So the basic day for a Norwegian skier would be to go ski for awhile, stop by the cabin and get warmed up, fed and refreshed and head out for more. Now these are classic trails. Almost all the trails in Norway are classic only from what I heard and saw. And for the most part, most of the skiers were touring skiers, much like it was here in the US when Nordic skiing had it's heyday in the late seventies and early eighties. People were dressed warm, carried backpacks, often had kids in tow, or didn't, but the overwhelming majority were out for fun rather than for racing or training. And what a place to do it. Every turn was like a new winter postcard, and was all accessible only by skis.

Well the day wasn't half done. After my own time with bread and coffee, we started back to the trail head. Now it was coming to what Terje had wanted me to see, the descent down the hill we had climbed at the start. But not going down the the same trail. There was another way that he felt was the most challenging hill in all of the Nordic world. He may be right. The hill is at in incline not much different than the alpine run we had seen earlier. Unlike the alpine run, which as a wide open swath through the woods, this Nordic trail was a couple of meters wide I would guess. It was not a straight run down the hill of course. There were sharp turns of probably 45 to 90 degrees with trees on all sides. Wisely, Terje suggested I snowplow as needed to just get down the hill. He would wait for me at more level spots to tell me what was coming next. Man, patience had to be this guy's name when translated to English. Snowplow I did, but the hill was steep enough, the trail was skinny enough, and the base was skimmed off enough, no matter how much I tried to edge my skis, the acceleration was tremendous. Normally in those situations, I just have to say what the f**k, tuck and go, but not this day. First, the trees waited on any missed turn. Mostly, I was just plain intimidated! Basically, I muddled through somehow, and I felt like I often do when I have survived what was probably as much fear in my own head as the challenge of the trail itself. I thought, next time, I could do better and have lots more fun. But, next time will have to wait. It is safe to say I have never skied down a run on nordic skis anything nearly as difficult as that one. Oh, yes. Terje navigated all the turns with beautiful telemark turns, done with grace so it looked easy. There are some advantages to being born in Norway I'm thinking.

The day was not ended of course. Terje had planned dinner at his home with his wife and two kids. I have to admit, the afterglow of the skiing had my mind in bit of fog, though the previous night may have contributed too. The meal was prepared with all these great smells filling the room, the activity and anticipation of a fabulous meal after an long ski, and of course, the great pleasure I always have of meeting people from other countries in their home turf. This night was no exception. The food was outstanding and made even better as I got to know Terje's family. Conversation ranged from families, kids, schools and the like, a bit more on politics, and then the inevitable. Geek talk.

Terje is also a programmer. While he knew about many of the topics I was currently enamored of, he definitely had the more unique set of interests. He is one of these programmers that really likes those hard problems that can only be solved by simple, perfect programs, usually written in very low level languages like assembler. As an example, he has entered into contests for the fastest sorting routines. But, what was really interesting, in a sort of  “not sure why but it's cool” way, was the things he was doing with executable ASCII. In other words, writing code that could be sent as plain 8 bit ASCII characters, copied to the file system, renamed and executed. The trick was to understand how the ASCII characters could be interpreted as opcodes, enough so to build a decoder for the rest of the program which could loaded into memory and executed. At least that's how I understood it. As if obfuscated perl wasn't enough! And forget ide's, debuggers, print statements and the like, you have to understand a lot of this as opcodes. Amazing. He had also done a lot of interesting things with a variety of open source tools for combining standard photographs into panoramic images, many of which were dedicated to winter shots. As a matter of fact, here's one of the area we skied. Here is another from near Kikut, the place where the skiing cabin was located. He was also a wealth of information about wireless networks, phones, and other topics on the periphery of my background.

Well, this blog has it's length limits. Even after many months, this day remains one of the most enjoyable and memorable in my life. Time has made the memory grow even richer, and I just felt I had to write some of it down. So, if Terje is reading, thanks! And of course, I hope I can find some way to return the great favor done for me in Norway.

Now it's time to start thinking about our own upcoming winter....