Pudderpløying i Haukelifjell

Martin jumps everything. im guessing that if he finds a 15-20 footer with a soft landing his gonna do it. Note his choise of headwear..

Oskar is probably having vision problems here :) Common problem in steep & deep POW

The South and Southeast parts of Norway have recieved huge amounts of snow the last week ! some parts had about 4 feet of snowfall ! the forecast was for the weather to clear up today Sunday. There was no way i was gonna miss a powderfilled bluebird day.. So i did the usual thing. wax the board,pack the car,load the coffeemaker and set the alarmclock to 04.50 ! after a 5 hour drive (with stops for a ferry and nap) i met up with two members of Haukeli Powder Hookers Crew ! namely Oskar and Martin. theyre sensible people and know the golden rule of be there before the lifts open ! Today i Rode from 10.00 to 15.30 with just two quick stops for water and chocolate ! The riding was totally epic. A foot of dry POW and SUN !

Rock N Roalden !

Simon loves mountains. it affects his driving here. his looking more out of the window than on the road..

This is the top part of todays riding area.

Victor

Myself. not the best picture quality today. we had some focusing
problems

Victor learned Telemark in record time last winter !

Unknown skier came flying by.

Happy campers...

Komlekoma !

"komle" the food of champions !

????

Today the Roalden area opened, and it had some nice soft snow. we found a really good off piste area with some nice small faces and forests. really good fun ! for the evening session we went to a resort we hadnt been to and it had a lot of potential ! really impressed with the riding on offer here. in the evening we had clear skies and a full moon. the wiev of the mountains were amazing ! really cool to go off piste in semi darkness !

Day 4

Oskar changed from telemark (free heel) to Snowboard. hes the stylemaster anyhow !

Martin mid rotation.

Martin meets snow. how is it possible to land like that :)

Simon tweaks !

Weve been a little spoiled with the snowconditions so far on this trip. this morning the forecast was for baltic temperatures and 20 cm of snow during the day. in the morning i put some wax on my board that would have worked in Siberia to get a good glide in the bottomless pow. to our surprise there was mild weather and a light drizzle at the resort. we got so disapointed that we just left without even getting out of the car.. after an hour planning at the cabin we decided to go back and check out the top lift. i rewaxed my board as well. luckily the conditions were better than we thought,at least for a couple of hours. we had wet a layer of about 10cms of wet fun snow to play with. we built a small kicker and the other guys even dropped some cliffs. my legs unfortunlately wasnt up for anything radical today, but i managed to ride the face switch stance top to bottom (not too steep) after a while it turned to drizzle again and then rain.. the others are doing the evening session now. Luckily Victor is well again,and he is out skiing as well.

Pudder til Pungen !

Oscar cruising. this spot had a little less snow than the rest of the resort , but it was untracked. i timed the opening of the top lift and got first tracks ! the rest of the crew came an hour later :)

Nothing wrong with the mountains here !

20 cm of fresh POW. first tracks ! 4.5 hours of powder riding today.only bad news is that victor is still sick after 3 days.

Powder Paradise !

It dumped about 15 cms of powder this night and another 15 has probably arriwed during the day ! it was a bit stormy at the Stranda resort today, but we got a solid 2 hour session before they closed. the skipass we have is valid for 5 resorts here and there is always floodligted evening opening in one of them. this evening we drove over to Fjellsetra which have been closed for two days. it was a solid foot + of fresh pow there.. the entire lower part of the resort had lights so we had enough areas to ride !

Roadtrip to The Sunnmøre Alps !

Simon in front and Oscar is cruising away from the lift. you can see another part of the resort on the left in the background.

Oskar demonstrates how to do the "Telemark" turn. he switched to snowboard in the evening floodlight session.

Simon enjoying the scenic wiev !

Simon always skies with a lot of control. he is hard to follow as well !

You got to have some rest !

Simon and Oskar is "claiming" the day !

No comment on this one..

Just before/During a party for the workers at the Haukeli hotel, the idea of a roadtrip to Stranda in the Sunnmøre alps appeared.. the morning after Simon,Oskar,Victor and me started on the 10 hour drive. the Sunnmøre alps is located in the northwestern corner of Norway, and is famous for big snowfalls and epic mountain ranges ! Today we cruised around in close to a foot of fresh,dry powder. it was a bit tracked in some places but we hiked to and found some untracked snow ! were gonna stay here for a week and the forecast is for about a 6 feet of powder...

Stay tuned !

Haukeli 03.01.09

here is Sofie trying to inflate her kite with the air release valve still open :)

This building is called "Nansen" and is a part of the hotel. Frithjof Nansen used to stay there and train for his Polar expeditions (he was the first to the North Pole)

Kitesurfers on the Ståvatn lake with Kistenuten in the background.

The Christmas/New year celebrations is almost over here at the haukeli hotel. and i had my last workday yesterday. its been fun visiting my old workplace and meet the nice people that work here. this area is definitively worth a visit if you enjoy diverse winter activities ! this weekend theres been a few kitesurfers here and the wind today was quite good. it got a little gusty when i had a chance to kite so i gave it up. did some instructions for one of my colleages instead.