It was colder but I couldn't take a picture when I was driving!!
Our place on the left
Well it's over. No, not life. Not the winter. Just our snowboarding trip. Now firstly, I've seen all over the news in UK how cold it's been. You have no idea what cold is. It's amazing how a country can come to a complete standstill after a few minus degrees. Every year it happens and every year it's the same. Why does no-one do anything about it? Well, that's the UK, no wait, that's England for you. Scotland keeps working, so what's going wrong? Well a crap infrastructure is to blame, yes and no. If you have what Sweden has, would it be different? I mean winter tyres. I'm guessing everything would be the same. Yes, I slip and slide in my car everyday, but the country doesn't shut down just because we get metres of snow, yes not the 5cm that brings the country to a grinding halt.
The average temperature for the week, similar to the rest of Sweden, has been around -20 to -25. Yes, everything carries on, yes, we were out riding every day, yes we went for evening walks, yes, it was bloody cold. The 'record' day was on Wednesday or Thursday (the temperature difference wasn't that noticeable) but was -35 when we were out on the slopes. So UK, you think -5 is cold? Hmmm....try a frostbiten face and toes after sitting for seconds on a chairlift. No, this isn't the temperature after windchill either, this is the actual temperature. The lowest in Sweden on this day was -41. Seriously, you really can't imagine. So don't bloody moan that the roads are icy and slippery. Come over here and give it a go.
Well the weather report is over. My posts point- the week has been just awesome. Despite my downstairs area packing up its balls and leaving because of the cold, the snow and mountain was superb. I have to say a big thanks to J's dad, who provided the accomodation- a luxury wooden house, with full stone fireplace, large sauna, awesome underfloor heating, all conveniently located right on the slopes. A real special place, cosy and bundles of charm, with 2 full bathrooms with showers and a third toilet downstairs. There were (eventually) 8 of us and 2 dogs, with room a plenty. Not only was the location of our wooden lodge on the mountain, the slopes around us were fantastic too. Designated as 'black' runs, at the far western point of the mountain, not many people ventured (probably through fear of the slope). So we had it pretty much to ourselves, despite not one bed being available in the whole ski resort.
Personally, my riding legs were accustomed pretty quick. As I told Johanna, her riding by the last couple of days was the best I've ever seen. So other people beware, she is getting really good now. Something new for me, although not snowboard related, was cross country skiing. Yes, you heard me right. The thing is, this type of skiing is massively popular over here and in Europe really. When you say to someone I'm going on a ski trip, you have to specify whether it's utförsåkning or längdskidåkning, basically cross country skiing or downhill skiing. This is a weird concept for me (and English people) as we would never ever ever consider cross country skiing as part of a ski trip. Probably because we don't really know anything about it and what we see on Eurosport (usually what we call the biathlon, with the gun) looks painful.
And so this proved to be the case. I am not a skier, I didn't wish to do intense cardio exercise in -25. Nevertheless it happened. Dressed in my snowboarding gear, so looking like a fool in terms of the cross country skiing world, I strapped on these super light, super thin, edgeless skis. It was a mission. You follow these perfect parallel tracks up and down, round and round on a set course, where we were, either 3, 5 or 6 km (something like that, may have been a 4 km too). We chose the 3 km, no surprises there. After being breezed passed by a few local pro's, we got the hang of it, doing our imitation sliding squat things, running up the hills and holding on for dear life on the downhill bits. So what's to say? Well I didn't fall over once. Impressive? Yes!I also ended up looking like a proper hardcore skier- having a snow beard, all white and frozen. What else? Well, we ended up doing the 3 km lap twice, yup, awesome. The day after, well now as well my groin feels like I've been doing squats for 4 months. Anyway, was a nice experience and yes, I probably will punish myself again next time. In the mean time, I'll stick to boarding.
Well I'm bored of writing now. But a week of fun, despite the cold cold temps. Good food, good company, think I'm getting used to the Skaraborgska (Especially after my last post!! If J says 'gött' again, I shall kill her...this is a Swedish joke). Can't wait to ride again......just not sure when it will happen : (
p.s. We saw 2 Bernese mountain dogs there, fit the winter wonderland perfectly, funny to seem them sliding all over the snow.
The average temperature for the week, similar to the rest of Sweden, has been around -20 to -25. Yes, everything carries on, yes, we were out riding every day, yes we went for evening walks, yes, it was bloody cold. The 'record' day was on Wednesday or Thursday (the temperature difference wasn't that noticeable) but was -35 when we were out on the slopes. So UK, you think -5 is cold? Hmmm....try a frostbiten face and toes after sitting for seconds on a chairlift. No, this isn't the temperature after windchill either, this is the actual temperature. The lowest in Sweden on this day was -41. Seriously, you really can't imagine. So don't bloody moan that the roads are icy and slippery. Come over here and give it a go.
Well the weather report is over. My posts point- the week has been just awesome. Despite my downstairs area packing up its balls and leaving because of the cold, the snow and mountain was superb. I have to say a big thanks to J's dad, who provided the accomodation- a luxury wooden house, with full stone fireplace, large sauna, awesome underfloor heating, all conveniently located right on the slopes. A real special place, cosy and bundles of charm, with 2 full bathrooms with showers and a third toilet downstairs. There were (eventually) 8 of us and 2 dogs, with room a plenty. Not only was the location of our wooden lodge on the mountain, the slopes around us were fantastic too. Designated as 'black' runs, at the far western point of the mountain, not many people ventured (probably through fear of the slope). So we had it pretty much to ourselves, despite not one bed being available in the whole ski resort.
Personally, my riding legs were accustomed pretty quick. As I told Johanna, her riding by the last couple of days was the best I've ever seen. So other people beware, she is getting really good now. Something new for me, although not snowboard related, was cross country skiing. Yes, you heard me right. The thing is, this type of skiing is massively popular over here and in Europe really. When you say to someone I'm going on a ski trip, you have to specify whether it's utförsåkning or längdskidåkning, basically cross country skiing or downhill skiing. This is a weird concept for me (and English people) as we would never ever ever consider cross country skiing as part of a ski trip. Probably because we don't really know anything about it and what we see on Eurosport (usually what we call the biathlon, with the gun) looks painful.
And so this proved to be the case. I am not a skier, I didn't wish to do intense cardio exercise in -25. Nevertheless it happened. Dressed in my snowboarding gear, so looking like a fool in terms of the cross country skiing world, I strapped on these super light, super thin, edgeless skis. It was a mission. You follow these perfect parallel tracks up and down, round and round on a set course, where we were, either 3, 5 or 6 km (something like that, may have been a 4 km too). We chose the 3 km, no surprises there. After being breezed passed by a few local pro's, we got the hang of it, doing our imitation sliding squat things, running up the hills and holding on for dear life on the downhill bits. So what's to say? Well I didn't fall over once. Impressive? Yes!I also ended up looking like a proper hardcore skier- having a snow beard, all white and frozen. What else? Well, we ended up doing the 3 km lap twice, yup, awesome. The day after, well now as well my groin feels like I've been doing squats for 4 months. Anyway, was a nice experience and yes, I probably will punish myself again next time. In the mean time, I'll stick to boarding.
Well I'm bored of writing now. But a week of fun, despite the cold cold temps. Good food, good company, think I'm getting used to the Skaraborgska (Especially after my last post!! If J says 'gött' again, I shall kill her...this is a Swedish joke). Can't wait to ride again......just not sure when it will happen : (
p.s. We saw 2 Bernese mountain dogs there, fit the winter wonderland perfectly, funny to seem them sliding all over the snow.
