Norway backcountry BC ski trip:
Finse - Haugastøl
Read about our 5-day, 35km ski tour on Norway’s Hardangervidda plateau in February 2024, from Finse to Haugastøl.
Guide or no guide?
We have long wanted to go skiing in Norway, and finally, the perfect opportunity arose – we were invited by a good friend to join a mini expedition from Finse to Geilo. Given that this would be our first time camping in arctic conditions and considering that we had never been on skis before, we thought it might be handy to hire a guide.
But when saw the price of a guided trip, we opted for trial & error mode. Buying our own gear would be cheaper in the long term than hiring, and besides, it was a good reason to purchase more outdoor equipment…
Thomas, the friend who invited us, had some experience from a previous solo ski tour to Norway, which made our trip feel a bit less risky.
Also, Henk-Jan Geel, owner of Arctic Adventure, polar- & expedition guide, kindly invited us over to his house in order to prepare us for our trip.
Unfortunately, Bob ended up staying behind in the Netherlands due to other priorities. A good reason to return next year!
Error margin
The error margin in arctic conditions is quite small. A small mistakes can quickly turn into a dangerous or even life-threathening situation. Upon arrival at Finse station, we were told a story about a guy that was there a week before us. The guy was crossing a small lake with insufficiently warm gloves, within 30min his hands were frostbitten, causing permanent damage.
This goes to show how cautious you should be and how important, proper and reliable gear is.
In order to avoid frostbite we routinely buddy-checked each others faces, hands and feet. Every 50min or so we took a break to hydrate and fuel our bodies, which is especially important in cold weather.
Haugastøl instead of geilo
Our initial plan was to ski from Finse to Geilo, a trip of roughly 55 kilometers.
Unfortunately our lack of experience combined with the weather, decreased our speed so much that we ended up running out of time. Since getting experience and trying out gear was more important than covering distance. We decided to stop at Haugastøl instead.
