A Visit To A Museum And A Hard Day’s Night
A VISIT TO A MUSEUM AND A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
We had started out rather late as the museum did not open early. It was a small museum on the shore of a Norwegian fjord, and it celebrated the heroism of a local resistance fighter who opposed the Nazi invasion of his homeland in 1940. After a fascinating look around the many and poignant exhibits, we walked with our skis and rucksacks to the nearby jetty where a boat was waiting to ferry us across the cold fjord to the opposite bank.
The crossing in a high-speed boat, provided by the Norwegian Marines, did not take long and we quickly disembarked near a small wooden hut where one of the resistance fighters had spent many weeks hiding during the war. He had frostbite in the unheated hut and to avoid gangrene, which he knew would kill him, he cut off his black fingers with a penknife. We silently paid tribute to such bravery before hoisting our rucksacks, clicking into our ski bindings, and moving off across the fresh snow.
Soon we were pushing our way up the steep hillside through young silver birch trees; they made the going tough. After fighting our way through the dense trees, we were hot and sweaty but at least we could now press on to ascend a distant ridge and drop down to a small village where we were to spend the night sleeping in the gym of a school. After the wood, the ascent steepened and we soon found ourselves in a wide gully down which a stream had been flowing, but now in March, it was just a mass of ice covering the rocks. This required care as a slip would have sent me hurtling down from ledge to ledge to the bottom which was well over one hundred feet below. A couple of us took off their skis while others side stepped up the snow which covered the ice. It was very slow going.
At last, the small party was assembled at the top of the gully and before us was a gentler snowfield that led to the distant ridge. It was now late afternoon and while waiting for the last of the party to catch up we dug a hole in the snow to check on the profile and the stability of the crust. The snow layers looked stable and when the last person arrived, we pushed on to the ridge. The shadow of the skier in front was long now and I realised we were rather late to be on the ridge.
It was downhill from the ridge to the valley below, an easy run on skis and our spirits were high. The maps did not clearly show the best line to take so we skied down only to find that we were at the top of a high cliff. This was frustrating and time-consuming as we had to take our skis off – put the skins back under them which allowed us to ski back up to the ridge. After we had repeated this exercise a few times it was pitch black, and we were navigating with head torches, map and compass. The cold made replacing batteries in head torches difficult as our fingers were frozen.
By about one o’clock in the morning, we were tired and unable to find a suitable route down. It was bitterly cold, and the wind was strong. I decided we had better spend the night where we were, in relative safety. So, we decided to dig two snow holes in the steep bank, each one would take 3 of us. We removed our skis and took shovels and snow saws from our packs and began to dig fast which kept us warm. After forty minutes the small caves in the bank of snow were big enough and we squeezed in, blocking the entry hole with the largest rucksack once we were all inside. The change was dramatic as suddenly there was no howling wind and by the light of our head torches, we settled down like sardines to try and sleep – I was exhausted.
I tossed and turned but being in the middle of the three of us I was probably the warmest. After a few hours, I moved the rucksack from the door and found that dawn was breaking. So, I went out and stood looking at the drop below us and realised how lucky we had been to stop where we did. I tried to make a call on my mobile phone, but my shivering fingers could not hit the keys because of the cold.
Just then I saw a flashing light, a strobe, miles away down the valley. It had to be a helicopter looking for us as we were overdue, but it quickly disappeared. Minutes later a crewman appeared on foot as the helicopter had carefully followed our ski tracks and landed out of sight above us. Wearing a flying helmet, overalls and life jacket he looked like someone from another world. He asked if we were all OK and whether we would need a lift off the mountain? I explained that we were British and fine thank you, but the offer of a lift was too good to refuse.
In a very short time, the six of us were in the big noisy smelly beast and just a few minutes later we landed at the school, thanked the crew profusely, and soon we were asleep in our bags on the floor of the gym. It had been a night to remember.
Kindly contributed by a Wenvoe resident