Over the weekend we rented a cabin in the mountains. It was located at Venabygdsfjellet, which is at the border of the southern part of one of the large mountain national parks in Norway; Rondane. In fact, this is the oldest national park in Norway, and serves as an important part of untouched nature, of particular importance to herds of wild reindeer.
The cabin was just at the height where the terrain transitions from forested to barren mountains. This location was perfect for this weekend because of the weather we had. We spent four days there, and for the first two the wind was blowing hard and the snow was coming down in considerable amounts.
After settling in we got a pleasant surprise. Outside the window there was a bird feeder that apparently was very popular among the local birds. I had a terribly hard time capturing the birds, but I got a few shots where you can at least get a good look at the birds. The bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) were the biggest fans of the feeder, and the only ones I was able to capture on camera. The males are fantastic to look at with their intense red colors.
In addition to the bullfinches, we saw greenfinches (Chloris chloris), coal tits (Periparus ater), and great tit (Parus major).
We went for two skiing trips. For the first one, we chose a track that was mostly inside the forest. That way we got some shelter from the wind. We were out early enough to be the first skiers on that route, so the tracks were in perfect condition. After a while we crossed a more open area, upper right region in the map below, and there the wind was blowing hard and it was quite uncomfortable for a little while, especially on the exposed skin in our faces.
At the final part of this trip, we were skiing in a direction where we could see the valley below the mountain. I'm no good at capturing these views with the camera, but you can kindof see it here:
For our second skiing trip the weather was great - some sun and no wind. We took a look at the trail map and noticed that they had just prepared the tracks higher up in the mountains. These tracks are often unusable to due strong winds, but this day they were perfect.
The trail started with a lot of climbing, so we worked up a good sweat and were nice and warm for the first part. After a while we reached more of a plateau and could just cruise along and enjoy the views. After a while we found some amazing wind-blown waves (cover image), and I had to capture an image. After that it it was rather steep hills down the the start. My watch measured a good 40 km/h for me at the highest, which was at the limit of what speed I was comfortable with (cross country skis, not particularly stable).
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