Snow, Sno, Snow

I am lumping a bunch of pictures taken from January through March around Oslo. This first one is at one of the rail stops almost at the end of the subway line, from which you can ski. It is sunny - but that was not usual. The trails here were much harder than any we had done before and there are no signs on them telling you how hard they are. On our first time out the trail we took had a hill that we labeled the worst. By the end of the season, it wasn't so bad as we had skied down harder ones.
This photos is overlooking the train tracks. The trees were covered in snow like this for most of a month and the temperature down where we lived didn't go above freezing for at least that long as well.













Here is David - looking like he is having fun - and he is. We took a few movies of our skiing - they are kind of slow and funny to watch.















One Sunday we went out and the trails were so crowded that if you got out of the track to rest, you might have to wait a bit to get back in. This was tough on me as I always wanted there to be no one coming up or going down a steep hill when it was my turn. BUt this was virtually impossible. I was afraid (at least at first) that I would not be able to stop or get out of anyone's way (or go around someone). What I had failed to understand was that any adult Norwegian who was skiing, was really good and could stop on a dime and ski around me as if I wasn't there. And often did. I tended to go down hills very slowly (and up hills pretty slowly, too, come to think of it.) Even the little kids often went down the hills in a tuck so that they could go fast. Here is picture of the trail on that most crowded day.