Back from Norway
12/04/2011 - 13:45
After 10 days we are back from Norway. Initially our "road trip" with the camper started in love. David was felled by illness and was unfortunately not allowed to go with the doctors. He was then able to arrange for his brother Filip to participate in the competition in his place. Only, .... Filip had never snowboarded before. After a 1100km drive we arrived in Fredrikshaven to take the ferry to Oslo. The temperature difference was large, chunks of ice were still floating along the harbour. Immediately upon arrival in Haugastol we started practicing.
Filip used snowblades, small skis, and due to the favorable wind, snowkiting was a great success for him from day 1. However, a lack of wind the following days prevented an optimal training. Due to snow on the track, wind chill temperatures as low as -33, we also had to train on frozen lakes below. The race itself took place on the hardangervidda plateau, but with our camper it was too risky to go there. Which brought a stress factor for the upcoming race.
But we solved this by organizing a party ourselves,...where is that party?,..in our camper that party is!
Day 1 of the competition; canceled due to lack of wind, the organization then put in buses to go boarding/skiing in Geilo, a winter sports area 25 km from Haugastol.
Day 2; enough wind, the start was planned at 1 pm,..but again postponed an hour due to lack of wind, at 2 pm it was time, together with another 180 snowkiters we left the start line,..but less than fifteen minutes later it hit fate,..the wind completely disappeared almost all kites fell from the sky, farther than foot. When the wind picked up again, many were able to continue the race, but we with our smaller kites can't even get up the mountain so we decided to return.
Like the previous edition in 2010, the time was won by a Norwegian, both on ski and board.
