Northern Lights and lotsa snow

So I haven't posted since after Thanksgiving due primarily to a nice long Christmas vacation and the fact that I'm now in the midst of studying for level 2 of the CFA. This means free time has been cut nearly to zero and my schedule consists entirely of work, studying, and skiing. Not the worst of lives I'll admit, but I can't wait till I get this exam off my back. Without any further ado, I'd like to start off by showing a picture I caught of my most unique Norwegian experience to date:

That, ladies and gents, is the real deal Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis for all you budding astronomers out there) that I caught a weekend ago up at Hemsedal. It's apparently rare to see as far south as we were, so obviously I'm lucky as well as generally amazing. Woohoo!

Now I got a couple fun quick vids that I shot from my past several ski trips (been up almost every weekend since I've been back). First up is from my first weekend back when we caught a sweet powder day:

Don't ask about the terrible accent, I was drunk with joy over the conditions. By the by, skogen is Norwegian for forest and the Gummiskogen is a famous backcountry area off the back of Hemsedal, you ski through the trees for ever and then end up at a road where you take a taxi back to the lifts. Niiice.

Next is another Hemsedal one where we skiied ourselves into a bit of a pickle and all took turns throwing our equipment down a cliff and then sliding down. I went last and was recorded (apologies for the sidewaysness):

That was fun. Side note, when Norwegians are trying to say in English "very fun" or "more fun" they say "funnier". It's tricky explaining the subtle difference. Oh that reminds me of another interesting lost in translation, "racistic". Yes, I spelled it like I've heard it.

Last video is from Solseiden (literal translation - Sunnyside) which is a much smaller ski area down the road from Hemsedal. If you haven't noticed yet I've been to Hemsedal a lot and it's awesome, but this one day the mountain was closed due to wind so we checked this place out. Slope conditions were crap, but with a little bit of exploring and spending most of the day in the woods I found this sweet frozen river bed along with a sweet frozen waterfall:

Oooooh pretty! Now lightning round picture run down....go!

Conquering hero.

Trees and snow.

Dave and Ewan, an Irishman and a Limey

Predictably Dave got drunk and hurt people. Not pictured is when he threw someone off a chair (all in good fun though really, great times!)

Cam, the dapper kiwi who I work with. Discovered the joys of the beer helmet.

Not quite as dapper and much more drunk.

Yeaaaah, well like I said, Irish. Man I hope his work doesn't see these...

Lee and Jorn Arild with me at Solseiden.

Broken bank card from the cliff slide I think.

Jorn Arild and Jonas on powder day.

Snow.

Snow with people. I actually really like this pick, caught those folk juuust right.

Gearing up for a nice summit hike! This was a sweet little workout that took us up to a weather tower atop Hemsedal peak. Was windy as hell and the first half was up a pretty sheer part of the mountain. Reminded me of that scene in Lord of the Rings where they climb that snowy mountain. I was Gimli...

Me, Arne Olav, Malcom, and Cam (not pictured) reach the summit. Awesome.

Cam now pictured.

Still conquering.

Ewan and Malcolm (Cam's brother)

Ski in ski out biatch!

From the Solseiden day where almost everything went against us. Here a car was getting towed back onto the road and blocked our way to the skiing. Jerks.

FIN