Ski Kvitsteindalstunet to Sauvasshytta

17 km, 520m Ascent, 145m Descent.

Today's photo courtesy of Mick is of the washing up after breakfast. It's a job that has to be done, as is thoroughly tidying up the hut before we head off to Sauvasshytta today. In the nicest sense I'm sure or neighbours will be glad to see us go and will spread out into this hut.

No retracing our route of round Nordumfjellet and Litlumfjellet to the shoulder of Melkfjellet to pick up the pulk, we've got a motorway of a track to follow by Kaldvatnet that'll get us there. No deep snow or navigation worries today as we'll have that motorway all the way to our destination hut, Sauvasshytta.

We depart at 8:00 and at 9:40 we're reunited with the pulk, but we don't then rejoin the motorway instead we keep the extra height of the shoulder and continue our rising traverse of Melkfjellet. That was a mistake. We gain too much height, we start crossing icy sections, and get involved in the steeper slopes of Melkfjellet. Visibility has deteriorated too as it's started to snow. I've just taken over pulk pulling as we decide to retreat towards the valley to see whether we can pick up the motorway again. Any icy descent in front of me and I almost immediately take a fall. Philip takes the pulk back and I take ages to rejoin the rest of the group. Ice, downhill, poor visibility, my worst nightmare. Even once I'm back with the group I'm struggling to see the undulations in the ground and there's no sign of our motorway it's either under fresh snow or blown away, John drops back to give me a pair of ski ends to follow to help me judge the ground - thanks John.

A lunch stop at 12:45 and now we're out of the icy stuff and into deep snow once again I'm feeling a bit more comfortable in myself, but in whiteout conditions and a high pass to find over Melkfjellet the seriousness of the position is clear to all of us. There's no doubt there's an A and a B team in our group. We're all competent in the mountains, but the good skiers of Mick, Kathy, Andy & Philip being the As whereas Fiona, John & myself are the Bs. But we're all a team and over the next couple of hours the team really clicked.

Mick took over navigation duties trying to find the safest and easiest route up the slopes of Melkfjellet the Bs took on the roles of trailbreakers & providing any extra assistance to the As who were pulling the pulks. Eventually the As and Bs swapped their pulk pulling duties with the Bs proving they were just as good packhorses as the As. Eventually the slope flattened out and then a bit downhill and we arrived at Sauvasshytta just before 16:00

That was about as serious a day as I remember from all our Norway trips and that was a great team effort to see us through it safely.