SKIERS' PARADISE

Hokitika Guardian, 22 May 1940, Page 3

SKIERS' PARADISE

. BECOMES A BATTLEFIELD. (Correspondent of Sydney Taper.) On Boxing Day, 10-37, having spent Christmas in Copenhagen; I strapped iiiy skies together and set out for Norway. ."!• 1 ■ ‘ ( The previous season we liadTbeen to Telemark and the south, bututhis time my party was headed lor Lillehainmer. ,i!, ‘ ; Because I had been told I would .find better snow and more interesting: country, I left my companions at Lille-i) hammer and moved on to Skeihampeh-.;. Later, I went further north, ' ,tu Tronheim —and to Hell, which, contrary to all reports, is close to Trond-' - heim, and is not hot, but very cold ! j On an earlier trip I had come, to Norway by train, crossing the Sound in a ferry in the wake of an icebreaker. This year I travelled from Copenhagen to Oslo by boat, and there was no ice, but a heavy fog lay over the sea., All through tire - Sound and the Kattegat, past Elsinor and Arnholt and Laeso, until we had left the Skaw behind, our whistle blew and our sirdn, shrieked. Out of 1 the blind night came other shrieks and moans. How we avoided bumping something is still a mystery ) to me. I Wliat it must be like with .ninefields sown in those narrow seas 4 ban hardly be imagined. .And the British Navy, Hitler kays, is an absolete plaything! Lillehammer is north of JFlamar, ijt the top of Lake Mjosen. It is on tlie railway that iollows the great glacial valley, Gubrandavs, 'between Tronheim and Oslo. The lint? runs above the lake, where fighting recently took place, and there : I have watched Norwegian children who, one would .think, 1 had not long learnt to walk,. struggle through the railway fence, and, while clinging to it, kick their' small feet into skis. Then they would lot go, all together, and flash like swooping birds down that percipitous slope to the broad,. ’ snow-covered surface of the lake, 100 feet below. ' ! • Norwegians;' they say, are boriv. with skis on their feet. Since, in they country in the 1 winter, the only mean>s., of “getting places” is by ski or sno\V slio,e. this must be very close to a, practical truth. jAlthough there is little mention df. snow in the reports we get from Norj-. wav now, I slipyTd imagine that north, of Hamnr at least there would still bpnlenty. At Slieikampen, when I was tliere in March, the snow is three, metres deep. r . j G Skeikampen is reached from TretteUj, j on the railway, some distance north of Lillehammer. , , From Trettoii one -goes by car-along' a road kept reasonably clear by con-stantly-moving snow plonks. The snow, is piled high above the car j on either side, so that one runs nearly i all the way through a white ravine, j ' . .. , f =====— =====4=

It seemed to me that we crossed a low range; at any rate we climbed upfur quite a while— -at a good pace, too.’ Once or twice in that snowy defile; we met peasants' driving narrow sleds laden with fodder. By crowding into tiic sides it was just possible to pass them. i At one spot we passed through a-, toll gate; and soon afterwards the; driver shook my arm, grunted, pointed, and said, “Skeikampen.” < Ear ahead, with the setting sun behind it so that the summit was bloodred, I saw the mountain. The setting sun at two o’clock! At three it was dark. . Skeikampen is a mighty rock which ’ rises 1000 feet or more above the surrounding country. In,'formation ft is ( very like the bluffs, of. our own AA arruinbungle Range, Exmouth or Nammon. One face is perpendicular, but to the south it slopes back 'at such an angiwthat ; one can climb it on skies. Itt is hard, but it can be done —and “facilis •descensus Averni”—so long as you don’t fall over. Every day I expect to see ' some mention of this, fine old rock in the news. Being away from the railway, it may escape, hut seems inevitable that sooner or later battle will rage around it. © ©- © From Skeikapeh I went to Dombas 1 ' (where, we ate told," parachuted Ger- , • man soldiers have bCen captured), and j thence to Trondheim. ■ ... ‘ , f - | Dombas would be any important centre just now, for here the railway forks, one line running east to Sybe, on a fiord north of Alesund.' It would be along this line that troops landing j at Alesund and Molde would come. j The other/branch runs) north to j Trondheim, joining the line that runs through Kongsvinger, and , Roros. I have not seen this country ex-j cept tinder deep snow. But in warm- ! er months I should not think it proved difficult country for troops. * j If, as seems probable, the Allies and Noanvegians are straddling the north-western railway 1 at Dombas, and the main norther line north of Elvernni;: then Tronlieim is indeed isolated. - r ! - ;