I’ve no idea what made me look up when I did. There they were, flying silently in a lopsided V, the first Pink-footed geese of the season migrating northwards across the bright white plateau of the Norwegian Rondane National Park. Our guide Tron was pleased to see them, another turn of the cog marking the steady progress of the seasons. Every day the sun was getting higher and warmer, silver birch buds were being nibbled by the ptarmigan and now the geese were on the move.

I was staying at Venabu Fjellhotel, just outside the boundary of the oldest National Park in Norway, taking part in their off-track cross-country skiing course. Eight of us, including experienced downhill skiers and ski mountaineers, spent a week perplexing our guides by failing to stay upright on our skinny toe-attachment only cross-country skis.

Cross-country skiing covers a number of different disciplines from a fast, technical skating style technique used by biathletes and elegant, aerobic in-track skiing both taking place on prepared surfaces, to off-track (backcountry) skiing across pristine frozen lakes and rolling hills. Backcountry Nordic ski touring is the low adrenalin version of alpine off-piste skiing. Gradients are gentle and the emphasis is on journeying through nature rather than chasing physical and physiological highs.

The skis and boots feel incredibly wobbly but are designed to allow you to both glide swiftly over flatter ground, sometimes in tracks, and ascend and (more trickily) descend unpisted rolling terrain.

Balance is key. Forward momentum is gained by weighting and pushing off alternate skis and via your ski poles. In the cut tracks the skis are helpfully held in line. In these to slow down you balance on one ski, lifting the other ski cleanly out of its runnel and placing it in a diagonal snow plough position in the centre of the trail and then apply pressure to the inside edge. Off-track you have nothing but balance and pressure to keep the skis pointing the correct way and snow ploughs don’t work either. Sometimes it was my mental balance I struggled most to maintain as I toppled into the metres deep soft snow for the umpteenth time.

The days were planned around the weather and the group. Sometimes we headed off for a day on the surrounding hills or into the National Park. Other times we practiced in and off-track skiing techniques, avalanche rescue, navigation when off track skiing and learnt about hypothermia and kit. The guides also shared their knowledge of the local geology, the Norwegian hut system, the flora and fauna. Most especially the reindeer.

The Rondane is home to a special population of approximately 3,000 reindeer, one of the few herds that has had no interbreeding with domesticated reindeer. They are particularly susceptible to disturbance even at a long distance due to scent carried on the wind. We stopped for a break on the first day at one of the local huts that had recently been rebuilt away from their migration route.

Responsible guides do their best to ensure that groups never encounter the reindeer. Alive that is. Interestingly a number of the herd are still culled each year to ensure a healthy population as predator numbers are not sufficient to do this naturally. Shooting permits are tightly controlled with the hunters have to prove their skills to obtain one.

Venabu Fjellhotel enthusiastically introduces you to reindeer in an edible form. True this is farmed reindeer as the wild reindeer meat is in very limited supply but the trout came from the nearby lake, cheeses from the local cows and wild berry preserves from the surrounding countryside.

Nordic back-country ski touring is as in-tune with the local environment as the hotel cuisine. Awareness of and adaptation to the conditions is key. The wind can assist you or flatten you, the glare of the sun can make it impossible to see a phone screen to navigate by, or produce a flat light with so little contrast that it is almost impossible to discern the slope of the snow a metre in front of you. Cloud can meld distant hills into adjacent ones and utterly disorientate you. The snow and ice conditions under your skis are infinitely variable too.

On Tuesday the weather forecast was promising so at 8:15am our guide Remco and trainee guide Marta met us at breakfast with the following plan. We would head west on cut tracks, and if the wind wasn’t too strong we would ascend, fairly steeply in parts, to a pass between two high points, then head to one of the summits of Dynjefjellet (1147m), follow the broad ridgeline down, cross a frozen lake and then follow tracks again back to the hotel. We were briefed to take warm, windproof layers, a flask of hot drink and snacks to nibble on the go as we probably wouldn’t stop for lunch.

On the way out near the silver birch trees we saw tracks of ptarmigan, hare and a mouse in the snow. In a brief pause at the bottom of the climb we attached skins to our skis. These are grippy glued nylon fabric strips that allow you to slide the ski forward but prevent it from slipping back. We zigzagged upwards at a steady gradient only once needing to sidestep up the slope when it steepened by some fallen trees. One of the group had a good old swear when his ski got stuck but we all reached the pass in good spirits. The wind wasn’t too strong but it was probably minus 20C so we had our hoods up and our mittens on.

As we reached our high point the cloud thickened, after a brief photo stop we carried on skiing. We kept close enough so the tracks of the person in front had not filled in with drifting snow but not so close that you collided if they broke through the icy crust and toppled into the deep soft underlayer. Despite having a good innate sense of direction there were points at which I was convinced we were doubling back on ourselves. Looking at my activity tracker data later I could see we took a perfect line. Remco periodically used GPS to check our exact location despite decades of taking groups on this route and Marta kept an eye on the back of the group.

The comedy moment came when we’d dropped out of the cloud, the gradient had eased and we took the skins off our skis. Suddenly frictionless, we all started slowly trundling off in random directions and toppling over. Marta looked on bemused and then began helping us to get upright again. We were all buzzing with the excitement of what we’d achieved as we followed the snow-filled tracks back to the hotel and, for most, a delicious reindeer dinner.

Please remember that outdoor activities like skiing come with inherent risks. The author has endeavoured to make the information as accurate as possible at the time of writing but the decision to undertake the activity is entirely at your own risk. No responsibility can be accepted for any kind of physical injury, loss or damage to you or your property.

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