One challenge at a time

I woke up on the morning of day 3 in pain... aching all over and with a bruised coccyx (Im hoping that is how it is spelt) getting up hurt and sitting back down hurt even more.  Probably as a result of the not so elegant crash to earth and a muscle shredding 9 miles of skiing yesterday... not great. Today was surely a day to take it a bit easy. The snow was still falling and the new piles of snow were being bulldozered away diring my walk to breakfast. I resolved to stick to the easy paths today and the plan was to ski down the tracks that I had done the first day but instead of going to the goldmine path, I would head instead to a cafe that I had been told about. Getting the ski boots on wasnt easy... on top of the aforementioned injuries, I also had a very squished little toe on my right foot as a result of the poinding it got yesterday. Despite that I hauled my boots on, grabbed my skis and went out into the frozen world....  Still as beautiful but because of the extra snow...

Today started great... motivated... full of life.... enthused with a plan of where I was going today. I managed to get up pretty early, scoffed some breakfast and got my kit ready in pretty order. By the way... it was pretty cold today. Not your balmy  - 10C of yesterday... oh no. Today the thermometer outside had swung to an all new low (for me) of - 22C.  Slightly nippy then! I bundled up with all the layers I had and once again set out to the trailhead. This time I would be heading North.  There was a good looking easy trail than ran for 5km but in order to get there I had to face a little of the moderate trail.  Now my skiing skills have improved ten fold since I first set foot or boot in a pair of classic skis but that doesnt make me any good still. I can hold my own in the tracks but as soon as the tracks end or I come out of them accidently I look less like marit bjorgen and more like bambi on ice with legs heading in different directions attached to things th...

My first morning, having gone to bed at around 7pm, I woke up early with all the joys that a snow filled winter day... with no work... can bring.  Over eager I prepped my kit, filled my flask, and then realised I had another hour until breakfast opened... and it was still pitch black outside.  Turns out it remained pretty dark until I had had breakfast and got my skis and faffed about a bit. Wierdly I was a little nervous.. it had been a year since I had been on a pair of skiis and this was also in a new place. Would the tracks be harder, would the people here be less tolerant of newbies?  Only one way to find out and I picked up my skis and made my way to the start of the trails, fortunately only about 200m from my accomodation.. not quite ski out, but very close.  Where was everyone?  It was spectacularly quiet and as I reached the trailhead I was glad to see I was the only one there. There was a board showing all the routes, easy to hard and showing how far t...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a poor traveller is always in want of a comfy airport chair... Failing on meeting the rich man in want of a wife,  it was left to my mind to amuse me in the drudgery of bouncing round airports in order to get to your destination. Yesterday found me flying from Gatwick to Copenhagen after a day which made me reflect on the importance of family and what you achieve in your life. So I arrived. at Copenhagen airport on a reflective kinda mood. Last time I was here, I was travelling with someone who fought the good fight against cancer with a smile, but lost, and memories came flooding back of those happy times and a whirlwind trip to see Mike Peters in Copenhagen and Stockholm... a road trip that I will forever treasure. Despite these bittersweet memories I was excited to be going back out on an adventure,  a shorter one than the Ecuador madness, but quite possibly the equal in pain levels. Last year I attempted to learn cross country sk...