A Norwegian RV-weekend on a frozen lake in the Norwegain Mountains.

Hi all.

Last weekend, the wife and me took a trip up to the frozen lake "Femunden" in here in Norway.
There, a 700 meter runway is cleared for snow on the frozen lake not far from the small community "Elgaa" where approx 40 people live.

Here's the RV sitting by the threshold of RWY 36:







And here is the same place taken from shore. Our trusty RV sure spent the night far from the shore! You can just barely see the plane as a small black spot in the middle of the pic.







Here's the community Elgaa with the runway:







And here's where we spent the night: a small "mountain hotel" named Femund Fjellstue. Web: www.femundfjellstue.no







We had the most delicous dinner and our hosts where REALLY nice people: (the two by the end of the table closest to the camera)



She grew up on Madagaskar as a missonaire-child and he has been a cook on a Norwegain submarine.
After their kids left home, they ended up here.
Their place is by far the most friendly and nice one I have ever experienced!
When we left for home, I had a feeling that we had been visiting friends rather than renting a room...






During a walk in the woods there, we saw tracks after several lynx and we even saw the "forest-king" himself:




People there are feeding the mooses during winter so they won't damage the small trees so much (by eating on them) and they told us that they often saw 30 to 40 (!) mooses coming to eat when they was delivering food. The mooses would get into a distance of 10 to 20 feet!
The mooses stood there paitently waiting for the food to be offloaded as long as the engine on the delivery-truck was running. If you stopped the engine, they would all run away!
I guess they had learned that a man in a machine is not dangerous, but a man on foot is....







We saw one of the smallest cabins I have ever seen with a pair of pretty cool skies outside:








Before engine start the next morning, we borrowed a gasoline-driven aggregate for our electric engine heater for a couple of hours:








The navigator found the way home:



(She flew on the way up there while I was navigating, and we swooped roles during the flight home)






We flew at Fl 100 due to favorable winds:








And when the sun approached the horizon, we approached our home airport.

What a great plane the RV is!


By the way: the runway is located at 62.10N and 011.56E so I'm wondering if we made a small "world record" in landing a RV-7 farther north than anyone have done before us?
I guess the most northern parts of Canada is farther north than 62.10 but have anyone landed a RV-7 there?
Jan Johanson sure landed MUCH farther north than us, but that was with a -4... and since we have the only flying -7 in Norway I wonder if we can call this a small word record??

Anyway; it was a very nice way to spend a weekend!
Hope it inspires some of you folks to come up and visit us with your RV's! You are most welcome! Even without an RV!

(continued)

I just wanted to add a couple of more pics:

Here are some lynx tracks:







The scenery sure is beautiful:







After breakfast on Sunday, we went to the local church for the Sunday mass.



This was the first mass I have ever been to which had TWO languages at the same time. In Norway, there are a minority with Lapp's living mostly by their reindeers.
They have their own language and during mass, one of their own priests attended too.
The psalms wher sung simultaniously on both languages and that was kind of special.



Anyway: there's alot of snow in the mountains:







And finally approaching home at FL 100:

ao.frog said:

snip

Hope it inspires some of you folks to come up and visit us with your RV's! You are most welcome! Even without an RV!

Click to expand...

Tempting, very tempting offer. May be on my way to 2014 Olympics
Nice write up, great pictures. Thank you Sir.

thanks for posting the thread alf, very interesting.

when you say aggregate, in the united states we usually call those a generator.

we call gravel aggregate

Thanks for the photos...

AO, and the write-up. Your story just adds to the list of amazing things that we, as aviators, can do with these fantastic machines.

Glad to see that you're flying the -7 a little bit!

Nice write up Alf. Some day we will make it to Norway, my wife's family is from there. She has a cousin in Oslo and one in Mosjoen, Vefsn, Norway(not sure of spelling).

We'll probably fly commercial though.

Great Story!

Wonderful pictures, too. How fun to do it in the plane that you built!

nice write-up

Do they put yellow X's on the runway during summer?

Alf,

Nice write up, and what a great trip! My paternal grandmother emigrated from Stavanger, and I too hope to visit the Norge homeland someday! Same invitiation back at ya, if you ever venture to the Reno Air Races or Lake Tahoe!

Great pics...what a fun adventure! Thanks!!

Cheers,
Bob

Beautiful

Alf, You live in a beautiful country with the opportunity of 24 hour daylight flying. I must get back to Norway some time for some Koldtbord.

Ah - my favourite country, wonderful photographs. I lived there from 1961-63 and your photos, especially of the hut and the skiis ( I noticed the cable bindings on what I think are called fjellski) reminded me of that wonderful time, learning to ski, and making BIG snowmen.

Perhaps not a trip to make from the UK in Winter, but definitely a possibility for the summer.... Maybe my wife - who is 50% norwegian and has lots of family there - might even come with me!

Chris

What a fabulous looking weekend! Fabulous scenery, and gorgeous snow - thanks for sharing.

Amazing indeed


and I complain when its 40 degrees F in Georgia.

What an interesting trip report.

I really enjoyed reading your trip report.
If you ever get to the West Coast of Canada be sure to look me up.
Jeremy F.Howard - Owner: RV-6A C-GJFH
[email protected]
250-741-8548 250-618-2671 (cell)
150 Bowlsby Street
Nanaimo B.C. Canada V9R 5K1