by An hour after taking the 8.15am train out of Bergen I was hopping on the platform at Voss, my train carriage equidistant from the Scandic Hotel, where I would be spending the night, and the cable car that would take me up to the slopes of the resort. .
The lift didn’t open until 9.30am so I had time to quickly drop my bags at the Scandic, squeeze into my ski boots (I was traveling from Bergen in my ski clothes, so there were some other passengers disembarking here) and a few hundred meters back on the platform to the new Ferrari-designed Voss cable car. A few minutes later I was scrambling down the snow-plastered fjells.
This was the first leg of a wonderful train journey around three of Norway’s ski resorts. Easily compared to Switzerland’s famous scenic railways, which carry thousands of skiers to internationally renowned resorts such as Zermatt and Arosa every winter, Norway’s railways offer a lesser-known, much quieter and more remote experience.
Escape from the city
Within minutes of pulling out of Bergen station, the train clicked past windswept lake shores, rural farms of yesteryear edging against deep green forests and the occasional waterfall tumbling through the trees. High above peaks and rosy snowy rocks, whose faces, with a little imagination, resemble the gargoyle-like features of trolls who, as every Norwegian knows, live among these mountains.
The skiing at Voss, the first stop, is a winning mix of uncrowded, fun blue and red cruisers and sharp, fast blacks – my favorite was the Utforløype, a fun black run that takes you from the resort’s 964m high point Horgaletten. route to the cafes, restaurants and mountain cabins at Bavallen, almost 700m below.
Children and beginners are well catered for by the long slender slopes and the renowned English ski school. If you want to get involved in freeriding, there is no end to the wide open terrain between the piste and some great challenges above Bavallen.
Excellent winter wonder
The next day I detoured from the train to Myrkdalen, on the free 30 minute ski bus service from Voss train station. The resort is known for some of the heaviest snowfalls in the world.
A combination of chairlifts and drags reach the mountains with round shoulders and snow and despite Myrkdalen offering a relatively small vertical 600m, these lifts provide access to wide and rolling pistes, mostly of the red and blue variety. If you like to carve wide turns, this is heaven.
The scenic drive back to Voss was followed by dinner at the Park Hotel in the center of town, home to one of the best wine cellars in the world, with over 40,000 bottles and around 6,000 labels from all over the world. If you have a spare £30,000 to blow on a bottle of red, this is the place to do it; I spent about 1,500 times less on my evening tipple.
Untouched wilderness
My original plan was to continue from Voss to ski tour from the nearby Hotel Vatnahalsen, which is only accessible by train, but seeing a lousy local weather forecast and knowing that conditions better snow in the east of the country I decided. Take my original route west and take the train to Norefjell, northwest of Oslo, after which I could continue to the Norwegian capital for my return flight to the UK.
The journey from Voss took me over the Hardangevida, the largest alpine plateau in Europe, with the train gradually climbing from a height of 54m at Voss to a high point of 1,237m. The carriages crossed the plateau and the duct – and the snow – fell on a first class winter landscape; the steep, craggy mountains of the Swiss Alps are no different from the remote and lonely whalebone peaks that reminded me of oversized versions of the Yorkshire fells where I grew up; in fact, the word ‘tit’ is derived from the Norwegian word ‘fjell’.
Soft barriers and tunnels provide protection from relentless snowfall, and I was happy to be in the train carriage, where even the least adventurous travelers have the chance to experience the white wilderness of the Norwegian winter mountains.
The tour took me back to the floodlit slopes of Geilo, one of Norway’s most popular ski resorts (and another stop on the tour for those with more time to spare) before finally heading to Hønefoss, where where I took a cheap bus transfer to Norefjell.
Classic passage
Over the next two days, I was able to enjoy the biggest vertical drop in Norway, from the resort’s high point of Ravnäs Mountain (1,188m) down to the base of Norefjellheisen chair at 178m. A thousand meters ‘vert’ may not be in the same league as Switzerland (Verbier, for example, is 1,830m vertical) but if you do it all without stopping it’s enough to make your quad beg for mercy.
The passage is Norwegian skiing in a nutshell. Starting on wide open slopes with gentle blue slopes I carved my way down to the resort’s mid-mountain selection of traditional lodge cabins, modern Scandi-style apartments and the recently opened ûber-cool Olympique restaurant (named after the 1952 Olympic giant slalom). run located on the slopes of Norefjell).
I then dropped into the ever-steeper second half of the descent, where a wide red piste wound through the thick forest, before I was joined on black run number 9 (there’s also a steeper, blue option). I was able to go up to full speed before, burning quads and tingling cheeks, I screeched to a stop just above the shore of the frozen white Lake Krøderen.
Two days of such tomfoolery and I really enjoyed my last train journey to Oslo simply to give my aching legs a chance to recover while I gazed blankly at the glorious snowscapes of Norway drifting peacefully by.
Need to know
Ski Solutions (0203 7970575; skisolutions.com) offers the following four-star options at each of the resorts mentioned: Seven nights B&B at the Hotel Scandic in Voss from £1,185; Seven nights at the Myrkdalen Hotel in Myrkdalen from £1,185; Seven nights at the Norefjell Ski & Spa from £1,145. These include flights and private transfers.
You can fly from Gatwick to Bergen from £51 one way and from Oslo to Gatwick from £24 one way, both with Norwegian Air Shuttle (norwegian.com)
Fundamentals
Alf was a guest at Norway Home of Skiing. For more information on all the resorts visit: norwayhomeofskiing.com
