Resort - Hemsedal, Norway
Dates – 15-22 Feb 2015 (UK and Oslo half terms)
Who went - Intermediate family (Ma, Pa, 2 girls aged 11 and 14)
Where we stayed - Molla Cabins, Hemsedal Skicentre
Who we went with – DIY
Plus points
Family-friendly resort with varied skiing suited to beginners, intermediates and park rats.
Few lift queues
Based around one area (good if you have people who want to use different slopes but meet up in the same place)
Ski school emphasis on young people having fun (take note, ESF)
Good vertical (for Norway)
Minus points
Snow was a bit rubbish (sugary, icy, slushy) and weather was unseasonably warm
Based around one area (which leads to no sensation of "travel" and a lot of runs all feed into one home-run green which gets very busy and the snow got mussed up big time
3.5-4 hour drive to and from Oslo airport
Expensive food and alcohol
Lifts are a bit rubbish
The cast
Mrs and me are two vaguely competent but slow intermidiots sticking mainly to blues and reds
Daughters are hooning around on pretty much any slope
We do about 5000-6000m of vertical per day, so not big mileage merchants, but like to spend most of the day skiing.
The cost
About £3600 for parking and hotel at LGW, flights, accommodation, hire car, petrol in Norway, ski hire, ski passes and lessons for girls. Was peak week for this resort – Oslo half term.
Flights
Flew with Norwegian from LGW to Oslo Gardermoen. No fuss. No queues.
Hire car
Rented an estate from Europcar. Didn't use ski rack – just chucked skis in back of car. Used boot liner made from bin bags. Sooo sophisticated, I know. Was a hybrid automatic which couldn't make up its mind what gear it wanted to be in. Or maybe I couldn't drive it properly. Loved having a car in resort. Doubled up as ski locker during the day and allowed us to drive to a lovely little satellite resort called Solheisen without having to rely on the once-a-day ski bus.
Molla Cabins
We stayed at one of the Molla Cabins in the Skicentre area, about 10mins walk from the Alpin Lodge and the lifts, and about 20-30mins walk from Hemsedal town. Generally great. Spacious. Kitchen with oven, hob, microwave, dishwasher, fridge-freezer, coffee maker yadda yadda. Dining area with big table and seating for about 6. Living room area. 2 downstairs bedrooms sleeping 2 and 3 respectively. Bathroom and sauna complete the downstairs rooms. Upstairs bedroom and living room accessible via ridiculously steep stairs. Stupidly, dangerously, unusably steep. Had lockable outside shed/cupboard where we kept skis overnight. The Molla Cabins were almost exclusively inhabited by families.
Resort
The resort area is centred around the Alpin Lodge (restaurant, hotel, apartments, ski shop, supermarket, ski hire, lockers) which is at the bottom of all the slopes (bar the run back to Hemsedal town). More apartments are located in the Skarsnuten development which is located some 1.5-2km from the Alpin Lodge, several hundred metres up a hill. Sounds nice, but difficult to get to once the cronky two man chair and ski bus stop running. Ski run down to the Alpin Lodge is OK, but not one for beginners. Hemsedal town centre is about 2 miles from the Alpin Lodge. It's a small town with hotels, bars, eateries and a couple of supermarkets.
If you can, rent a locker in the Alpin Lodge for £20 for the week in a nicely warmed locker room. Boots always dry in the morning.
Ski hire and passes
Booked through Skistar website. Very quick service with kit because all of our vital statistics (weight, height, ability) had been provided when booking. Helmets provided free of charge for all. Got 20% discount on kit and 10% on passes by booking early.
You get 8 days kit and pass for the price of 6 – useful if your travel plans allow you to make use of it!
The skiing
This is not a resort for those who like things steep or long. 40km of piste total. Longest run is a 6km green. This is a resort for intermediates, families and those who like their snow parks. There is lots and lots of off-piste, if snow permits, not that we bothered with that.
The skiing is located in one area, which means that you always end up back at the same place. Allows people to ski different slopes and meet up at the same place.
The skiing is on two "levels" - skiing from 1100m back to the resort at 500m is through trees and is relatively well protected from the weather. Skiing above 1100m is based around three mountains/hills at about 1400-1500m, and is exposed to (and viciously scoured by) wind.
The skiing above 1100m is essentially blues and reds and is rather exposed. Last week, a lot of the upper runs were denuded of snow and therefore prone to icy patches because of the wind. Runs at Tinden peak are very exposed, windswept and cold. First time I have been shot peened with ice marbles and literally blown down a piste. Totten green has a lovely view from the top, but wouldn't bother otherwise. Rogjin peak runs were probably our favourite because they are less exposed than the Tinden peak runs.
The skiing down from 1100m is more interesting – if you can access the pistes (rant rant f'ing race training rant rant). A green goes all the way down from the top of the main lift to the bottom. This green run got v busy at times, especially at the weekends in the afternoon, and the snow became very cut up very quickly. Several runs of various colours branch down from the green run. Red 7 is a nice proper ski run with a road section leading to a relatively steep but wide face. Black 8 is as straightforward as a black run can be (should probably be a red). Both Red 7 and Black 8 were out of bounds for significant periods because of race training.
Green 38 is a good warm up piste and for trying new/daft stuff - steep pitch for a green, but v wide and long run off, should it go TU.
Don't miss blue 49 down to Hemsedal town – a proper lovely run. Gorgeous. Nice café at the bottom (cunningly called Hemsedal Café).
Also, Solheisen is a lovely little resort worth a half day trip. Very chilled and not v busy. We got there at 0915 on Sat morning and we were the second family there. I thought it was going to be busy like Hemsedal. Oops! Girls a bit miffed that they were dragged up early doors to make sure we got a parking space. Only two tow lifts and 6 pistes. V family oriented with lovely warming room and café. Lifty slowed down T-bar for younger daughter who has T-baritis.
They have changed the night skiing schedule – now ski till 7pm on Tues-Thur on the floodlit pistes, and from 6-10 on Friday. Early morning skiing on Sat. from 7:30 and on Tues-Thurs during peak weeks.
Ski school
Kids did ski school (level 3 – one below "Adventure nutjob camp"). Not cheap - about £100 for four lessons of 1.5 hours each. Kids enjoyed and would want a longer lesson next year because skiing with ma and pa is sooo slow and boring, apparently.
The snow
Bit pants, I'm afraid. Higher slopes lost snow due to wind, leading to an ice fest on many days. On 5 days, it was warm – leading to slush (which gave some slush moguls – my first moguls - yay) or sugar (which was a right PITA to be honest). The home-run green became very slushed or sugary, making for carnage!
The piste prep was a little disappointing – icy or at least very hardpack, with lots of death marbles about.
The lifts
Could do with an upgrade. The main 8-man chair was out of action the first day – which meant big queues elsewhere and meant that lots of pistes were unaccessible. Not v impressive. The Olaheisen lift is also, erm, leisurely. Tindenheisen chair is very cold.
Food, drink and apres
Generally expensive, but manageable because we self-catered. Buy stuff from duty free on the way out of the UK or into Oslo. Beer/cider is about £3 a can from the supermarket. Drink in bars/restaurants is expensive - £7-9 a large (0.5l) beer, £3-4 for a soft drink, £3 for hot chocolate. Eating out can be expensive, but there are places that are not too pricey. The restaurant at the top of the main lift still does menus which were not too bad e.g. big burger, pile of chips, 0.4l pop for £11-12. Cake and hot chocolate for about £4-5.
The people/language
Everyone was extremely friendly and everyone spoke excellent English apart from the English (oooh, I'm going all Welsh native….).
Cross country
We all tried this for a half-day - £60 to hire kit for four for a day. Good exercise. Silly blinking skis. Hilarious trying to descend on them. Fell over more in a couple hours than I did the rest of the week.
Would we DIY again?
Too right. Saved money and gave us lots of flexibility.
Would we go back?
Possibly. We love Norway, the people and the fun attitude to ski school. But we will probably try a different resort, may be Trysil, and may book accommodation through Ski Norway so that kids can do longer ski school sessions.
Piccies now added:
