Stryn Sommarski

When Stryn Summer-ski resort opened for the season, I was on the spot, ready to check out the conditions. Having spent enough of the spring drawling on the last spots of snow on the mountains surrounding my home town, I was ready for some more snowboarding.

The parking lot was full and people were told to park along the road. I ended up a few hundred meters further up the road from the resort. After I was done snowboarding I had to walk all the way back to the car.

The road is quite narrow to begin with, but with cars parked along it, it becomes even narrower. On one side there is about a meter of snow that gives way to the view of mountains, the blue sky and some strange glowing orb in the sky, whose name I manage to forget in the vast wasteland of gray clouds that comes between every time it bothers to make an appearance. On the other side there is a white wall that does not seem inclined to give way to anything. It reaches about 4 meters in the general direction of the heavens. In fact the only thing it seems inclined to is to fill in the gap, which is the road. It is a warm day, not the day one would feel comfortable this close to a wall of snow. Actually, scratch that! Upon closer inspection, (I couldn’t help but run my fingers along it as I was walking by) this was a wall of slush. I was wearing a t-shirt, my sweatpants were pulled up to my knees and my feet were shoeless on the warm asphalt. I reached out and grasped a fistful of slush from the towering wall. Such a vast amount of snow is a strange sight to see up close, all the while being good and warm in the summer sun. Like ice-cream served with a warm piece of apple pie, or picking summer flowers wearing mittens. As the snow is slowly dripping away from my hand, I realized that this is... what is the word? Awesome? Funny? Cool? Nice? Anyway, it’s a moment, and it’s a good one. I’m very easily moved in any sort of emotional direction, so by design, I’m smiling from ear to ear at this point. I hadn’t even noticed. I slap my hand over my mouth and nervously look around to see if anybody saw me. Already sure my lack of sanity is now an established fact around these parts of the world, I’m relieved to find there is nothing but cars, snow and more cars for at least a hundred meters in every direction. Though not very pliable, my face has now been forcefully altered and manipulated into a more suitable expression (I hope), so I remove my hand. I don’t want to come across like a total geek/freak/you-name-it. Now, I look cool, bored and generally uninterested in the world. My favourite things to do is snowboarding, drive fast and climb rocks as far as I can go with no rope just to spend an hour wondering how on earth I’m going to get back down... my point is that I can’t just go around getting so easily entertained by such stupid things. I gave myself a mental knock in the head and continued up the road. On my left side, the wall was slowly melting and slowly leaning in. But I would not be interested by this. Because even if there might be a risk worth considering, no one else was paying it any attention and there was nothing I could do to sway the outcome one way or the other. I can see my car now. I put my left foot down. Still barefoot, my skin hits something cold. Before I have time to react, I’ve put my foot all the way down and the chill spreads unevenly. Close and covering near the sole of my foot, but it scatters into individual dots of cold further up. Like something breaking into little pieces. Even before the initial shock has worn off, I have discovered the cause of this peculiar feeling. I’ve stepped into the little stream of melted snow on the road. I almost burst into laughter, being off guard, but I catch myself in time and leap for the safety of the car. Once safely inside, I sigh with relief. That stupid snow almost had me there.

Farther down the road, a buss has stopped and the passengers have been less fortunate. They are all deeply entranced, something that can easily be diagnosed by their behaviour. In one large crowd, they exit the buss and make their way over to the snow. Excited beyond belief, the all start to touch it and make snowballs, all the while grinning like the Cheshire Cat with eyes wide and somewhat bewildered. They’ve got it bad!