I found very little info on the couloir other than the youtube video but it turns out that it’s pretty easy to find. Driving from Leknes to Henningsvær, you can find it just outside of Henningsvær in an area which is popular amongst climbers in the summer and looks like this:

The couloir is a little bit further on from where I’m taking the picture and easy to see.

Unfortunately we didn’t find the couloir in good condition. It looked amazing but when we got on it, the rain affected snow was in clear evidence with light fluffy powder on top. There was lots of sluff in the couloir where it had purged which made for pockets of avy debris and exposed, icy rain affected snow.

The gradient on the lower part of the couloir is never more than 40 degrees, so we knew that section of the couloir was skiable in those conditions and hoped that it might get better as we climbed. There is a big fallen boulder in the middle of the couloir (the crux) which is easy to pass both up and down. We had crampons and two ice ixes for the climb which were definitely needed  for this section in the condition we found it.

The snow just above the crux was also very hard and icy and it would definitely be wise to board this section with both ice axes to arrest any fall or loss of control or just simply down climb.

Once passed the crux, the couloir gradually steepens to around 45 degrees and up to around 50 degrees as you start to top out (all gradients were checked with the inclinomoter). The condition of the couloir didn’t improve as we climbed and we were unsure whether it was skiable. Having had a serious fall on ice before, this is not somewhere I like to be, so we decided at the worst we would climb to the top, enjoy the clouds and then downclimb.

Just as we were nearing the top (probably 50m below the top), I released a slab avalanche on 50 degrees. It wasn’t particularly big (crown of around 30cm) but big enough to take us both off the face and start falling down the couloir. I managed to self arrest around 50m from the crown and Luca fell around 100m toma-hawking and finally coming to a stop.

As soon as I got on that section of snow, I just knew it was going to go and then it did. It all happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to shout “Avalanche”. Then I got snow in my mouth and down my wind pipe and was struggling for breath when I finally managed to stop.

Luckily, nothing more than a slightly twisted knee for me and a bruised elbow for Luca. And then a hasty retreat down the couloir.

So, the long and short of it is that this beautiful couloir is not in coniditon at the moment due to all the rain last week. And a word of warning….. While we were down climbing, it started snowing heavily. All the snow from the side walls sluffs into the couloir. We were protected under the rock at the crux but there was surprisingly large amounts and they came much quicker than I would have ever thought.

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21

Luca, a friend from Chamonix, has come up for a few days to check out Norway and Lofoten for the first time. The weather has been more than a bit frustrating since his arrival and everything we have tried to do has ended up in complete white-out at the summit in strong winds and snow, hoping for a weather window.

We went up Stornappstind yesterday to ski the South Couloir. I skied this last year for the first time solo (here are more details on how to get there and specifics on the couloir.)

The weather had been shifting all day and it looked like nothing was going to happen. Hoping things had settled down a bit and would  improve, we went for it. Of course that never happened and we ended up waiting on the summit in a complete white out with strong winds and snow for about 1.5 hrs unsure if we had found the entrance to the couloir. Finally a window of sorts presented itself and we could see the entrance (indeed where we thought it was) and dropped in.

And well worth the wait it was too! The conditions in the couloir were fantastic. Really cohesive snow and things seemed to be really well bonded. You could ski it pretty fast.

Luca finally managed to get his first line. Let’s hope for a few more in the coming days.

The couloir is protected from the current wind so there is no windslab. But as a result, it does have wind transported snow in there. I couldn’t see any signs of instability but it is something to bear in mind.

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20.

Today was going to be a solo day and given the new snow I wanted to do something that was conservative and chose Hustinden which is a 5 minute drive from the house in Napp. Ski-in, ski out (well, almost).

You have to drive to Nappskaret car park which is the same car park to go up Stornappstind. You’ll see it as soon as you arrive. This tour seems like a really good tour on those days you’re not sure of the snow pack as you’re nice and safe on the ridge the whole way, so if anything goes, it should go below you.

I had to cross a small river at the start which was easy and then skinned up the first section which is around 30 degrees and then it gets steeper to around 38 degrees (checked on inclinometer) and then mellows back down. Once I get to the steeper section, I boot packed up.

The whole trip is around 700m vertical gain from the car park. It took me about 2 hrs up and down which was a bit slow going. The wind was blowing almost perpendicular to the ridge, so there was a lot of deep wind transported snow on the leeward side, the side I boot packed up but more importantly also the side I boarded down The snow was just below my knee for most of the way. Nice powder.

The snow seemed really cohesive on the lower angle stuff but as I gained elevation and started to climb up the steepest section towards the top (42 to 45 degrees, one section of 48 degrees for 10m (checked with inclinometer)), the snow was drier and I didn’t have a great feeling about it. I dug down to the old rain affected layer which was about 30cm below the new snow and it just seemed a little too light and fluffy for my liking. I could easily just wipe it off the rain affected layer. It just didn’t feel good enough which might have something to do with being solo.  Either way, I decided to turn about 50m below the summit and get out of there.

Being solo and having doubts is an endless battle. Are your doubts genuine or because you are alone. Very often it’s hard to tell the difference, I find. Wind, bad visibility and cold only add to the internal struggles ;).

The snow behaved normally but as the terrain was steeper, I was easily going through to the rain affected snow beneath which is food for thought for steep skiing later in the week.

So the trip achieved what I set out to do. Get some safe, powder turns and check out how things are shaping up. Hopefully, a little bit wiser this week. Things definitely need to bond a bit more on the higher elevations where the snow is drier.

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18

Considering we’ve now had two days of new snow (around 20cm accumulated) on top of a hard rained on layer, we wanted to just take a nice cruisy tour today and see what the lay of the land was. So we headed over to Middagstinden on Flagstad island. This picture is taken from Ramberg.

This tour is the epitomy of cruise. I’m guessing it’s around 30 degrees and perfect for some nice big turns. Unfortunately, it is on the short side at around 550m vertical gain, so we were up in around an hour and down again in a few minutes. But they were a very fun few minutes!

The tour starts at Bergland where you can park the car. The snow cover left a little bit to be desired on the way up.

We ended up boot packing the whole way up even though you could have skinned after the  initial first few hundred metres. The rain layer was still there but the new snow seems to have bonded well to it and should only get better over the next couple of days.

Once we reached the top, it is basically just one big snow field at around 30 degrees. I had a good old charge. Conditions were really good but the hard rain affected layer is lurking if you make too big turns.

Nice family friendly tour.

Luca is arriving tomorrow, so excited to see what mischief we can get up to!

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17

As last year, the first tour of the Lofoten trip was to be Stornappstind (click here on how to get their, route finding e.t.c). It has been raining here recently, so I was anticipating a bit of dust on boiler plate and decided to take the ice axe with me just in case. How many times have I left it behind only to get myself in a spot of bother….? Enough to now take it with me. And I was very pleased with that decision.

There is still snow cover all the way from the car park to the top. Not that we got to the top. That’s where the boiler plate comes in….. This picture is very deceiving:

I could lie and say it was “epic”, as so many seem to do who stand on one or two planks. But it wasn’t to be honest! I gave up skinning up on my splitboard and started to book pack. I hardly made a dent in the snow with my hard boots to be honest but made quick progress with the ice axe. Angelita carried on up on skis for a while before she couldn’t go anymore and started sliding back down the way she came.

Angelita skinning up Stornappstind

So we had no choice but to put the planks on there and ski back down around 100m for the summit. The ski down was surprisingly good to be honest. Much better than I’d been expecting, so a good day out in the end. Just great to be in Lofoten again anyway. The views are always stunning and the pace of life perfect compared to the usual rat race.

With the conditions as they are locally, things just cannot get colder. If it gets cold, it will put a stop to any hopes of skiing anything steeper. A few road trips look like they are on the cards ;).

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16

As the road is closed for the winter past Leirdalvassbu, the options are pretty limited so we plumbed for Loftet which forms the first peak on the west side of the Leirdal valley from the road. The face is north north east facing depending on which particular line down you take but on all accounts very similar to the couloir I wanted to ski further down the valley.

As the road is closed at the moment, we had to skin up around 15mins before climbing the mountain proper. It’s a pretty straightforward skin up although it was icy in some places. There is still clear evidence of the Dagmar storm and rain affected snow which has refrozen to ice in places although it had filled in again in many others.

There’s not really much of note to this tour to be honest. We got there pretty late which meant coming down as the light was starting to fade but we were lucky to get beautiful weather.

We skinned up and skied down the same line to get us back to the car. It’s a pretty even gradient the whole way up and down. A nice cruisy tour for any standard of skier.

We were up and down again in around 4 hours with 1200m of vertical gain from the car. The conditions up lead to some conservative skiing on the way down, expecting to bottom out on a hard, icy layer but that didn’t always happen. Too late after the event!

A nice cruisy tour to get the legs going. Needless to say the conditions weren’t encouraging enough for me to want to check out the couloir I had in mind. I cannot imagine conditions improving anytime soon to be honest. The slightest wind is blowing the snow away and temperatures are in the -10 to -15 range making it difficult for the new snow to bond to the hard icy layer. Or maybe the couloir is nice and protected… Hmmmm. I shall persevere.

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9

It’s really easy to get to too which also makes it a pretty popular tour although there were only about four other guys on the mountain today. From Oslo, you just have to head towards Rjukan (a town with its own story to tell) and a few km before you get there, you turn off left and follow the road which takes you to the Gaustatoppen ski resort. As you start to get to the top, the road forks. Keep going straight on (not left) and after a few hundred metres you arrive at a gate blocking the road. The skin starts here and follows the road up a way until a few outhouses where you can pick you line to skin up.

Gaustatoppen (1883m). Taken from the road before gaining altitude.

From the car, the vertical gain is around 950m and I was on the top in around 2 hrs. I had thought about lapping this one more time but that thought was put paid to halfway up and  confirmed on the way down. The snow was bullet!

I started slipping pretty badly on a few sections on the way up and had to bootpack up for a few hundred metres before putting the boards back on. The way down was not much better to be honest.

I thought I would try out the first obvious couloir from the big tower (you can just about see it on the picture). There is a bit of a convex role at the entrance and these always make me a bit nervous for avalanche no matter how stable things are, especially being solo. Absolutely nothing to worry about. It was bullet!  Maybe I should rephrase that. Not quiet bullet. You could make an impression in it if you punched it but my board didn’t leave very obvious tracks. It’s a pretty steep entrance. I’m guessing around 45 degrees but it soon mellows out to around 40 degrees and then keeps mellowing from there.

At least the surface of the snow in the couloir was smooth. I couldn’t say the same once I was out of the couloir. Sastrugi everywhere and this time it was bullet and icy with a couple of mm of powder. Not nice at all. Survival snowboarding really. I didn’t open it up until a joined the skin track on the way down and you cannot really open it up there anymore anyway as it so mellow.

I’m guessing the rain from Christmas time is still a major factor here. This mountain is quite exposed and any new snow is probably just being blown away at the moment. I should really have just boarded down the way I skinned up to be honest.

So….. not great snowboarding but a good day out in the pursuit of fitness.

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5

I’ve decided to call a failed attempt on a peak a “reccy” instead, as that is what it really is. Checking things out and lessons learned for the next attempt. Anything to help lessen the frustration

The snow came late to Europe and Norway has been no exception. But when it came, it came in abundance. Or at least that’s what it looked like looking at the snow reports and from hearsay. Then Dagmar (a hurricane à la Norwegian) came along over Christmas with warm temps and rain.

That’s unfortunately how I found Isfjorden on the West Coast of Norway, just outside of Åndalsness, a 6.5 hrs drive from Oslo. A long drive through the usual, “hilly” mountains before you come to Trollveggen (highest vertical rock face in Europe) and the mountains get serious and beautiful. I wasn’t quite sure which face was Trollveggen but it turns out I was looking at the wrong one, just one door down from the face I should have been looking at which was shrouded in cloud. Another excuse to go back that way!

The wrong Trolllveggen!

I didn’t really have a plan on going to Isfjorden which is always a bit of a mistake when time is short. I’d heard of the usual suspects like Kirketaket but that was it. So I thought I would try and do something on the first mountain I saw which had skiable lines and that was this one just above the town of Isfjorden:

Snortungen (1193m) & Isfjorden

I wasn’t sure if this was a little ambitious for the first tour of the season and the second day on the board but you won’t know if you don’t try so off I went. The problem with touring at this time of year in Norway is the short days. What looked like a fairly straight forward approach turned out to be a shitty bush whack in shitty rain affected snow, so time and uncertainty got the better of me and I binned it before I got to the fan of the couloir.

I had hoped to spend all three days in Isfjorden getting to know the area but it looked like it had rained pretty much to the top of the mountains before I arrived and more rain was coming the next day ( 29th Dec) and a lot more the next day, so off I went to pastures new, hoping to wrestle a bit of snowboarding out of the few days I had.

Waking up to the pitter patter of rain on my tent the next morning, my decision was confirmed and I headed to Jotunheimen with a pit stop in Bjorli for a couple of hours of piste skiing (a really small resort with a couple of runs).

It turns out they had just closed the road (N55) for winter the day before I got there which meant I wouldn’t be able to get into the area. Things were conspiring against me. I could get some way up the road though to the road that turns off to Leirvassbu and Loftet mountain.

Looking towards Skagsnebb at 9am

I’d had my eye on a little something in Leirdalen which again might present me with a few timing issues due to the short day light hours, as indeed it did. I took the wrong approach which didn’t help and lost a lot of time but at least found the best way for next time. A failed attempt but a successful reccie

Conditions here too were not the best. It looked like it had rained pretty high up (at least 1500m. As high as I got.) and refroze. It was boiler plate with a 10cm light and fluffy layer of powder on top and deep pockets of accumulated snow if you were lucky enough to chance upon them. I did on a few occasions and it was blower powder!

There was a big avalanche run out too which I can only imagine was from warmer temps and rain. The debris was boulder size and much more like the warm, wet slides you see at the end of the season. Something to bear in mind as this layer forms the foundation for other snow layers later in the season.

Avalanche in Leidalen (West facing)

Looking north in Leirdalen as the light fades (3pm)

So, on paper a pretty unsuccessful trip. But then what was I expecting having no knowledge of Isfjorden and just generally challenging conditions. Off paper (if you can say that), it was a fantastic 3 days away with me, my car, my splitboard and my tent. A fantastic sense of freedom that I haven’t felt for a long time which has got me well up for the new season!

And things to look forward to: Lofoten, Chamonix and Pakistan!

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Store Smørstabbtinden

And the weather is still really hot. I don’t know what the ambient temperature was during the day but 10 to 15 degrees didn’t seem too far off the mark. And the night time temps were around 0 to -5. Needless to say, the freeze-thaw cycle was in full effect and there was definitely no need for early starts. The snow was bullet hard until mid day.

Store Smørstabbtinden

This run is west facing, so it was a good job we waited as late as we did. We set off around 12.00 and were on the summit for around 16.00, enough time for the snow to soften up. I didn’t take too many pics on this trip but have borrowed a few from Trond. To be honest, the hike up is not really very noteworthy.

The tour starts at Krossbu Hotel and makes its way up gently for the first 500m taking a route which goes looker’s left of the mountain and is very obvious. The last 550m gets steeper and we bootpacked all the way up the ridge to the summit. The snow was very firm the whole way up.

Trond on the way up. Picture courtesy of Gunnar

Views from the summit looking south. Picture courtesy of Trond

Finding the entrance to the couloir is pretty okay but you need to get a good fix on it on the way up. The actual couloir itself is around 40 degrees and pretty narrow in the beginning before widening out again. You have to navigate your way through some stones towards the end and then just peg it across the glacier to get back to Krossbu. Keeping speed, I managed to get most of the way back to the car without having to take the board off. As little walking as possible please

And that’s that. Not much else to report on this one. We took a very leisurely 5hrs up and down with about 1.5hrs break along the way. Total up from the car was 1050m. And that is probably my last tour for the season unfortunately.

Not sure what to make of it to be honest. This is my second season away from the mountains on a permanent basis since 2003 and it’s been hard. There’ve been long periods of nothing and mediocrity in terms of boarding and life’s just too short for mediocrity. I’ve struggled to find a ski buddy with a similar background and experience in ski mountaineering and who’s on the same page. Maybe I’ve been spoilt by fantastic ski buddies during my time in Chamonix or maybe there are just so many more in places like Chamonix than in places like Oslo….

Let’s see what happens next season. One things for sure is it can’t be a repeat of this one.

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Ristinden and its shoulder

And unfortunately that is going to be how it remains until I’m next in Lofoten this time next year. For some reason I didn’t feel quite right about this one beforehand, some of it being irrational and due to the fact that I was going to solo this and some of it perhaps not.

The snow was again on the sparse side on the start of the climb up and again I didn’t use skins.

The intended climb up in red and the same ski down

There was a lot of water coming down the mountain in the form of streams and there were a few marked on the map for this mountain, so I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary other than, yes, the snow was melting. There was a fair bit of sluff and pin wheel activity too.

I took this one late in the day (16.30), reasoning that the south facing climb and ski would be softer and in the process of refreezing by the time I got to it. Which it was but the face was in a lot worse shape than I thought.

This face starts out mellow and gets progressively steeper. It’s 40 degrees (measured with inclinometer) half way up the face and still had a fair amount of steepness to go maxing out where you enter the south face from the shoulder (I’m guessing that must be 50 degrees). I didn’t get any further than half-way up the face. At that point, I was confronted with some big fissures in the snow pack, just waiting for more heat (or weight) to set them off.

Nasty cracks in the snow pack

More big, nasty cracks in the snowpack

Not a nice feeling……. That was my cue to bin the route and head back down. So this will be another mountain for another day. This route has had its day for this season.

Temperatures are unseasonably warm for this time of year, not only in Lofoten but all over Norway, so take extra special care and enjoy the remainder of your season.

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