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

Fannaråkbreen

Either way, even if only in name, it does spice things up a little bit because I have been coming here a fair bit in the early season (5 days so far this season!). After the last trip out to the mountains in Frudalen and what I’ve been reading on some of the forums, I thought I would stick with what I know and what is sure to be a goer until conditions improve. The Fannaråk glacier has not let me down yet.

I didn’t have any one to play with this weekend, so it was going to be my first solo outing since I got frostbite on my toes last February. I decided to leave early on Saturday from Oslo (5.00 in the morning). First mistake. I should have left earlier. In fact, I should have left Friday! Then I came off the road between Lom and Otta. Second mistake. Luckily another driver was at hand to pull me out of the ditch and there was no damage to the car. All told I got to Steindalsnosi at 13.00, tired from the early start and from the driving conditions and stressing about getting there to have time to ski. Bearing in mind the sun sets around 15.30, I had driven 6hrs to rush up a mountain and be back at the car 2.5hrs later.  Hmmm…. Things were slightly off kilter…… So of course I rushed up the mountain to be back at the car again 2.5hrs later. Great. The wind was howling, I couldn’t make out the mountain from the road and it was snowing and I was running out of time. All highly motivating factors to draw me from the warmth of the car. But I had driven this far, God dammit.

Back at the car. Steindalsnosi posing majestically!

Needless to say, there wasn’t another soul around (and rightly so!). Thankfully, this is not a very long tour anyway, so I was through the approach and most of the way up (I didn’t bother summiting) in around 1hr and 40mins to get back down again and rush to the car.

There had been some new snow, so I was nervous before starting the climb until I had a chance to check it out. I took a conservative skin up and dug a quick 5-min snow pit down 70cm or so. I could see that there had been about 15cm of new snow (in the process of becoming wind packed but nice and sticky and compressed). I was curious to see whether the rime snow from Frudalen was present here too and sure enough the new snow was sitting on top of the rime. It did have some cohesion though but it was there. Make of that what you will.

On all accounts, if tomorrow was going to be a repeat of today, my mind was already back in Oslo enjoying a relaxing Sunday.  I drove back towards Lom, stopping where they close the road for the night and pitched the tent. My new sleeping bag did what it said on the tin and kept me nice and snug in -10. Encouraging for future projects.

The weather the next day was just perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and very little wind.

Okay, so there was one cloud in the sky. Fanaråkbreen far right.

After lots of faffing and melting snow to get water for the day, I was ready to hit the glacier again. Off at 11.00 and back down again by 15.00. That’s a bit more like it. I did two runs up for a total of 1,400m vertical gain. Again I stopped around 20m from the summit. The snow on the upper section was not very good, solid wind buff in places and sastrugi formations on skier’s left. Much better on the lower section, wind blown but creamy. Good for charging. And I got some nice views:

Nice views looking east

And more nice views!

It was pretty cold in the end. I’m guessing around -15 to -20. Looking good, Paul

Looking a bit punch drunk

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Steindalsnosi shrouded in cloud (taken from direction of Lom)

Steindalsnosi is well and truly open! As opposed to last month when we got our first turns of the new season and had to to scramble over rocks from the car, you can now put your skis on and skin the whole way! A pleasure. The crevasses are all filled in (where you ski at least).

As regards the snow: very much wind-pack and breakable crust. The mountain has taken a bit of a battering from the wind and hardened up the powder. But, as a result, if you look hard enough, you can find a lot of soft, fluffy wind accumulation in the features on skier’s left as you ski down.

As regards the weather: cold and windy. At the car is was -10 C. With the altitude gain and winds of around 20 knts (gusting 30 knots knts), the wind chill must have been in the high thirties (probably more). Either way, it was bloody cold. Most of the weather was in the last 300m of the summit, so as opposed to the first day where we went to the summit, we spent the second day at lower elevations and lapped the slope. Much more pleasant and much better visibility.

As regards traffic: Saturday, we saw our first people on the mountain as we were skiing down. About ten people in different groups. Sunday, a group of two.

So, that’s that. Steindalsnosi is looking good! Not so sure about the surrounding peaks just yet. Still lots of rocks. I’m sure you could find a line if you are desperate but might be worth waiting for more snow cover.

P.S. Friflyt users….sorry for the bad link. Friflyt adds a <br> tag in the link on their page (invisible. You can see it at the end of the address in your browser though) which corrupts the link and means you cannot go directly to the page. Sorry about that!

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We spent the night in the small village (if you can call a smattering of houses a village) at the foot of the road which leads up to the summer ski resort of Juvass. I tried out my new Mountain Hardware EV 2 tent. And I have to say, I liked it a lot. Self-standing, very few pegs to the ground, no guy lines, easy to set up, small foot-print and still long enough for me. Oh and light.

Come the morning, it seems I’d been pushing the limits of my 0 degree sleeping bag.  It must have been into the high minus single digits during the night and the tent was covered in ice, inside and out when I got up. Note to self…remember to bring a sponge next time for when it melts and wets my down bag ;).

So, after a pretty late start we headed up to the resort to gain a few hundred metres courtesy of their lift before the skin over to Galdhøppigen. Galdhøpiggen is in fact the highest mountain in Norway (2469m), surrounded by glacier. We were really lucky with the conditions.

Me approaching Galdhøppigen (peak furthest right).

It was a blue bird day…… we had fresh snow and were the only ones to venture up there on our skis. Although it is the highest peak in Norway, that’s really where the superlatives stop. The acutual mountain itself is nothing remarkable and the easiest ascent is up the ridge to the summit. We had harnesses and rope for crossing the glacier from Juvass but ended up not needing it due to the tried and tested motorway made by all the guided groups. We had intended skiing a few hundred metres down to the hump next to the Galdhøpiggen (the sub-peak in the picture above) and then skiing that face, navigating a few crevasses at the exit. The line looked good but with a bit of local knowledge from a guide, we found out that the latest snow was the first snow of the summer and there was a chance the crevasses weren’t very well filled in. There would have been a long walk back out across some heavily crevassed terrain, worst still walking parallel to them. We gave it a miss.

Exposed crevasse on the face of Galdhøppigen

Instead we just headed for the summit and decided to ski down the way we had come. Things went pretty smoothly the whole way and we were approaching the summit in no time. From the car to the summit took us around two hours (and cheating with the lift), with a small break thrown in for good measure.

Metres from the summit of Galdhøppigen.

It does seem like quite a way when you first set out but the distance is quite misleading. We hung around on the summit for some time enjoying the little hut up there and the amazing weather/views. This peak is normally always covered in weather.

Views from Galdhøppigen towards great peaks in the Turtagrø area.

And then straped the board on and headed back down. I did find my fair share of death cookies on the way down to be honest and the base of my board had definitely seen better days by the end of the run. Time for a base grind anyway

Me skiing down the ridge.

Lars managed to find some really nice powder! Powder in September!! What’s that all about? Cold smoke.

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Powder snow in September on Galdhøppigen!

Another good day out and a nice easing into the new season. Not sure what the total vertical gain was. I didn’t use my watch but I’m guessing it was around 800-1000m given the time we took. You won’t get a lot of skiing on this peak but it is a great day out and I can now say I’ve summited Norway’s highest mountain. Wahoo!

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The weather has been getting very crisp of late in Oslo and it had actually snowed around 40cm in early September in the Sognefjellet Pass area in Jotunheimen, so we thought we would chance a little outing to the mountains and check out the lay of the land.

Steindalsnosi is as good a place as any to start the early season with a better snow gurantee than most places. It’s all glacial and consequently holds the snow well. We left Friday night from Oslo, breaking the journey up on the way and arrived in the morning the next day. (It’s normally around a 5.5hr drive from Oslo).

As we first caught sight of the mountain, things weren’t looking too promising….The snow line was around 1000m and patchy at best and there was a lot of crevassing visible on the lower section of the face.

Steindalsnosi shrouded in cloud (taken from direction of Lom)

And it was cold! And windy! It’s pretty crazy to think it’s still September and the temperatures are comfortably in the minus, not including the wind chill. I definitely haven’t acquired my winter coat yet. I was cold! Winds were around 25kn and my board was behaving excellently as a sail.

Approaching Steindalsnosi. Windy!

The snow cover was nowhere near what it was when we skied this mountain last year. We were admittedly one month early but walking over rock and scree for an hour in ski boots is never much fun. As we got closer to the glacier, the crevasses looked nowhere near as concerning as they had from a distance. Firstly, they were clearly visible and secondly they were small. No sweat. The only thing to investigate now was was there enough snow!

Lars-Thomas at the end of the scramble before the glacier proper.

It wasn’t exactly a resounding yes. There was about 6-7cm on glacial ice….dry and fluffy. Great for skiing but you could blow it off the ice like dust. We pushed on and found things a lot better the further we went. I had forgotten my skins, so would be boot-packing for most of the weekend. Nice work, Paul (The Adventures of a Bootpacker ;)) And my camera… So thanks to Lars-Thomas for the great photos! As we got further up the moutain, things closed in but the snow was good! Oh yeah!

Approaching the summit in a whiteout.

The top half of the face was well filled in compared to the lower section which held windblown snow and exposed glaicer. So we skied the first half and then went up again for a second hit.

And on the way back down.

Classic Norwegian Tele-Turns.

I had already set the boot pack, so it seemed a shame to waste it

Lars-Thomas on Steindalsnosi.

And then we decided to call it a day.

Me on the last section of glacier before the delightful, boot-banging scramble back to the car.

What a great first day out on the board for the new season. Nothing too heavy and perfect to blow away the cobwebs. I think we clocked something like 1100m vertical gain in the end. Nothing crazy but why would you on your first tour.

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South Couloir of Skogshorn

Things have been quiet on the ski front the last few weeks since returning to Oslo from Chamonix and I have to admit that I was definitely over the season. But not now….!! Wahoo!! I hooked up with my Norwegian friend, Lars Thomas, a telemarker (but of course ;)) and we left Oslo at 8.00 with nothing particular in mind and were geared up and ready to skin up the apron of the couloir by 12.00. The skies were completely empty of clouds and the couloir had been taking a lovely dose of sun all morning. One of the luxuries of skiing here is the latitude and the angle of the sun (i.e., it being much lower). The snow was taking nowhere near as much of a beating as say the European Alps where timing is essential on southern aspects. Ridiculously early starts… Not a fan! That afforded us a nice leisurely pace and made the day a lot more enjoyable.

Me starting the boot pack courtesy of Lars Thomas Nordby

From the road which runs right below this peak, it’s about 850m to the summit (according to my watch) which is just off to the East of the couloir entrance. The actual couloir itself is about 350 to 400m long (that’s my guestimate). The lower section of the couloir is high 30′s to 40 degrees and gets steeper as you climb past the “crux” which is a 3m rock band around the middle of the couloir. There was a thin section of snow/ice here on climber’s left which made it easy to climb up (even with 1 ice axe and no crampons). In the upper section of the couloir, there are sections of 45 degrees but it is never sustained. Bit of a mixed bag…..

Lars climbing the crux

Looking up the couloir after the crux

There were a few people skiing down the couloir while we were climbing it so we didn’t get untouched corn. I’m not sure how often this gets skied but it’s supposed to be a bit of a Hemsedal classic, so I suspect a fair bit. I’m pretty sure we did witness one first that day though…..!!! One crazy Norwegian (by the name of Simen) skied it clad in his cross-country lycra and his cross country skis!! Why….I have no idea but he seemed to be enjoying himself even if it was extremely sketchy and he looked close to losing his balance a few times on solid 45 degrees. Each to their own.

Simen in his lycra and cross country skis!

Oh, by the way, for those who use this for beta, the boot pack up was perfect. Just enough penetration for solid steps which never collapsed. Beautiful.

Nearing the summit entrance to the couloir

Lars topping out

From the car to the summit took us just over 3 hours (not including a lunch break) at a pretty leisurely pace. We didn’t hang around long on the summit as it looked like the top of the couloir was about to return to the shade, transforming the snow to something a lot less pleasant to ski. We caught it perfectly.

First few turns......

Lars free-heeling

What can I say…..it was just brilliant! Great snow all the way down and some lovely turns. The couloir narrows after the first section (about a board length for a metre) before widening again and gets steeper (the steepest section of the couloir: 45 degrees, maybe a bit more…).

Lars nicely camouflaged about to drop into the steepest section above the crux

This then leads to the “crux” which we downclimbed. One of the snowboarders who passed us on the climb up let go of his board downclimbing this and it raced another 400m to the bottom. And this was the best part of the couloir……… Not good. Rack it up next time, mate!

Just above the crux

It would be nice to have a rope next time unless you drop it which is doable (I was feeling much too sensible and my hero juice is not what it used to be ;)). There are a few bits of tatt to use although I didn’t look to see how safe they were. What was to come was just some of the best skiing in a while. A lovely pitch and beautiful corn, linking turn after turn. Bloody ridiculous!

All good things have to come to an end and we navigated our way down the patches of snow to the car.

One happy customer......

I do look rather pleased with myself, don’t I!!

Right….where to next!!!!

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