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.

For more trips reports in Lofoten and for more trip reports in Norway.

20.

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 ;).

For more trip reports in Lofoten and Norway….

16

South Couloir, Stornappstind

I saw the obvious south couloir yesterday and decided a quick solo trip was in order today. It’s about 250 to 300m long and a sustained 40 degrees (maybe a bit more) for the duration. I thought bootpacking up the couloir was probably the best option as I wasn’t sure how obvious it would be to find the entrance if I went up the normal route on the west face. We certainly didn’t come across it when we went up there yesterday and I didn’t fancy the pfaff of trying to find it anyway (although looking at the above picture, it looks easy to find after all). And it’s always good to climb what you’re going to ski in my opinion if you can. By the way, the couloir entrance is lower down than the summit.

Needless to say, I got the whole palette of weather; from sun to cload and sleet to rain and then back to sun again. It’s proabably not a bad thing that the mountains are on the smaller side here, as the weather is so unstable sometimes that you don’t want to be commited on anything big.

Views towards Flakstad before bootpacking up the couloir

When the sun did decide to make an appearance, it was 12.00 and I was half-way up the couloir. South facing, hot and feeling quite exposed. There was a good amount of snow in the couloir and the snow seemed nicely cohesive but I couldn’t bannish that feeling of unease. Either way, I made it to the top and was rewarded with some lovely views.

In the couloir

More nice views from the top of the couloir towards Skottind and Napp harbour

More nice views

The couloir was in good condition despite my earlier unease. Although the bootpack up felt like a small eternity, definitely a nice descent. Tired now. This little bootpack kicked my arse. 900m bootpacks at altitude used to be all part of the fun. I find that hard to imagine this year on that evidence

Want to see more splitboarding in Norway…..? Click here.

This was my first outing on the snowboard in Lofoten and what a day it was too! The weather wasn’t particularly nice. It was blowing a gale. It had rained a few days previously, so the snow wasn’t particularly great. But Angelita’s parents’ house is at the foot of this moutain, you’re surrounded by the sea (at least once you get to the summit) and you’ve got the whole mountain (and all the other mountains within view) to yourself.

I know so little about these mountains; that combined with its far-flung northerly location (above the Arctic Circle) and the feeling that lots of these faces have been deprived the tickling sensation of skis and you just want to get after it…..like a kid in a sweetshop! None of the peaks are particularly high (around 700m to 1000m for the most part). But that just means you can ski two in a day! And it doesn’t get dark until around 22.00, so you can ski one in the morning, cruise Leknes in the car with the tunes banging like a proper townie and then go and ski another line later when you get bored. Leknes definitely does not have the feeling of being a ski town, so you’re never going to be fighting for lines in this part of Lofoten.

There’s nothing particularly special about this route…apart from the fact that you are skiing in Lofoten!! A nice short ski tour and a nice pitch on the way down (parts of it in the mid to high 30 degrees). According to my watch, the trip up was 750m and we were up and down again in around 2hrs. Just in time before it started to lash it down.

West Face of Stornappstind

If you drive west from Napp for a couple of km, you come to Nappskaret car park which is where the tour starts. Once you’ve located the summit from the car park, it’s really straight forward route finding to the summit. You can either ski the South face or the West face which is what we did.

Stortinden: looking towards Flakstad

We managed to get the skis on from the car and skin most of the way. The snow was pretty hard and frozen when we got onto the West face proper and without ski crampons, we boot packed the last few hundred metres to….almost the summit. We turned round about 20m from the summit as it was turning into boiler plate ice from the ridiculously strong winds and I started to slip backwards and couldn’t kick in any steps.

Angelita book packing up...

Good ski down and all the way back to the car. Nice first tour to get a feel for conditions.

Want to see more splitboarding in Norway…..? Click here.