UKC

STOREN or STORE SKAGASTØLSTIND Trip Report.

This is Norway’s 3rd highest mountain and to get to the top you have to climb. I’d tried twice before, once in the summer with my wife when weather foiled us and again in the winter with Anders. We’d skied in from Lom taking three days and towing gear and food on kids sledges. We arrived at the Skagastølsbu shelter to find dangerous avalanche conditions but we pushed on for a look at the peak. The same day another team of Norwegians were avalanched further down and after digging one of their party out called it a day. The weather turned on us and after a day we also bailed.
Roll on a few years and Anders has missed out on the ice climbing trip and perfect conditions in the Fournel Valley, he’s gutted but has a plan. He knows I love to suffer, be cold and carry really heavy bags around so suggests we have another attempt at Storen this winter. This time we’ll ski in from Turtagrø if the road is open and do it over a long weekend. I’m there before he’s put the phone down.
It feels wobbly to be back on cross country skis even with skins and metal edges; my bag also feels sickeningly heavy.

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There’s always someone worse off than you, what has he got in his bag?

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We’re both going to regret getting carried away shopping for food; I think it was the notion of weekend that did it, weekends are easy and involve driving to where you’re camping or staying, not lugging your stuff 800m up a mountain. The skiing is easy but the bag makes it hard, also there hasn’t been much snow along the west coast of Norway this year. What snow there is seems to be frozen ice hard, this is fine on the flat but makes contouring up impossible so we opted to slog up the steepest sections kicking what steps we could.

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I was feeling pretty shattered by now, the sun was setting but my spirits were lifted as we skied across the frozen lake. I just think there’s something rather mad about standing in the middle of a lake on a sheet of ice!

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Thankfully it turned out to be a clear night with a full moon and this was the one time the new camera caused a problem (or rather my lack of knowledge). There was Storen with the moon above a superb shot, sadly despite lots of button pressing, computer says no.
The ski up the final glacier was both mentally and physically hard. I think we were both shattered. We stopped often but each time the distance seemed no shorter. In the moonlight I was sure there was a huge ridge down the left of the glacier, looking down the next day there was nothing, it had been Storen’s moon shadow. Finally the glacier steepened as we approached the saddle point and we had to off skis and begin kicking steps the final few hundred metres. I was too tired to put crampons on and tip toed up on scuffs in the ice idly wondering what I’d do if I slipped and slid a few hundred metres back down the glacier. At last we were there and a stiff breeze greeted us on the ridge, a lonely place that reinforced my desire to not be outside and not have this awful bag on my back anymore. We lurched across the last few yards to the hut rammed the skis into the snow and threw the bags down, I wanted to roar out a battle cry, to shout my defiance but there sat the hut, thoroughly buried under a few metres of ice hardened snow. Robotically we began digging it out. It actually felt good, no bag on and we had made it.

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The final twist came as we forced our way through the door into an icy hoar frosted freezer. The small wood burning stove and wood was gone along with the small bunks. The hut had been reclassified as an emergency shelter due to the difficulty keeping it supplied. As we sat round the stove melting water for supper I couldn’t help but think of the likes of Scott sitting out the winter in Antarctica in similar if bigger huts.
I slept warmly and well that night.
The next morning saw Anders bravely wiggle out of his sleeping bag, he really is more excited than a 5 year old before Christmas and I don’t blame him. The weather is perfect. I lie for a few minutes longer wondering how quite so much ice has got into my bivi bag and whether there will be any loose snow left on the mountain after a night of Anders’ snoring. Most of us who know him or are married to him happily sleep through it but when we do wake up we hear one of natures wonders.
Outside early morning light gives us a taste of what’s to come.

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We grab some breakfast a lot of it a little frozen, gather our gear and set off.

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The initial slopes are between I-II snow the majority frozen squeaky hard with a few soft patches. Enthusiasm takes over from good sense and we kick and scuff steps up to the point where I start mentally plotting my course back down the mountain between nasty looking rocks. We un-sling axes and I try and look up at the pretty view. It begins to dawn on me that my usual fear of high places when un-roped is not present and the view really is good.

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Ah this is still tiring even without a full bag, we stop to drink and eat and take in the views. The snow is like polystyrene and makes a wonderful noise with each placement, it’s steep enough in places that we now have both axes and crampons on, this makes me feel a little better but it’s about to get worse. At least the top is getting nearer.

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The hut looks awfully small now (bottom left on rocky saddle) it does mean we’re getting nearer the top but it also highlights that we’re a long way from anyone and on our own.

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Worse is in a way better with small sections of solo climbing up smears of ice and rock. The earlier ice climbing trip with Dean has set me in good stead and I feel as secure and comfortable as my fear will allow. At one point we traversed across to rock and then had to drop back into an icy gully. Having arms like a monkey, legs like a giraffe and Yoga power made this awkward and unpleasant for me, Anders had no chance so after I’d positioned myself in goal he jumped. Most unusually, this time he landed and stayed where he intended to. The climbing continued to become more sustained until we found ourselves climbing a ten centimetre ribbon of ice up the back of a corner. In places the ice came away and I found myself reaching over the gaps and stacking both my axes and feet on top of each other to get up. The part of me that feared heights was gone; there was no place for it here. I was animal, cold and detached. The only person who mattered was me and I had thoughts for no one else, the mountain had me in it’s grip and there was no letting go. Everyday life to me is so complex, putting other people first, thinking of family and friends, duty, searching for purpose, to live in the moment is a wonderful vice.
The climbing proper began at a lonely sling poking out from the snow. We geared up, ditched one bag and Anders set off. The climbing was totally engaging and we switched between axes and gloves and in places stowed the axes and went barehanded up the rock. The cold stung and skin stuck but determination and commitment drove us upwards. I placed a mixture of nuts and pegs with the occasional ice screw. The ice was often so hard it was difficult to tell if you’d struck rock or ice, I’d need new picks for France next year. I ground to a halt wedged in a groove/chimney, grinding my back and new camera against the rock, this could go either way. I struck sparks trying to find purchase, stuck I tried to get some gear in, one, two, three sh*t pieces equals one good bit. I grabbed for my axes, my mitt was gone from the wrist loop. I began swearing the toys tumbling out of my cot before Anders called out coolly. “It’s by your foot”. I twisted round in fury, my crampons screeching and pushed my face against the rock as I reached down for it. The mitt shifted, I teased it with my axe, and it tipped, and fell away from me disappearing out of sight. I was furious but Anders was calm, we both carried spare gloves and he had mitts to match mine. I grunted upwards abusing my once sharp ice tools a little more before belaying Anders up. He joined me and lamented the loss of his even more expensive glove and un-used posh belay sling before steeling himself and pushing on. I think we were both a little rattled by how hard it was proving but we were still very, well mostly determined. When I joined him he congratulated me on my lead saying it was the hardest. I disagreed, I new how he felt when he set off, I could see it in his eyes and I’m sure he saw it in mine too. We felt better for our mutual reassurance; it’s good to say these things especially when you know it’s true.
I finally reached the narrow gully leading to the top. It was filled with knee deep soft snow that I kicked my way nervously up wishing for more security. Above me the wind whistled over the summit, I crept gently towards the lip, gasped as the wind hit me and looked down the other side a long, long way down. I belayed just below and a tired Anders climbed up to join me. We had made it, we had climbed Storen.

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It was now five o clock, time to get down. I though about our other partner in crime, he’d have hated the walk but would have enjoyed the climb and after all two’s company, three’s a comfort. Anders disappeared over the top looking for the decent anchors. I waited anxiously while he searched, finding some tat and an old nut we regrouped and rappelled to the main abb point and back down onto the west face out of the wind. Descending a snow ramp we traversed down, Anders collected my bag and then we began rapping the rest of the way back to the lower slopes. At one point I dislodged a rock about the size of a side plate and an inch thick, I called out a warning, no sound followed. When I joined Anders further down he asked if the zip on my bag was broken, saying he’d been hit by something. I looked and saw a vertical rip and the entire bottom section of the bag split open above the zip. We’d later find the shoulder harness and buckles also broken by the force of the impact. A very lucky escape. It was now dark and we were descending by head torch but quickly. I was tired and slipped once arresting myself in time; we finally reached the hut eleven and a half hours after leaving. It seemed quite a friendly place now and we fired up the stove got some fluids and supper in before the fuel ran out. I slept well again listening to Anders snoring happily and wishing I’d had more to drink.
The next day we packed up and skied out descending the steep bits the same way we’d come up. Once more across the frozen lake all the time fantasising about what we’d buy to drink at the first shop we passed.

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At the time we’d decided that winter mountaineering in Norway was too hard and scary and now we’d done it we wouldn’t need to do it again.
On reflection we’ve decided that next time we’ll try one of the big ridges up to the peak. More info on Storen and other summer routes here:

http://www.scandinavianmountains.com/1.1%20Storen.htm

Remember, what is hard to endure is sweet to remember.

Cheers

Toby