UKC

While everyone is waiting for the snow to arrive I thought I would share a YouTube video/slideshow from my adventures with a couple of friends back in April in the amazing ski touring paradise that is Northern Norway.

Arctic Circle - Ski Mountaineering in Norway
youtube.com/watch?v=ljP9GQQW87Y& best viewed by selecting 1080pHD in YouTube and Fullscreen



Enjoy!

Wonderful pics, what a great trip. Amazed there's so much snow down to seas level in April, was that due to the exceptional winter last year?
Thanks for sharing.

In reply to mcdweeb: Thanks mcdweeb, like most places, 2013 was a good one in Norway. the Troms region is 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle so there is a good chance that there will be snow to sea level in April. The locals we spoke to didn't seem to suggest this was unusual. The days are long at that time of the year too, it doesn't get dark until after 10, so plenty of time for skiing!

In reply to HighRustler:

Very nice, thanks. I was there in mid May and the snow was still at sea level. Well done on Stor Jaegervastind, did you go to the main summit or the foresummit? The ridge to the main summit looks a bit tricky from the pics I've seen. Its one of the big ticks in Lyngen and I'm keen to do it one of these days.

In reply to HighRustler: Nice! Ready for snow now!

In reply to mcdweeb: There was still snow to sea level a couple weeks after that:

http://lightfromthenorth.blogspot.fi/2013/05/lyngen-in-may-ski-mountaineeri...
http://lightfromthenorth.blogspot.fi/2013/06/lyngen-in-may-ski-mountaineeri...

We were there 4-11 May.

In reply to HighRustler:

Great pics! It looks like you had a winner of a day on Kvaløya. I've just skied up to a little bump there to watch my mate paraglide vimeo.com/10726311 and climbed in summer, but would love to ski the peaks too!

Did you summit on Lakselvtindane? I dragged rope and climbing gear up there in May but there were big snow mushrooms falling into the gully so we wimped out and went and skied up one of the easy peaks instead!

Dave we settled for the skier's summit of Store Jaegervasstinden although we had ropes etc with us. The cloud was pretty thick and when a window came we used it to descend on ski from the skier's summit rather than continue, the skiing is much more fun when you can see

TobyA We had ropes with us on Store Lakselvtinden but we are really more about the skiing than the climbing, we ascended the summit gully which ramped up to just over 50 degrees and made for a great ski descent. We carried on to summit of Imbodentinden with the intention of dropping off the north side but the cloud came down and so we returned via the easier Tomasrenna couloir which was a nice ski.

In reply to HighRustler:

Done. Thank you. Great pictures

In reply to HighRustler: Actually, as one of the 'locals' I can tell you that we did get more snowfall than usual this year but it came all in one go around end of March/beginning of April! But we have snow down at sea level from October to May anyway, so it is definitely not unusual in April

vimeo.com/77486007

I can't imagine it's of much interest to those who don't know Lyngen or at least are thinking of going there, but if you fall into one of those camps then you might enjoy it. Mikko picked some different music from your normal ski/climbing films too! And, yes, I'm the one falling over a lot.

In reply to TobyA:
But more fun when super telemark-man finally falls over!

In reply to hedgepig: Yep, and I'm reassured by what seems to be a universal truth:

These things we hold to be self evident, that eventually all telemarkers fall over.