Last weekend we spend three wonderful ski touring days in Lyngen, Norway. Here's a little video of the trip:
Download the video or big version.
What can I add to the video? Not much: perfect group, perfect weather, perfect terrain. Maybe it was a bit too warm on the last two days, but that didn't slow us down. We saw a number of slush avalaches and the locals did not seem to mind too much about them. We sticked to early rises and north faces. Locals even hiked west faces in the afternoon. I was not suprised to see some bad news headlines when we got back.
Route for the first day -- Middagstinden in Lakselvbukt -- was simple. Approach to west face from the road, hike up to the ridge just north of the top and ski the back side bowl a few times. Too bad we got whiteout in the afternoon. Snow would have been perfect.
On the second day we drove a few hours to the northern tip of Lyngen peninsula. Original target was out of snow on the west face so we skinned to the hill south from it and found an excellent north facing bowl. Nice and steep on top and mellow to the exit below. In total the bowl was maybe 250-300 vertical meters high.
Third day we took a bigger north face of Smalaktinden. Approach from the northern valley and then up the north face. Skinning up the early steep sections was a bit hairy with all the water and wet snow, and some slush and rock avalaches coming down from the other side of the road. But top part and the small glacier were nice and mellow. Only the snow was a bit too wet for our waxes.
This trip may close the ski season for me. Or maybe I have some time to go summer skiing in Ruka, who knows. I might just enjoy summer and go water skiing.
See ya,
-Mikko
Ps. Here are the songs I used, great stuff from jamendo.com artists: