Tuesday 28 April 2015

Lofoten 2015 - part 3...

Day 3 came with a great forecast and in true adventure style we set course for a peak I had spotted while driving on Saturday - I have only seen 1 reference to this peak online, so will leave it un-named here to allow others to discover it for themselves! The gully we were heading for is a striking line centre of the picture below:



Boot-packing up the gully:


Nick enjoying top quality spring snow in the gully:


Jim:



Matt:


Nick heading up for some bonus turns back to the car - spectacular doesn't even come close to describing the scenery:


A warm welcome back to the lodge from Nanook:


The forecast for day 4 was, as the Scots would say, 'minging' but with a promise of clearing late afternoon. A mix of sight-seeing and coffee-drinking occurred in the morning, and relentless weather-map peering convinced me that in the West it would clear up late afternoon. Unfortunately, by this time most of the team had lost 'momentum', so it was left to Jack and I to keep the spirit alive and we saddled up for the hour drive out to Stornappstind with our eyes on the South gully - the obvious gully dropping from the summit down the right face in the next picture (taken last year...!):


As we set out we had a clear view right up to the summit. Sadly as we climbed higher the cloudbase dropped gradually, and we arrived at the summit with not a whole lot of visibility. Time to sign the summit book, change over and slide carefully to the gully entrance:


Despite the visibility the gully was in excellent condition, soft spring snow on a firmer but smooth base - well worth the effort to come out!
Jack in action showing off his 'Lecluse-double-pole-plant' style:


Definitely worth the effort!

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