Wedsnesday dawned bright and clear in Siglufjordur, though the forecast looked less promising for the afternoon.
Plan A for the day:
The bowl to the right of the summit ridge looked smooth, which given Monday's rain/snow was the key to good skiing this week, as anything with rocks above was covered with roller balls or wet sluff...
Very tame ptarmigan:
Good views all round:
As we hit the summit ridge it was looking very gloomy behind the peak, and with sun shining on our descent we decided to leave the summit for another day and make the most of the good visibility and snow.
Ready to drop into our first descent:
A few cms of soft over a smooth base gave very nice skiing!
After a short food & drink break, and with the weather still holding out, we set off back up a different line to the left of the summit:
The weather had been holding so far but as we made our way along the ridge about 50m below the summit the cloud base dropped and we made the pragmatic choice of using the remaining visibility to ski the slopes we had just climbed. Good skiing but flat light so no photos from the main descent, though the run-out to the car was a 5* spring-skiing bonanza, all topped off by randomly bumping into my friend Rick Marchant and his group back at the bottom!
Thursday was a day of evolving plans - plan A was shelved in favour of a rescue mission to find a hat that Chris had left en route yesterday, and with sunny skies and low winds we set off with the idea of skiing the South East face of a peak we had spotted yesterday, which would give us a great run on smooth spring snow... that was the theory until, having found Chris's hat, the wind suddenly picked up as we made our way along the final summit ridge and put paid to any further softening of the snow. Still a nice run down on firm but grippy snow:
Skinning back up we had to brace every few steps as the wind had really picked up!
Once back on the summit ridge we dropped into the relative shelter of the West face and found surprisingly good snow:
Back down in the valley we put skins on again for the climb back up to Kistafjall:
Dropping into the North West face the snow was quite wind-affected for 200m then gave way to a monster pitch of perfect soft snow:
Our final day was forecast to be even windier, so we opted for a quick morning tour followed by a drive round to a geothermally heated 'infinity pool' with stunning views over the next peninsula. All topped off with agreat meal and local beers - not a bad way to end the trip!
Massive thanks to Chris, Rich, Sandy and Dave for a great week - lets see what plans we can come up with for 2019!!
...edit... I had to fly straight out of Akureyri to make my connecting flight to Europe, meanwhile, the team drove back to Reykjavik and took in a natural hot spring along the way - looks awesome! :
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