Lofoten 2014 - part 1

By cod its good...!

Last year I spent an amazing 2 weeks in the Lofoten Islands in Arctic Norway. Round 2 was swiftly arranged (for even longer!), but then doubts set in. In 2013 Lofoten had experienced the snowiest March in 25 years, 2014 was shaping up to be the least snowy winter in 25 years - had I made the mistake of going back to a place we had skied in exceptional conditions?

Of course not:

Photo ©Nick Mason/Summit Photographs

Despite some areas having almost no snow, we managed to ski from and to the car every day for the first 9 days - not bad considering the lack of snow this winter. For comparison purposes check out the photos looking up Presten couloir this year and skiing to the waters edge in the same spot last year...:

So with this in mind I am now even more impressed with Lofoten - a poor (really poor) snow year and we still managed to have amazing skiing!

A selection of photos:

Day 1 - Half of the team were held up by a cancelled flight out of Heathrow, so Ian, Jim and I had a short morning leg stretcher, finding some heavy powder to lay down some tracks in:

In the afternoon, with the team now complete and settled into our accommodation we all headed into Trolldalen for a cheeky little couloir:

Day 2 and with a good forecast we made tracks over to Geitgaljern. A wind-loaded bowl stopped us heading right to the top, but we had a good run down the West face, followed by an incredible powder run in the South gully!

Joining the team today was Kristin Folsland Olsen, a local journalist/photographer/explorer who we had helped rescue almost exactly a year ago to the day only a few kilometres from Geitgaljern when we came across her lying with a broken pelvis on a stormy day... (for more details see here...) It was great to see Kristin back up and ripping again!:

Day 3, and the forecast was decidedly Lofoten-esque so we stayed on one of the local bad weather spots, with a couple of laps for the keen team:

Variable visibility, but nice soft powder in the gullies, and great views over Svolvaer in the clear spells.

The evening saw Nick once again celebrating his birthday in style above the Arctic circle with a fine cake courtesy of Matteo at the Climbing Café:

More to follow...

Lofoten - Ristinden South gully

A slightly early return from Lofoten due to 4 days of foul weather forecast for the end of my trip means I can now start to post some updates from the last 3 weeks. In slightly illogical fashion I am going to start with the last day first...

Last year I had spotted some lines on Ristinden, an 850m high peak near Leknes, but ran out of time to go exploring. This year skiing something on this peak was high on my list of priorities as there is basically no information about prior descents, so although the obvious lines have undoubtedly been skied before, there is a real sense of adventure heading off in to 'uncharted' territory.

Ristinden is a stunning peak, with no 'easy way up':

There appear to be 4 good independent steep lines on this peak, the one I was most drawn to this year was the South gully, a direct line from below the summit, with a small ramp leading in from the West shoulder - more obvious from the Leknes area (left-slanting gully line directly below summit...):

Although we had to start the day on foot, soon we were straight into crampons and axe territory to figure out a passage through the lower rock bands guarding the bottom of the face. Guy & Jon on bootpack duties:

A bit of slightly blind weaving took us onto more open slopes, then up into the entrance to the gully:

Once in the gully we started to come under fire from above - a combination of wind and sun sending a lot of debris down from the iced-up rocks that cap the gully. With several larger sluffs also coming down a quick re-think was forced - we found some shelter under an overhanging rock at about 770m and after some debating decided that it was probably a good idea to head down rather than continue on into the bombardment with no obvious shelter ahead and an uncertain exit along (what we hoped was) the ramp below the summit.

A shame not to top out the gully, but we still had a great ski - Guy in action:

Oli:

Out of the gully, still steep, and exposed above small bluffs , but a bit more relaxed out of the firing line!:

With a bit of ingenuity, and some unleashing of the snow radar we managed to ski back to 150m above sea level, leaving a pleasant 20 min wander back down to the car...

All in all a great day out, hindsight says we should have continued on, but better to have the option to go back another time to finish it off...

Lofoten update part 2

Due to technical issues posting to blogger is proving slightly problematic.

If you want to keep up to date with the current adventures in Lofoten then have a look at the offpisteskiing facebook page: www.facebook.com/offpisteskiing

Needless to say, Lofoten has not disappointed!

Lofoten update

A few pictures from the first 2 days of this year's Lofoten adventures:

Lofoten-bound

All quiet on the ski front this last week as I have had my 'other' hat on, doing some work for climbing equipment and headtorch manufacturer Petzl.

This afternoon I am off to Lofoten for a return visit following last year's amazing 2 weeks. Sadly the snow doesn't look to be quite as good as last year (always the danger of going back to somewhere after a fantastic snow experience...), but from what my local sources are telling me there is still plenty of skiing to be done! If not then we may have to revert to cod-fishing and northern lights spotting (anything to keep away from the very expensive beer!).

In the bag are my Dynafit Mercurys, which I am still very impressed with (despite quite a bit of boot work to create enough forefoot space), along with the Whitedot Skis Ranger Carbonlites which are really proving themselves. During the Steep Vanoise week we did quite a bit of skinning on firm snow without ski crampons (some of the clients had forgotten theirs so I also didn't use them so as to judge how feasible the skinning was) - the torsional stiffness of the Rangers makes for very comfortable skinning on steep firm snow, as you really get a feel of good edge grip and a solid platform under the foot. On the downhill they still feel great and were performing well in heavy 'old' powder, on spring snow and on some quite rough wind-affected surfaces...

Here's hoping we find some more of this to test them out on:

Steep Vanoise 2014 last day

For the last day of this year's Steep Vanoise course it was time for a proper adventure.

The North couloir of the Grand Perron des Encombres has been on my list of things to do for a while, but lack of time, or a suitably fit, competent and motivated team, plus the need for a car shuttle to make life easy, have stopped me getting in there until now...

The Grand Perron seen from La Masse. The North couloir is just visible right of summit, disappearing behind the rocky ridge:

An icy ski down the Vanoise/Maurienne watershed ridge and a bit of traversing took us to the Col des Encombres, where we put skins on for the climb:

The Maurienne valley gradually comes into view:

An airy scramble to the summit:

Amanda, Vadim and Rod on the Grand Perron summit:

Looking down the North couloir from the summit:

Vadim finding powder high in the couloir:

Rod:

Amanda:

Team looking moody:

Looking back at the Grand Perron - the dogleg couloir obvious below the summit

A big thank you to Amanda, Rod and Vadim for being a great team - see you next year!

Steep Vanoise 2014 - St Foy

On Thursday we made the (almost mandatory) trip to St Foy for day 4 of this year's Steep Vanoise week. As always, it delivered big style!

A short skin up to the Fogliettaz summit and we dropped in to the North face, and found some good cold soft snow (some might call it powder..!) - even 2 1/2 weeks after the last snowfall!

With such good snow to be skied (all things considered) we hung a hard right traverse below the top face and put skins on again to head up to the Col D'Argentiere and on to the top of Couloir Doudou.

Doudou looked rather unappealing so we headed back to the Col D'Argentiere, where I had spied a totally unskied shoulder line of good looking snow as we skinned up. Good choice as it turned out:

A late lunch in the sun below the Archeboc refuge, and we headed off down a nicely softened 'icy path of doom' and back to the car for a well-earned refreshment at the Monal...