Feb 4 - 9

This past week has been an exceptional one for me in terms of getting a whole bunch of ski touring in despite the usual hours at work. For the sake of mixing things up I thought I'd post all the tours in a list, Krupicka style.

Monday, 2700 metres of vert.  5 hours
Skinned up to Linken and enjoyed some low density pow down the backside to the little power station. Skinned up another lap, by which point the sun was shining and I couldn't resist skiing a south facing run beside Øra down to the treeline (first time I've had sunshine on my face since November!). Then another lap down the backside. After a brief break at the bottom of the hill to wax my skins which were glopping a little, I met up with Jan Eirik by chance and we skinned up to Tredje Toppen together. Strengthening winds made us sceptical about snow stability and we decided to play things safe by skiing the ridge between Mørkholla and the Tredjetoppen bowl. Our cautious route was evidently a wise move, as a bit of jumping up and down near a convexity at the top released a 20 metre wide soft slab about 30 cm deep in new drifted snow.
The skiing was exceptional!

Tuesday 3000 metres of vert. 5 hours
Feeling surprisingly fresh after yesterdays outing I decided to farm some more powder which is rarely so good up here in the north. I skied five laps from Linken down the backside to the power station. Managed to lose a drink bottle and a beanie from the crampon pocket on my Camp rando pack... Anyone seen 'em?
Windy day but still wildly good skiing!

Wednesday 1350 metres of vert. 2.5 hours
Met Jan Eirik and skinned up to the plateau between Andre and Tredjetoppen,  then enjoyed some powder in one of the middle of the "Fem Fingre" in the sun down to the treeline before skinning back up to the ridge and dropping in on the backside. With all the wind over the previous two days the conditions on northern aspects had taken a turn for the worse, with widespread breakable crust above tree line.

Friday, 1000 metres of vert. 1 hour
Did some hill repeats/ intervals: six laps of the lower slope at Narvikfjellet.
First time I've done intervals with my new race weight setup, and I'm stoked at how much of a difference a few hundred grams per foot makes!

Total vert: 8050 metres            Total time: 13.5 hours
A great week with a decent amount of vertical (for me), and my legs are feeling good. Living in a place which allows such great accessibility  to be able to skin 8050 metres of vertical without even getting in a car, is a luxury. That said I'm looking forward to getting further a field and onto some new mountains in the coming week.

Below are a couple photos from Wednesday's outing down one of the Fem Fingre.