Packing for NZ and some season stats

The past few weeks have been incredibly warm here in Narvik, the snow changed seemingly overnight from wind packed with pockets of powder to isothermic porridge. With no overnight freezing we kind of missed out on the corn season which is usually so stunning up here. No complaints though, it's been nice to have a brief taste of shorts weather before I head down to New Zealand and another winter. And the running trails have melted out early, so I've been out trail running a bunch- definitely one of the things I'm going to miss about Narvik in the summertime...

Packing today was a tad tricky, rationalizing the reasons why I need a selection gear for the mountains more than other things like clothes. Luckily my ski gear is mostly on the light side so I'm able to squeeze a little more of it in. In the end I decided to schlepp along all this stuff:

I'll be bringing as many pairs of skis to NZ as I will shirts...

I was looking through my training log for the past winter and compiled a few statistics.

• Total amount of vert I climbed: 107 000 metres (December through February I was getting 25-30000 per month, but with so much work in March and April I dropped down to less that 10 000 metres just when the touring was at its best...)
• This makes for a weekly average of about 4500 metres from early December to early May.
• Total summits: 101 (of which about 50 were laps on Linken, and another dozen were Tredjetoppen)

Partisan GT video

This little video was mostly recorded with a the shitty, little, cheap camera I bought years ago. In addition I was more concerned with having a good time skiing than with getting good camera angles or even holding the camera steady...

On the plus side the song which plays in the background is stellar.
 
Partisan GT from Kaj Sønnichsen on Vimeo.

Partisan GT

 After years of speculating about a ski tour which started in Narvik and finished over the border in the Swedish ski resort of Riksgränsen, yesterday Micke and I finally set out to give it a shot.

We met at 7am and skinned up the frozen pistes at Narvikfjellet, on the way up to Tredjetoppen we were joined by Einar and Trond who were out for an early morning lap. Afer saying goodbye to them at the summit cairn we took off down the wind buffed snow around the cliffs at 1000 metres. From here a short skin brought us up to the pass before Moskočohkka (Jøden) and the first real ski descent of the day down to Forsnesvatn. After some consideration we had decided not to follow the typical ridge traverse over to Beisfjordtøtta, opting instead to get some more vertical into the day and save time which all the ropework on the ridge would require. On the descent to Forsnesvatn we found conditions were surprisingly good with some pockets of soft wind drifted snow up high and corn down low.

Terrific late season pow down to Forsnesvatn

From the lake we skinned up to the ridge again, having neatly bypassed the multiple rappels on Moskočohkka and had some great skiing in the process. We continued skinning up the ridge until a few steeper passages on wind hammered snow made us swap over to bootpacking to the summit of Beisfjordtøtta.

After a quick sandwich we made some steep turns down to the couloir which leads to Isvatnet- the skiing was tremendous and with expansive views all the way over to the Swedish peaks the stoke level for our project was through the roof.

Micke about to descned into some swirling mist just below Beisfjordtøtta

Looking back at the Isvatn couloir on Beisfjordtøtta.

From here we had a relatively flat stretch of transport skating to get across the valley towards Blåisen, thankfully a nice firm suncrust made for fast conditions. After a quick stop to change into some dry socks we skinned up the mellow west ridge of Blåisen.

Looking back towards Narvik from Blåisen's summit plateau.

 Another local classic ski descent lay in store next: Timeglasset (or the "Hourglass"), and a short skin to get us onto a NE'erly aspect and our descent to Sildvikvannet.

Micke ripping timeglasset only 2.5 hours after doing the same with Beisfjordtøtta on the horizon

Amazingly, with the time approaching 2pm the snow was still supportable and fast for our skin up Sildviktind. We opted to not visit the summit because doing so would only have meant backtracking down the ridge again, and in our eyes this summit was superfluous to the traverse.

The line we skied from point 1175m on Sildviktind turned out to be one of the big surprises of the outing in terms of decent skiing. I'd never really examined this face before and was delighted to find sustained skiing in the low 40's.

Our ski line down from point 1175m on Sildviktind

Some more skating and mellow corn cruising brought us over to the base of Hunddalen, the snow was getting rotten in places, but it was easy to find a snowbridge to cross the creek before starting our final ascent up to Nordalsfjellet.

After topping out on Nordalsfjell we skied Branten to get to the ski resort boundaries and finished the day with more frozen grommers down to the base of the resort where we enjoyed a beer before hopping on the train back to Narvik.

A few rough stats and splits from our trip:

Vertical: 4600 metres

Distance: 40-45 kilometres

Tredjetoppen: 1:30
Beisfjordtøtta: 3:30
Blåisen: 6:00
Point 1175m on Sildviktind: 7:20
Nordalsfjell: 9:00
Riksgränsen: 9:30