Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Skånland and Lavangen

I've been pretty lax with updating the blog over this winter, it's not for a lack of skiing and time spent in the mountains and not having any material. If anything the opposite is true, I've been more focussed on spending time in the mountains than posting photos. Anyway, here are a few photos from the past two weeks.

Firstly a weekend spent skiing around Skånland, with descents from Skorvetind, Niingen, Skittendalstind, Litletind and Stortind and two nights at Blåvatnshytta.

Jenny enroute to Skorvetind, the line we ended up skiing is a couloir which breaks up the cliff band pictured.

Summit pose. Photo by Jenny

alternate summit pose. Photo by Jenny

Jenny demonstrating more summit pose, we weren't in much of a rush.

Skiing some breakable crust in a new line which we called "Skorperenna". Photo by Jenny

Jenny in Skorperenna.

B/W Skorperenna. Photo by Jenny

Skiing down to the fjord from Skorvetind.
We skinned in to Blåvatnshytta in the dark from Bogen, over Niingsvatnet. It took about 3 hours. I don't recommend this route, atleast not travelling it for the first time in the dark while it's snowing. The route crosses a regulated dam and the cracks in the ice were kind of terrifying. The whole time I was on the lake I was imagining a scenario where I broke through the ice and the water level was 50cm below the actual ice, which would make it really tricky to climb out.

Our day based at Blåvatnshytta was defined by whiteout conditions. We had a lazy morning drinking coffee. Skiied Niingen in what we, mistakenly, thought was a break in the weather. Had lunch in the cabin, then skiied Skittendalstind in a true whiteout (aside from the upper 100 metres when we broke above the clouds). Then we tested out the sauna. The sauna got an A+ grade.

This icefall provided just about our only reference point on the descent from Skittendalstind.
The next day dawned bluebird and we had some nice skiing on Litletind and Stortind (with a descent direct to Bogen) before driving back to Narvik for work.

Blåvatnshytta, another great DNT cabin to use as a base for ski touring. Photo by Jenny

Skinning some windboard enroute to Stortind. Photo by Jenny

Jenny about to ski into the fjord on the descent from Stortind.

Secondly, some photos from a day trip in Lavangen. We parked the car at Årstein and skied Lavangstind, Tverfjellet and Årsteinshorn. Terrific snow, sun, calm wind conditions, interesting ski terrain and good company- a pretty decent day all things considered.


A scenic skintrack up from Årstein. Photo by Jenny

Practicing for the "Powder-8". Photo by Jenny
Jenny Skiing Tverfjellet.

Jenny skiing fro Årsteinshorn.

The last ski run of the day, from Årsteinshorn. Photo by Jenny