Saturday, April 30, 2016

Lyngen for the weekend

Last weekend was Skittentind Rando; the last skimo race of the North Norwegian season. Whilst the race went kind of pear shaped for me (a crash on the first descent resulting in a broken pole handle) the weekend in Lyngen that followed was excellent.

Jenny and I drove over to Lakselvbukt on the SW side of the peninsula and camped for two nights and spent two great days exploring the dense mountains that this corner of Lyngen is famed for. On Sunday we took it pretty easy, an extended breakfast with kokekaffe was followed by an outing on Store Lakselvtind. Lyngen is a pretty popular destination for ski touring, and it was the weekend, but it was none the less it was pretty astounding to come across 15 other people in 3 groups on the skin up to Tomasrenna. Some of the folks had also been at Skittentind the day before and it was nice to chat briefly before we continued up to den Himmelske Freds Plass (the Square of Heavenly Peace), a small glacial plateau surround by steep granite peaks and pretty couloirs

Posing at the top of Tomasrenna. Photo by Jenny

 From here we could see our main objective for the day, the south facing couloir on Store Lakselvtind. From below it looked like the chockstone crux in the middle was pretty well filled in and we'd be able to skirt around it on skis. On the climb up however we discovered that the choke was actually pretty narrow (about 1 metre) and icy, so once we topped out, we opted to down climb the upper section of the couoir, to avoid having to transition from crampons to skis to crampons to skis all in the space of 100m, which we figured was only going to eat up a lot of time, and with the other parties no doubt waiting for us at the base of the coulouir it seemed more expedient.

Down climbing the upper section of the couloir on Store Lakselvtind. Photo by Jenny

What the couloir lacked in quality snow was more than compensated for by the stunning views. From the glacier we skied back down Tomasrenna, and before long were back in the campsite sipping Jaloviina (me) and working on the next days avalanche bulletin for Abisko on a mobile office (Jenny).

Jenny exiting Store Lakselvtind couoir

Efficiency- defrosting the gas canister and cooking dinner simultaneously.

On Monday morning we got up early to ski the famed Jiehkkevarri Traverse before driving home. This route which traverses over a few peaks including the highest in Troms covers 27km and 2600 metres of vert and is widely regarded as the greatest ski tour in all of Norway. Expectations were high.

The skin up to Holmbuktind was uneventful aside from the dramatic views once we crested the ridge. The terrain in this zone is so different from that typical of northern Norway, with hanging glaciers, seracs, monster cornices and so on lending it a wonderfully alpine feel. 

Skinning up to Holmbukttind

The final ridge up Holmbukttind has some nice views over the next section of the traverse.

We reached Holmbuktind after about 2:40, ripped our skins and tentatively skied down to the main glacier. On advice from a local buddy, we'd opted to do the route sans rope. Being up on the glacier without any of the mandatory gear felt kind of foolhardy at the time, as wind drifted snow was covering tracks for some sections of the route. We saw a few irregularities in the snow indicating crevasses which were both obvious and easily avoided. In hindsight it feels fine to have done the route without a rope, but later in the season (mid May onwards..?) I'd definitely bring one.


About to ski from Holmbukttind down to the glacier. Jiehkkevarri centre background.

It's hard to appreciate the size of the cornice on the right side of the picture, but it is massive, about 20 metres high. Photo by Jenny
It was blowing pretty hard up on the glacier and the wind chill meant we were soon wearing all our layers.

Skinning the final flat stretch to the summit. Photo by Jenny
From the summit of Jiehkkevarri we skied down to the saddle in the direction of Kveita, this descent is ridiculously foreshortened when viewed from above. If it weren't for knowing the route from the map we might've just kept our skins on for what looks like a relatively short and unimpressive ski run from above. It is actually much longer than it looks, and when viewed from the other side of the saddle, very picturesque, with a hanging glacier on one side and cliff bands on the other.

Jenny skiing from Jiehkkevarri towards Kveita.

Skiing from Jiehkkevarri towards Kveita. Photo by Jenny

Looking back towards Jiehkkevarri on the skin up to Kveita, our ski tracks visible in the background.
From Kveita a short ski descent, and then some more rolling terrain brought us to point 1666. We ripped our skins again and skied the northern gully down to Fugldalsbreen. Finally out of the wind and able to peal some layers off we enjoyed a quick lunch and then made out way over to the pass for the final ski down Fornesbreen.

Jenny skiing the upper section of the northern gully which leads down to the Fugldalsbreen. The upper section skied beautifully before giving way to dust on debris and old tracks in the steeper section.

The pass itself features an amazing wind lip, like a tsunami of snow rising up 20 metres in a giant arc. Skiing into it felt like being on some massive wave

The tsunami like wind lip near Fugldalsskaret.
The final stretch along the Fornesbreen was mostly flat and aside from a few steeper pitches which skied nicely. The snow conditions were thankfully pretty good and we were able to skate out on the flat sections and didn't have to take our skis off until we reached the quarry at 50 masl.

The only steepish pitch on the final descent, just after terminus of Fornesbreen. Photo by Jenny

Reaching the quarry at the end of the tour.

Jenny finishes up the day with a ski boot stroll along the edge of the fjord.

We hadn't bothered to plan our transport at the end of the tour very much (it's about 30km on the road back to where we'd parked the car), figuring we'd hitchhike or in the worst case ask some local if we could borrow a bicycle from them to get the car. As it turned out we got lucky, after only 3km of walking, a van came along and gave us a terrifying ride back to the car.

We spent 6:10 from road to road.

For anyone wanting more details of the travserse (or any other route in Troms for that matter), an excellent resource is here

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Dudalstind/ Nonstind and GNARbars

Had a quality outing yesterday in Gratangen with Bjarte, Einar and Jan Eirik. We linked up Dudalstind and Nonstind, found some quality snow as well as some ice and boiler plate, and ended up skiing a new line which I've been eyeing for years. Here's a few photos from the day and at the bottom of the post is a recipe for the energy bars which have been powering me on all my days this winter. 

Core members of the Narvik Toothpick Mafia topping out on Dudalstind

Bjarte skiing from the summit with Jan Eirik supervising.

Bjarte enjoying some cold snow on a warm day. Photo: Jan Eirik
Me on the first turn from the summit. Photo Jan Eirik

Photo: Jan Eirik

Gang ski

Skinning up from Botnsletta enroute to Nonstind, Dudalstind in the background.

The ridge on Nonstind is as scenic as it is simple.

Einar sprinted ahead so he could make a detour and sit on the false summit whilst he ate a sandwich.

A short bootpack up the summit pitch on Nonstind. Photo Jan Eirik

Bjarte about to top out.

Bjarte about to drop in. Photo Jan Eirik

Einar on his first turn from the summit of Nonstind.
We skied the SE face of Nonstind (the one which is clearly visible from the E6), it is super convex and you can't really see what you're skiing until you are in the crux of it. The key is to not ski too far left (it cliffs out), but if you stick to one of the central gully features it doesn't get any steeper than about 45 degrees (not measured).


GNARbars:
I've been getting a lot of requests for the recipe recently and thought I might as well share it here.

Getting quality energy bars in Norway is difficult and really expensive. I've been working on a simple recipe for years, modifying the ingredients and tweaking the way I make it. For years I was doing bars which required baking, but these always fell apart and crumbled after a few hours in a backpack, or were difficult to eat on the go. Inspired by these and this type of thing I'm now settled on a basic recipe which is a) easy and quick to make; b) nutritious; c) long lasting and durable enough that it doesn't get smashed up after hours in a backpack; d) edible regardless of the temperature (even when semi-frozen on mid winter tours); e) tasty!

They are easily modified according to taste and preference. Obviously they contain quite a bit of sugar from the dates, but they're energy bars- that's the point! If you want some more complex carbs add more oats, if you want more proteins and fats for fuelling longer days add more nuts, my favourite combination is the one listed below. But another popular recipe is substituting the cocoa, chocolate and chilli for dried apple, raisins and cinnamon ("apple-pie") or dried banana. You can even add ground coffee for a caffeine kick (but be warned of the laxative effect of eating a bunch of ground coffee whilst moving around in the mountains). Ginger works really good in them too. And desiccated coconut is a nice addition also.

GNARbar ChChCh (ie. chocolate/chia/chilli)
300g pitted dates
80g almonds (or other nuts, but peanuts don't work so well in my opinion)
50g chia seeds
50g oats
5g sea salt
(additional extras):
30g cocoa
80g dark chocolate (crushed into small pieces)
5g chilli


  • Throw the nuts and oats in a food processor and blend until they're coarsely chopped. It's okay if the mix is slightly chunky- it makes for a bit more texture.
  • Add all the other ingredients to the food processor and mix for a minute or two until everything is mixed well and the dates are totally puréed.
  • Scoop everything into a freezer bag and use a rolling pin to press the mixture into a rectangle about 2cm thick and 20cmx20cm long. Put it in the freezer overnight to set.
  • The next day slice it into bar size pieces and wrap in cellophane.


Tuesday, April 5, 2016

NarvikRando- a track setters perspective #2

The second NarvikRando skimo race went down this past weekend, and was a vast improvement on last years event. Participant numbers were down a little from 55 last year (combined "competition" and "non-competitive" classes) to 39 this year. However the course was much better, the weather was A+ and everyone I spoke with after the race seems pretty stoked.

With the lessons learnt from last year's race, my role as "løypesjef" (ie. track-setter) was both a bigger job but also much more organised. We bought 500 new marking flags, and borrowed another 700 from Skittentind, meaning we had 4x more than last year, aside from a bunch of yellow bootpack flags, we pretty much used them all!

The snow conditions were challenging, with close to two weeks since the last snowfall, and a few days of gale force winds followed by mild temps and then a complete refreeze the surface conditions were icy in some places and windpacked in others. Mild temps early in the week allowed us to set some of the skintracks on the lower mountain. Things stayed firm on the upper mountain though and we ended up having to actually level the skintrack with shovels on some key sections of the course.

I ended up clocking 9000+ metres in the days leading up to the race, marking the course and setting the track. It was really fun and satisfying seeing it take shape from day to day, but also kind of tiring. I had hopes of taking place, but on the morning of the race while out on one last reconnaissance, I realised that I was more interested in being proud of a decent course than I was in competing myself.

A big shout out to Micke, Andreas, Trond, Jan Eirik, Marte, Trond, Einar and Jon for help with setting the track and course markers as well as all the other work behind the event!

The result list is here: https://www.webscorer.com/narvik_rando

And here are some articles in norwegian published about the race:
Fri Flyt- Spekest i Narvik

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Micke

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Rune Dahl

Photo: Micke

Photo: Micke






The course for the competition class

Course profile for the competition class