tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16566000195335887812024-03-13T08:59:27.098-07:00Bootpacks and Skintracksadventure journal and travel notes from Kaj SønnichsenKajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-23652255505978385372017-09-03T09:11:00.002-07:002017-09-07T01:27:23.779-07:00Peak Lenin: part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
If you haven't read "<a href="http://kajsonnichsen.blogspot.no/2017/08/peak-lenin-part-1.html" target="_blank">part 1</a>" yet I recommend doing so first.</div>
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The route between ABC and Camp 2 (C2) is glaciated and features the biggest objective hazards of the route (excluding the altitude itself), with numerous crevasses and also some overhead hazard from avalanche paths on the north face. I was happy to be able to tie into the same rope as Stephan and Rafael in order to get up there a bit more safely. We set out around 4am in order to get off the route before the heat of the day caused snow bridges to start weakening and the avy hazard to start increasing.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raphael and Stephan cruising over the glacier towards C2. <br />
They would sporadically break in to singing traditional Austrian climbing songs mid stride- a custom I'm planning on emulating in the future.</td></tr>
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The route itself was technically straight forward, the steepest slope being in the mid/ high 30s. And the few sections which were heavily crevassed featured fixed ropes, but there weren't many people actually clipping in to them. The crux of the route of was crossing a 3 metre snowbridge which spanned a crevasse and required a small mantle move made somewhat awkward by the heavy pack. We made slow but steady progress, stopping once an hour for a drink break and to take photos. By a little past 9am we were in C2 and set about getting tents pitched.</div>
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I was happily surprised to find that the campsite had a source of running water, meaning that we were saved the hassle of melting snow.</div>
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After digging and chipping out a small platform for the tent I settled in for a day of rest, utterly unaware the I was in for the most uncomfortable tent bound experience I've ever had in my life, for a reason which was completely unexpected at an altitude of 5400metres: the heat! By around 11am the sun was blazing down and it felt like the surrounding slopes were refracting all the energy directly onto the camp site. There wasn't a breath of wind, and the tents turned into little pressure cookers: I measured 47 degrees celsius (117 farenheit) in my tent, whilst another guy whose tent was at a lower site measured 52 celsius. Outside wasn't much better in terms of temperature and it had the significant drawback of serious sunburn being unavoidable if you weren't properly covered up. The end result was me lying prostrate on cool floor of my tent in my boxer shorts and periodically cooling myself down with handfuls of snow. Not exactly what I'd been expecting.</div>
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Once the sun dipped behind the ridge around 5pm the mercury plummeted, meaning that I went from lounging around in a state of mild heat stroke to happily wrapped in a sleeping bag rated to -20 in the space of one hour.</div>
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The following day I joined Rafael and Rob on an acclimatisation effort up to C3 and Peak Razdelnaya at 6148m. In the process improving on my five year old max altitude record. To be perfectly honest I was feeling pretty terrible above 6K; dizzy spells, heavy breathing even at rest and a level of effort which I'd usually associate with an ascent rate of 1200m/ hour, not the 200m/hour which I was actually covering. More disconcerting however was the bizarre mental state I found myself in, which could best be describe as a sort of dissociation from myself: a strange sense of derealization complete with mild dolly zoom effects. I was present enough to understand that it would be wise to clip into the skis and start descending pronto, and once I'd dropped a few hundred metres the symptoms were gone.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Modelling my improvised nose guard at around 6050m, near Camp 3. Photo by Georgio.</td></tr>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzHqi8BOVc4pC3jgLBM5cWPcuYPKgR6Gfwrc4lXVnmg4Ycyd0hFkwGX5AonaaobvR9VQL-IV7lazSOwPWCfqQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
A little video captured by Ernst.</div>
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The following day I went back up to C3 solo. The ascent only took 2.5 hours this time and I was feeling a lot better so opted to hang out and spend 3-4 hours at that altitude in order to squeeze a bit more acclimatisation out of the day. Whilst I was sitting around I met a fellow from Almaty in Kazakhstan who was going for a ski descent of the north face the following day. Sitting in his tent he showed me photos from some of the skiing he has access to close to his home town- and I found myself with another location on my list of future ski trips. He made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVhzLOWoR8c" target="_blank">this video</a> which does a pretty good job in summarising the trip and ski conditions (and features a quality soundtrack).</div>
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Spent another night at C2 and the next morning left a bunch of gear (gas, food, warm/high altitude clothes) in my tent before skiing back down to ABC for a rest day. (I had two tents on the mountain; one which was more spacious and comfortable albeit heavy for BC/ABC, and one smaller/lighter high altitude tent for the upper mountain).</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing back down the glacier to ABC</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">I opted to descend the glacier on skis rather than being roped up. It went smoothly and actually offered some enjoyable firn snow. I was a little apprehensive about negotiating the crux solo, and was mildly alarmed to discover that the snow bridge which we had crossed three days prior had collapsed completely, leaving a 3 metre wide chasm that I couldn't see the bottom of.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We had crossed this crevasse on a snowbridge just a few days prior.</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Halfway down the route I turned to a stop near a climber who was sitting on his pack. He asked for my help and I sidled over to see what the situation was. He explained that he was part of a guided group who was ascending to C2, but he had started showing symptoms of a pulmonary edema and had wisely opted to descend back to ABC. There was another client from the same group with him helping him down, but the guide was no where to be seen. He was was still able to move under his own power, but needed to rest often, and wanted me to alert the company who was organising his trip down at ABC. I got his details, watched as he gave himself a dex injection and continued the descent, trying to find a good balance between moving fast and not making any stupid mistakes as I contoured between the crevasses. Once I arrived at his ABC I found the guy in charge of radio communications with their guides and it became obvious that the guide himself was utterly clueless as to the situation which had unfolded. There conversation went something like this:</span></div>
ABC: What is your location?<br />
Guide: I'm nearly at Camp 2.<br />
ABC: Do you have a client with AMS who is descending?<br />
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Guide: I don't know, some of the group were slow, so we left them to continue the ascent on their own.</div>
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Wildly lax approach that some of the local outfits seemed to have...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rest day activities at ABC</td></tr>
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By this stage, after a little over two weeks on the mountain ABC was a beacon of comfort: the relatively rich air, the smooth gravel the tents are pitched on and the luxury of a pit toilet- all of it felt like a fancy hotel after being higher on the mountain. After a 1.5 days of rest down at ABC it was time to head up high again for a summit push. According to the vague weather reports there was going to be a high pressure system moving in in a few days time, and it seemed that this would time perfectly with a summit day. There were also a bunch of other climbers from ABC who I'd gotten to know over the previous weeks who were on the same schedule, and it appeared that around 7 others would also be making a summit attempt on the same day.</div>
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The climb back up to C2 was much easier than the last time, owing to a lighter pack and being better acclimated. The glacier was obviously melting rapidly though, with numerous crevasses having opened up in the previous two days. The rest of the day at C2 was uneventful save for a mishap at the lower area of the camp where a German guide punched through some rotten snow, fell 6 metres down a crevasse and had to be evacuated down to ABC from where he got a heli-evac the following day after apparently suffering a few spine fractures.</div>
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The next morning it was simply a matter of repeating the climb to C3 and spending the remainder of the day hanging out with Stephan and Raphael: melting snow and drinking tea. I went to bed around 6pm, listening to music on my mp3 player and anticipating the day to come.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Camp 3 and the summit of Lenin looming in the distance</td></tr>
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My alarm sounded at 2am and I didn't waste any time re-boiling 3 litres of water (which I had kept warm in my sleeping bag overnight) and drinking some Nesquick for breakfast before crawling out of my sleeping bag and into the night. I could see lights on in the other tents and hear folks getting organised for the climb, but rather than wait around I clicked in to my skis and started out a little before 3am.</div>
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The route started with a 100 metre descent down to a col, the snow conditions left a bit to be desired, and with the limited light from my headlamp I was careful and skied tentatively. Down at the col I put crampons on and strapped the skis to my pack. The wind was stiff and the temps cold enough that I climbed up in both my synthetic jackets. The first 400-500 metres of climbing followed a windswept ridge, in some places snow whilst in other places scree, at an incline in the upper 20s/ lower 30s. I passed two climbers in this section and continued up, finally reaching (the rarely used) Camp 4. The next section of the route was rather flat and proved a welcome relief to my oxygen starved lungs. As I continued plodding slowly onward I was witness to a spectacular sunrise. Cruising along alone at an altitude of 6500m and having these incredible views open up was pretty special.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunrise from 6500metres.</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The "crux" of the summit day is a section called "the knife" which is basically just a broad fin of snow about 45 degrees and 50 vertical metres with a fixed rope on it. If you've got an axe and know how to use it (and don't feel too wobbly from the altitude) you don't really need to use the rope, but I still clipped my tibloc on to it for a bit of extra security as I booted up. I was feeling a bit wrecked from the altitude (but making steady progress) and decided that with the reports I'd read about the upper most section of the regular route rarely being skiable due to lack of snow cover I stashed my skis below the knife- figuring that there was no need to waste my energy carrying skis up to the summit if I wasn't going to be able to use them on the descent</span></div>
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The final stretch to the summit isn't really visible from below and is quite meandering. But the snow conditions turned out to be decent enough that skiing would indeed have been possible for at least 70% of the route. Oh well... At this stage I didn't really give a fuck, I just wanted to tag the summit and get back down to an elevation where I could breathe some thicker air.</div>
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My pace slowed considerably and I fell in to the habit of walking for 10-50 metres and then stopping for a quick break. The entire time I was focused on proper breathing technique, forcefully pushing all the air out of my lungs in order to maximise my oxygen uptake, but even this was proving inadequate on the final 200 metres. The convexity and irregularities of the upper part of the route meant that I only got a view of the summit when it was 15 metres away. I sat down next to the bust of Lenin's head a little past 9am, having spent about 6 hours on the ascent from C3. I spent about 15 minutes on the summit, took a few photos and headed down.</div>
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On the way I passed Paul, Georgio, Troels, Raphael, Stephan and Kyle, stoked that they were all guaranteed to make the summit themselves. After what felt like a very long time I was back at C3, feeling pretty terrible, and contemplating heading down to C2 and some thicker air. I decided to drink some water and rest in the tent and wait for the others to return however. And after dozing in my tent for an hour I suddenly felt like myself again, and the prospect of the heat down in C2 was very unappealing. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raphael and Stephan about half an hour from the summit</td></tr>
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The following morning I woke at 6.30am, packed up camp and skied down to C2 where I met Raphael and Stephan who had hiked down a little earlier. I'd already decided to descend the glacier on a rope due to its rapidly melting state and was happy to be able to tie in to theirs again. At ABC I packed up the other tent and a bunch of extra gear I had stashed down there. I had been hoping to pay one of the dudes with a horse some money to carry some of my gear the 12 km back to BC, but sadly they had already headed down. So I drank a litre of coke, ate some walnuts, stuffed some nasvai under my lip and got some help lifting the monster 34kg load onto my back for the walk back down. By 2.30pm I reached BC and organised a car for the drive back to Osh for later that afternoon. At BC I jumped on some scales and discovered that I had lost 7kg over the 18 days I spent on the mountain. By 10pm that night we were back in Osh, pretty wild to have woken at 6100m and gone to sleep at 900m.</div>
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It felt pretty marvellous to get back to civilisation. And I spent the next week hanging out with Stephan and Raphael in Osh and travelling up to Bishkek in a shared taxi with them. We ate a lot(!) of food and got some really cool shirts at the Osh Bazaar.</div>
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Thanks to Bjarte for the camaraderie on the lower parts of the mountain and to Raphael & Stephan for the same on the upper parts, as well as all the other cool people I met for helping make the trip such a memorable climb/ski.<br />
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Also t<span style="font-family: inherit;">hanks to <a href="https://www.xn--hjdmeter-n4a.se/" target="_blank">H<span style="background-color: white;">öjdmeter</span></a> for the support with gear. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And <a href="http://www.expeditionfoods.com/" target="_blank">Expedition Foods</a> for the discount on their excellent freeze dried meals.<br />And Markus P for lending me his sleeping bag.</span></div>
Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-21275509992048968122017-08-18T02:10:00.001-07:002017-08-18T02:10:33.548-07:00Peak Lenin: part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
About a year ago when I realised that my summer vacation from nursing studies would last from mid June to mid July I began wondering about potential locations for a little adventure in the mountains. This isn't a season I'm used to having free from work and I wanted to go somewhere with my skis where these few months at the height of summer were actually prime season. After a bit of research I realised it was time to return to Kyrgyzstan (I was there in June/July 2010), but this time check out some higher peaks in the Pamir range.</div>
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Preliminary planning with Peter had me really excited about some potential lines on Pik Dzerzhinsky with Pik Lenin as a backup plan, or something to do afterwards when we were fully acclimatised. Some changes in the group lineup, with Peter unable to join us and Bjarte only being able to spend 10 days on the mountain, meant that plans evolved and were down graded to focusing on Lenin as the primary objective. The main reason simply being that the level of uncertainty and exposure on the aforementioned objectives was something that I was unwilling to stomach as a solo venture.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shopping in Osh bazaar. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shopping in Osh bazaar. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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Bjarte and I met at Arlanda airport on July 12th and re-distributed some of the luggage before three unremarkable (albeit for getting stung for 10 kilos of overweight carry-on luggage at Istanbul to the tune of 10USD/kg) connecting flights to Osh. We had most of our food for the trip organised, but went to the bazaar to stock up on some dried fruit and nuts. We also got our transport from Osh to the Achik Tash basecamp organised with help from our wonderfully friendly and capable host <a href="https://www.booking.com/hotel/kg/fountain-and-yurt.en-gb.html?aid=356985;label=gog235jc-hotel-XX-kg-fountainNandNyurt-unspec-de-com-L%3Aen-O%3AwindowsS7-B%3Achrome-N%3AXX-S%3Abo-U%3AXX-H%3As;sid=834b9b441bf1ad9cee3351e74ce3ef0d;dist=0&sb_price_type=total&type=total&" target="_blank">Remi</a>.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enroute to basecamp in a Lada Niva. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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BC lies in a broad valley of green pasture at an altitude of 3600 metres. There are about half a dozen different operations which have bases there, offering accommodation in tents, meals in communal yurts, selling bottles of coca cola and vodka as well as gas canisters and souvenir t-shirts, some of the joints even have banya tents! We were going on a budget, self-supported style trip (like approximately 5% of the other people we met on the mountain) and only paid for a place to pitch our tent for the night, which also provided us with a measure of security against theft which we'd read could be a problem, in addition to access to their toilets and washbasins.<br />
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Motivation levels were sky high on day 1. With bluebird skies and the feeling that we had no time to lose, we decided to load up our backpacks with gear and food for higher on the mountain and ferry a load up to advanced base camp. This was a round trip of about 24km and 1100 metres of elevation gain with loads of around 25kg. Our progress on this first day can best be described as slow and steady, we were trying to be careful to manage our pace and exertion- careful not to wreck ourselves pointlessly. But in hindsight we were definitely pretty eager and probably pushed ourselves a bit too hard, something we would pay the price for in the coming days.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Views from BC on day1</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte carrying a load on our first rotation to ABC</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carrying a load to ABC with Peak Lenin looming in the background. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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We got to ABC around midday and stashed the gear and food in a storage tent belonging to one of the tour operators. We met a young guy from Sweden who had just returned from Camp 2 and talked a little about the route and some of the objective hazards with the crevasses, seracs and avalanche paths and the importance of starting by 4am at the latest when ascending to C2. As we were standing around eating an energy bar for lunch and admiring the views we suddenly heard a few people shouting and looked up to see a huge (size 4) avalanche tearing down the north face and engulfing a section of the regular route between ABC and C2. Bjarte managed to snap the photo below.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Avalanche. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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Discussion with a few of the other guys milling around in ABC immediately turned to how there were definitely people on the route. (Bjarte learned from chatting to some folks at BC later in the week that 8 (?) people had been knocked off their feet by the air blast which preceded the powder cloud and pushed 50-100metres downslope- but miraculously no one was killed). The event left a lasting impression on everyone who witnessed it. These mountains were obviously unforgiving, and while the standard route to the summit, which is regularly described as being the "easiest 7000 metre peak", might be technically straight forward, "easy" does not equate to "safe".<br />
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We shouldered our packs and hiked back to basecamp, arriving in mid afternoon.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte and David hiking back to BC.</td></tr>
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We were keen to test out the skis on day 2 and opted to do so on a small, rather flat looking glacier we had spied the previous day whilst hiking to ABC. Waking up at 5am we made a quick breakfast of porridge which I was uncharacteristically unable to stomach- my appetite was meagre to start with and the sight of the gloppy oats left me feeling queezy. Undeterred, we began our slow plod up to the glacier.<br />
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After an hour or two of slow hiking I was feeling pretty nauseous, and couldn't figure out if it was due to a) the altitude (nausea is a pretty common symptom of AMS), b) having eaten something bad or c) a combination of these two factors. Bjarte wisely pointed out that if I was feeling sick it was probably best to get it out, which proved simple enough: I simply thought about that morning's porridge for 10 seconds and before I knew it I was projectile vomiting up the contents of my stomach.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In search of some skiing- early on day 2. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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I felt a little better, but our pace was still miserably slow on account of the altitude. We eventually made it to the glacier and had a short break before getting out ski boots on and roping up for the glacier. We skinned up to about 4600m (only about 200m from the snout of the glacier) before deciding that with the deteriorating visibility we ought to follow our tracks and head back to camp. The skiing was pretty marginal, but it felt good to have already been out on the skis on day 2 of the trip.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte skinning up a flat glacier on day 2.</td></tr>
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Getting back to camp in the early afternoon we were both feeling pretty wrecked and spent the remainder of the day dozing in the tent.</div>
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The next morning we had decided it was time to move a little bit higher and continue our acclimatisation, but were also uncertain as to whether it would be a smart move to head all the way up to ABC. We ended up hiking halfway and pitching our tent at 4000m where we spent the remainder of the day relaxing in the tent and discussing how we had probably been a little to enthusiastic and ambitious on our first two days, and that this might have something to do with how wasted we were feeling.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">R&R at 4000m</td></tr>
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Waking up the next morning, Bjarte told me that he hadn't slept a wink that night. Insomnia is another common symptom of AMS, and one which I have experience from in the past- lying awake in a tent for an entire night is shitty enough as it is, but given that sleep is when the body does it's best acclimating it is doubly frustrating that you aren't even getting the same benefit as your comfortably snoozing tent mate. Bjarte was keen to head down to BC for another night or two, but I was feeling relatively fine and the nausea which had plagued me the previous two days had abated, so we decided to meet up again in ABC in a few days time: Bjarte split back down to BC whilst I hiked up to ABC to continue acclimatising.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Headed up to ABC again. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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At the start of the hike I met two horseman who were transporting gear up to ABC- they told me that for 1USD per kg they would transport my mammoth backpack- I accepted happily. Arriving at ABC it was time to choose where to pitch the tent, this was going to be home for the next two weeks and there were a few factors to take in to consideration. After wandering around I decided to stay at a site just near <a href="http://www.itmc.centralasia.kg/en/tours/lenin-peak-7134m" target="_blank">ITMC</a> (the Kyrgyz Apine Club's tour agency), which for only 20USD for the entire stay would give us access to their toilets and communal yurt. The real perk of staying at this site though was that there were a number of friendly English speaking climbers staying there, and with Bjarte at BC and only likely to have 2-3 days at ABC I figured it could be nice to have some folks to converse with.</div>
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The following two days I went out skiing solo, on some non-glaciated snow patches close to camp. There were a few narrow snow bands on the east face of Yukhin Peak (5100m) which skied nicely despite the thin and scratchy snow cover.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The views from ABC. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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Bjarte made it up to ABC feeling much better and more rested after his extra two nights at basecamp and slept really well the first night at this higher camp. By this stage we had both come to the conclusion that we had gone out way too hard on the first two days. Being accustomed to spending long days in the mountains back in Norway and logging plenty of vertical metres we had mistakenly fallen in to the trap of thinking we could basically just adjust our pace but still cover the same amount of terrain as what we were used to. In hindsight this was pretty stupid and naive. We had learned that climbing/skiing at altitude was really an entirely different activity, one which required enforced rest/ recovery days and a lot of time sitting around drinking tea in yurts. We opted to scale things down a notch from our original plans.</div>
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The following day we went for another ski on Peak Yukhin. Whilst the snow quality on these descents left a bit to be desired the views whenever you glanced upwards between turns were incredible: the immense north face of Lenin and the broken glacier in the valley in between was stunning and made for a worthy distraction from all the rocks we found ourselves skiing over.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte skiing from Yukhin Peak.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1i_Xcoz-iODL1uHeogeY4eRtqyAX9Qcvba3aOhLFu9RNJAkjlrB5EHBIjt3-tjdD3O7VyJOfZ2E_Fa4CEbE9L_1PtmjlYzQ1VdRg_VBaYDVAx276gh-k9c0WczrhUT2BS-gKtEn4-5w/s1600/IMG_7289.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1i_Xcoz-iODL1uHeogeY4eRtqyAX9Qcvba3aOhLFu9RNJAkjlrB5EHBIjt3-tjdD3O7VyJOfZ2E_Fa4CEbE9L_1PtmjlYzQ1VdRg_VBaYDVAx276gh-k9c0WczrhUT2BS-gKtEn4-5w/s640/IMG_7289.JPG" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enjoying a few scratchy turns from the summmit of Yukhin Peak. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing back to ABC. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaB_0BEjkqmzX4G_92w2dn57xPZsYNPvHQL_QtPvvQgjDCf87mihVgvoY-N_7d-EogRJvjHJ__8gp9fNFFS84CEhTLueR4-al-nw6AWWVl5CCOK-FE6X2IWollxbF-jV5IlbmC825rbM/s1600/IMG_7284.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="838" data-original-width="1600" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaB_0BEjkqmzX4G_92w2dn57xPZsYNPvHQL_QtPvvQgjDCf87mihVgvoY-N_7d-EogRJvjHJ__8gp9fNFFS84CEhTLueR4-al-nw6AWWVl5CCOK-FE6X2IWollxbF-jV5IlbmC825rbM/s640/IMG_7284.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing back to ABC. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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The next morning was overcast, with intermittent rain/sleet/snowfall. We took a day off from skiing and instead spent some time wandering around the dry glacier and drinking copious amounts of tea and Nesquick (#nectarofthegods). That afternoon the temperature dropped and it started snowing. Reports from higher on the mountain (relayed via VHF radio to the camp manager) said that it had snowed over 30cm in the preceding hours at Camp 3 (6100m), and I was glad not to have any plans of heading up to C2 that night.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoq5Y0gEov1YLjcvAXSgpfYwn0L1IzoZSuyYIqHtmIEJDRWwkwiRLie1Jjc_yS46-eBFa7V3bePBYR3nJ0PmML5PSd86m4AZ3t6sh0CON5TvwQU7W9FNbk7VDGvN0G1N6BibAJXk80xj8/s1600/100_3835.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoq5Y0gEov1YLjcvAXSgpfYwn0L1IzoZSuyYIqHtmIEJDRWwkwiRLie1Jjc_yS46-eBFa7V3bePBYR3nJ0PmML5PSd86m4AZ3t6sh0CON5TvwQU7W9FNbk7VDGvN0G1N6BibAJXk80xj8/s640/100_3835.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wandering around the glacier on a weather day.</td></tr>
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We woke to about 10cm of fresh snow at ABC and quickly decided to make the most of the conditions with a little skiing. Knowing that the new snow was really only enough to disguise all the rocks we opted to ski a few short laps on the snowfield close to camp which was starting to feel very familiar. Bjarte was feeling pretty drained again and opted to wait whilst Rob (a skier from the UK also staying at ITMC ABC) and I took a few very short but fun laps in the rapidly warming snow.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRQW45wBWcnVFGUrAJxQ55KFhFjjtMK_XRYcAHfYVFHItZPLZrZ5iExYggOzgSDslPQVHzn7P6t9FZexdiCyGKa_mBiwTZro6Fj487_pCcVZSnY-5cY1kezY2GSElXZ5p3rATLWdtcvc/s1600/IMG_7275.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRQW45wBWcnVFGUrAJxQ55KFhFjjtMK_XRYcAHfYVFHItZPLZrZ5iExYggOzgSDslPQVHzn7P6t9FZexdiCyGKa_mBiwTZro6Fj487_pCcVZSnY-5cY1kezY2GSElXZ5p3rATLWdtcvc/s640/IMG_7275.JPG" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rob enjoying a "bluebird pow day" near ABC. </td></tr>
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Back at camp by mid-morning it was time to make a decision: Bjarte was scheduled to leave from BC the following day in order to travel back to Norway and I suddenly had no climbing partner for the upper mountain. Of course this wasn't a surprise, I'd known that this was the plan from the outset, but for the past nine days I'd had mixed feelings about the prospect of heading higher on the mountain solo. There were a few new friends who said I was more than welcome to tie in to their rope to cross the crevassed glaciated section to Camp 2- which I was really grateful for. On the one hand I was still keen to head up higher on the mountain, despite the ups and downs I'd been feeling so far on account of the altitude. But on the other hand I wasn't relishing the prospect of spending a week sitting alone in a tent.</div>
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In the end, after a marathon bout of indecisiveness, I knew that after investing this much time, energy and money in to getting this far I would regret the decision of bailing now. I hugged Bjarte goodbye and made plans to join some of my new pals on the climb to Camp 2 the following morning with the alarm set for 2:50am.</div>
Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-91946085383537431662017-02-11T11:46:00.001-08:002017-02-11T11:46:53.620-08:00Kongsbakktinden SE face -FKD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Micke has a good eye for new ski lines. So when he invites you along on one of his projects it's usually worth rescheduling whatever it was you had planned on doing that day in order to avoid missing out on the fun.<br /><br />The story of Kongsbakktinden started last April when Micke sent me an aerial photograph. I stared at the thing for about a minute before I even saw what he envisioned and decided then and there that I wanted in. Poor weather/ unsuitable snow on the days we had planned to check it out last season meant that it was added to the (already long and growing constantly) list of things to do this winter.</div>
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With a week long high pressure system we decided to go and have a closer look on wednesday. On the drive in and approach through the trees I was kind of sceptical that we would find the right snow conditions, but figured it was a nice day for a recon if nothing else.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke paying part of the admission price for skiing a new line.</td></tr>
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We were pleasantly surprised by the snow conditions the higher we got, mostly old wind transported snow rather than the wind scoured meltfreeze crust which is so prevalent in other mountains in the area at the moment. We alternated between skinning and booting steeper sections until the upper headwall where we donned crampons and double tools for the upper section which we measured at around 50 degrees and which had an icy bed surface below the older wind transported snow.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A quick break to scope the proposed line which is in the center of the image</td></tr>
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We skied from the summit. It was a blast. We didn't really get any quality photos of the steeper crux on account of us skiing pretty spaced out.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke jus above the rollover into the steeper crux of the route.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fun turns and pretty views down lower</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5YC0xJC5u9F8gIG7XHFHvUcUl4QwuuWdZqCgMwQhlGl54kE0AK0sX_DXCWVIPa2nLNA6GYC_BvDqv8v-4R_QK0-GBDptyrx5QqG4ITmn60xldYuFVCuH7fTI2axgoaAbRLfykNlpqTn8/s1600/13010148_1191081034236329_1980734888_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5YC0xJC5u9F8gIG7XHFHvUcUl4QwuuWdZqCgMwQhlGl54kE0AK0sX_DXCWVIPa2nLNA6GYC_BvDqv8v-4R_QK0-GBDptyrx5QqG4ITmn60xldYuFVCuH7fTI2axgoaAbRLfykNlpqTn8/s640/13010148_1191081034236329_1980734888_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The line</td></tr>
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Definitely a highlight of the season so far.</div>
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Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-42546154800918239402017-02-07T14:19:00.003-08:002017-02-07T22:39:35.739-08:00Øksehogget and another weekend in Lyngen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Eight months
and roughly 200 000 metres of vert have passed since the last blog post- I don’t think
I’ll bother trying to summarise the interim period suffice to say it featured
plenty of enjoyable days in the hills. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">T</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">his past
weekend the Tromsø skimo crew organized a gathering in Lyngen and Micke and I
decided to crash the party and represent the Narvik contingent. The drive up to
Lyngseidet takes about four hours and passes through some pretty mountains, so we figured we ought to break up the drive and go ski something.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
something we settled on was Øksehogget. A pretty little couloir on the north
side of peak 1381 just south of Lemmetfjell. <a href="https://www.friflyt.no/Ski/Norges-raaeste-renne-Finale" target="_blank">It received quite a bit of media attention a few years ago when it was voted the raddest couloir in Norway by Fri Flyt magazine</a>, beating Gagnesaksla (near Narvik). I’ll
admit that I was kind of sceptical of it really being <i><u>that</u></i>
good. I figured the voting process had somehow been skewed by the hordes of
Finnish freeriders who migrate to Tamok every spring. I was happily surprised
when it first came into view.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUh2QsdagJLcjuQatG4VCxucI-wNUNL01pFrDfBuC9mI_ecoDV-KKzSOM1FvhZODlsivIoAtu9vc98nYLKbWMhE62Xj07-qkSK5_gnrEtVQ7Xlhqz2j-PdYprIu5IYD8bJ8Q8eOm5iilM/s1600/IMG_5957.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUh2QsdagJLcjuQatG4VCxucI-wNUNL01pFrDfBuC9mI_ecoDV-KKzSOM1FvhZODlsivIoAtu9vc98nYLKbWMhE62Xj07-qkSK5_gnrEtVQ7Xlhqz2j-PdYprIu5IYD8bJ8Q8eOm5iilM/s640/IMG_5957.JPG" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Øksehogget. It's a pretty one.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJzyzgUO-Ky2hjPhsgKg0HTfw2DrFbNCSiSgqs3WnsZ_3FCNnOAkbzp_NdQpakqyJa4ZJIeGSZtoWZvorhkLIEIO4fRhdALRj89_epjLyIuAy6tcIBVyP-Ny6sMUuZIb42Of7JeoNYovc/s1600/IMG_5888.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJzyzgUO-Ky2hjPhsgKg0HTfw2DrFbNCSiSgqs3WnsZ_3FCNnOAkbzp_NdQpakqyJa4ZJIeGSZtoWZvorhkLIEIO4fRhdALRj89_epjLyIuAy6tcIBVyP-Ny6sMUuZIb42Of7JeoNYovc/s400/IMG_5888.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke the alpine ninja enroute to Øksehogget</td></tr>
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The entrance was easy to find, and there were 5 old pieces of cord around the
anchor which meant we didn’t even have to leave any ourselves. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">A 20 metre
rap followed by a belayed ski cut took way longer than it should have and
provided a great example of how little of my skiing has involved ropes in recent
years and how efficiency in rope handling really does require at least some occasssional practice. The line itself is a sustained 40-45 in the upper 300 metres of vert, where it
averages 5 metres in width and slackens off to the high 30s for the lower 200
metres where it is around 10 metres wide.</span></span> </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwWV7HucGcYeFBAA57V7Dfdu7lXpnBSbOVjUv8FljHmbd979UQgHVuI0xf5WLnOL5mg14tzL6PdgnW8tYmgho4UqZIkyWkOJSkbvzM1bV_efaf-mMUvH-_2i9XXOvdBJO5cyZd_lORKg/s1600/16593593_1456883330989430_421367000_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwWV7HucGcYeFBAA57V7Dfdu7lXpnBSbOVjUv8FljHmbd979UQgHVuI0xf5WLnOL5mg14tzL6PdgnW8tYmgho4UqZIkyWkOJSkbvzM1bV_efaf-mMUvH-_2i9XXOvdBJO5cyZd_lORKg/s640/16593593_1456883330989430_421367000_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo from Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfFV_ID3Gwer26zQuyaxo5f2E0Ocnhir8zDfi8x3p0ViJtcTFdmnn-V-ok9PHF8l2jL5KQilxO84NjIa5YGnkMfFLcl0s4AxBYVTWnk6x_DZTlh4GmsTTegJH3UNc6kfS4Q-y8m55pu8/s1600/16667810_1456885644322532_1311005491_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfFV_ID3Gwer26zQuyaxo5f2E0Ocnhir8zDfi8x3p0ViJtcTFdmnn-V-ok9PHF8l2jL5KQilxO84NjIa5YGnkMfFLcl0s4AxBYVTWnk6x_DZTlh4GmsTTegJH3UNc6kfS4Q-y8m55pu8/s640/16667810_1456885644322532_1311005491_o.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from Micke</td></tr>
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It skied exceptionally well: sustained and in the fall line, and whilst I do think that calling a single ski line "the best" is a ludicrous and meaningless undertaking, I do think that things like "top 50" lists can apply to ski descents. And this line would definitely make it on to such a list over things to ski in Norway.<br />
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The route we followed wasn't exactly as outlined below, we ended up heading to the pass just north of point 1291. The <span style="font-family: inherit;">quickest and most direct route is definitely heading straight up the western shoulder, but the advantage of wrapping around from the north is that you get some good visuals on the line and some info on the conditions before</span> you rap in.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkiDvZZBLSkXCfTkLVXHfkw2rvCgVAJLEx8TLMaqGhoIpDL-xlDKG_rFXZujbN7jH0cRuQ9PFFHYBBEzxMqeDmRYxJOgfVfx07hcb5Wyb9W1EN62WltX6Yv-mJyjkJhOHZ44jIHkFvcdo/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkiDvZZBLSkXCfTkLVXHfkw2rvCgVAJLEx8TLMaqGhoIpDL-xlDKG_rFXZujbN7jH0cRuQ9PFFHYBBEzxMqeDmRYxJOgfVfx07hcb5Wyb9W1EN62WltX6Yv-mJyjkJhOHZ44jIHkFvcdo/s640/Capture.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A rough version of our route: <br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><a href="http://www.lommekjent.no/ruter/1800058">http://www.lommekjent.no/ruter/1800058</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The next two days in Lyngen were great fun: filled with quality skiing with a big group of friendly folks from Tromsø. After some technique drills on the ski slopes on Saturday morning we headed to Rørnestinden for a handful of laps on the upper slope in some magical late afternoon light.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">On Sunday we drove north to Koppangen and headed up Tafeltind. Conditions were terriffic given that it's been a week since the last snowfall, and I also got a nice overview of the terrain which will be invaluable in planning the next attempt at the "Lyngen på langs" traverse. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">A big group on little skis</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Goalsevarri from Rørnestinden</span></td></tr>
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Sven Are skinning up Rørnestinden with Store Kjostind in the background<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIeHS9yP4JnHoyYbEsLbpTgyUBcD6fQoFBo7Mo1EZZrpqe8vSDuXKVKbZNPYThyNcoTkT002dATtUFaFvpxmaTGfvKMSwlFDZDdydBAz0kijE819Nv-SR0BTPLyujhiAHPn0dkaBndy8/s1600/IMG_5991.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXIeHS9yP4JnHoyYbEsLbpTgyUBcD6fQoFBo7Mo1EZZrpqe8vSDuXKVKbZNPYThyNcoTkT002dATtUFaFvpxmaTGfvKMSwlFDZDdydBAz0kijE819Nv-SR0BTPLyujhiAHPn0dkaBndy8/s640/IMG_5991.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Gang skinning up to Tafeltind</div>
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View to the east from the summit of Tafeltind<br />
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And to the west.</td></tr>
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Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-65170732522792810042016-05-06T08:57:00.000-07:002017-02-07T11:39:47.696-08:00Lyngen på langs- nearly...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Due to a poor weather forecast and a decidedly unstable snowpack in Jotunheimen, the plans which Bjarte and I had of heading down there for a ski traverse were foiled. Late last week we made a quick decision to change our focus to some other majestic mountains just a short drive to the north; the Lyngen Alps.</div>
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We had a week off work and after briefly discussing options for simply camping out doing multiple day trips, the idea of attempting a traverse of the entire peninsula came up. Its been done several times before in a variety of different ways and following a number of different routes. The possibilities really are endless; you could spend several weeks travelling along the peninsula skiing loads of peaks along the way, or you could stick to the valleys and coastline if you wanted. One thing worth noting about Lyngen however, is how complex much of the alpine terrain is; traversing ridges and peaks in this area often requires a lot of challenging and technical alpine climbing, which means carrying the rope and all protection that is required. Being averse to carrying monster packs and loads of luxurious but extraneous equipment, and not really knowing that much about the Lyngen Alps, we opted to ski a route which is pretty standard, with some good skiing, but nothing technically demanding and to do it in a reasonably efficient manner. There was never any goal of setting a fast time or anything like that, we were mainly excited to explore some new mountains and familiarise ourself with the place.</div>
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I asked around and got some great route beta from people who were more familiar with Lyngen (a big thanks to everyone who shared tips- you know who you are!) and we ended up planning on following<a href="http://www.norgeskart.no/#9/684777/7696194/l/drawing/2c2e7e54c07b94a0f3107af28042d3bdb0e6c146/32633" target="_blank"> the same route</a> as Espen Nordahl (the fellow behind <a href="https://www.ffshop.no/touring-troms-p-1246.html?osCsid=vora9v05mt5i10r8l2eqr6job2" target="_blank">this great book</a>) had skied two weeks prior. In reality we ended up making a few changes due to lack of snow in certains areas, and a desire to checkout some other lines. The route we actually skied looked like this:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To see the route in detail click <a href="http://www.lommekjent.no/routes/1793706" target="_blank">here</a></td></tr>
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Note that we didn't actually finish our tour at the northen tip of the peninsula, we decided to stop 11 km short, due to a lack of snow and the fact that we were pretty sick of walking in soggy ski boots by that point. But I'm getting ahead of myself....<br />
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The week prior to our traverse had been defined by the arrival of warm spring temperatures, which led to a significant avalanche cycle and a lot of snow melting in a very short space of time. With warm day time temps forecasted, we knew that early starts were going to be vital to move efficiently whilst the snow was firm and also to avoid the avalanche hazard which was greatest in the heat of the afternoon. So we started out at 2am from Nordkjosbotn after a few hours of sleep by the car.<br />
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Conditions were pretty good owing to a decent re-freeze overnight and we had a pleasant tour over to Langdalen.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIg00Zb2MqxGVD476IiOgI4xd3aruxjoIpRnQDeKn03TUmOtnBlcr5KE0KIQH14Hb5ziburD_4oM4LgxKRSrMKzK5u-MHjqcQVmZo7eJicKjpJLfjHDigeTnERUaKlkOqPgZbEfguoNY/s1600/IMG_4598.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuIg00Zb2MqxGVD476IiOgI4xd3aruxjoIpRnQDeKn03TUmOtnBlcr5KE0KIQH14Hb5ziburD_4oM4LgxKRSrMKzK5u-MHjqcQVmZo7eJicKjpJLfjHDigeTnERUaKlkOqPgZbEfguoNY/s640/IMG_4598.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte in Lysvassdalen early on day 1.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte on the first proper descent towards Kjeldalen, early on day 1.</td></tr>
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It was about 6am when we reached Langdalen and it felt like time for a cup of coffee so we had a quick break and I gave my ski boots a good wash when I broke through some rotten snow whilst filling water bottles in a small stream.<br />
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We continued up towards Guhkegaisa (Langdalstindene on the map) and the gentle glaciers to the east which we skinned up to reach the pass to the next drainage. On the way we got a decent overview of all the avalanches which had released a few days prior.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjreJh2oeBBLGSSv-F3WSCdrg4o_1CwVpQeUYR7GzPSMuqEGC_QMaQN0eWrs0lCn5Ykju-mkqozyG0bOVqS-RcP4nEAANxQw8G_5IcbmXqE8ZsczmJ-GznVwOmyiYNFk3E6dXkRZhhtoQg/s1600/IMG_4642.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjreJh2oeBBLGSSv-F3WSCdrg4o_1CwVpQeUYR7GzPSMuqEGC_QMaQN0eWrs0lCn5Ykju-mkqozyG0bOVqS-RcP4nEAANxQw8G_5IcbmXqE8ZsczmJ-GznVwOmyiYNFk3E6dXkRZhhtoQg/s640/IMG_4642.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte with point 1404 looming in the background and a bunch of debris from recent avalanches.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRarg5Pzn9RDyYA-BOgoFd4Uhl5iTIvyu9bgrby9AU5fAVOwtjbVE3O57nBhymX2ExTC0S65_9oyvl8Tn3vKJWfMBqWu2g3fdsT8V3F9gTsSQNj0jfF_I__UMVsl0ESo89tkptXhjLqXM/s1600/IMG_4643.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRarg5Pzn9RDyYA-BOgoFd4Uhl5iTIvyu9bgrby9AU5fAVOwtjbVE3O57nBhymX2ExTC0S65_9oyvl8Tn3vKJWfMBqWu2g3fdsT8V3F9gTsSQNj0jfF_I__UMVsl0ESo89tkptXhjLqXM/s640/IMG_4643.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte making his way across some debris below point 1214.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxNY_B6N6GKzYKdEMpIowWpgLPSoz7LcU7Yor8EMEtYyAw6IlII3nIFXWe_NrB9wNLCrQN3XTArgIv2wRBiUS0fNJskIbAdtgulEmLlGrXYbvY59hjIw15ClqM48_wI54vnBTtlI3YO0/s1600/IMG_4731.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxNY_B6N6GKzYKdEMpIowWpgLPSoz7LcU7Yor8EMEtYyAw6IlII3nIFXWe_NrB9wNLCrQN3XTArgIv2wRBiUS0fNJskIbAdtgulEmLlGrXYbvY59hjIw15ClqM48_wI54vnBTtlI3YO0/s640/IMG_4731.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking south from near point 1214. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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We reached the small notch which gave us an entry point onto the glacier which leads down towards Ellendalen, the short north facing couloir was very icy and studded with a few rocks but looks like it would ski brilliantly in different snow conditions.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRrxKszjnhI9dxwz2YlprUrTToTSWeIFpsi6SZgAqBT-3lXgINLsXcSHeX3dGb7X-Us5CqSKMhfaX0YuFwZw05zEUaIesoQuwtynEV0my5GTP2rRfFBMPUQZ6ouNEDpghWwWCYV_8yh0/s1600/IMG_4733.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRrxKszjnhI9dxwz2YlprUrTToTSWeIFpsi6SZgAqBT-3lXgINLsXcSHeX3dGb7X-Us5CqSKMhfaX0YuFwZw05zEUaIesoQuwtynEV0my5GTP2rRfFBMPUQZ6ouNEDpghWwWCYV_8yh0/s640/IMG_4733.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing into the short couloir from the notch due east of Guhkegaisa. Photo by Bjarte.</td></tr>
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We reached Ellendalen around 10 o'clock in the morning. It was tempting to continue skiing, we were feeling good and it was still early in the day. But with rapidly increasing temps, knowing that the next suitable campsite was over 15km away and that the snow would soon be an isothermic slurry we decided to stick with our plan of camping here, and enjoyed a lazy day/afternoon of reading and drinking soup before going to bed around 8 o'clock.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Campsite in Ellendalen for the first night.</td></tr>
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We woke at 2:15 the next morning and after a quick coffee and breaking camp were skinning by 2:40. The route went up the valley to Steindalsbreen, in the early morning light the mountains were looking pretty damn beautiful.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uC5gICU9fE5rLfEJ4J0CRyfLMM2YVBwWVpLr-e4uV2im-2l-kXYDWc0wHJ_mygcDbkyXgP94J37EXSg79OG9WW0naO-qYAxtjYfOhiTDHRLMNBGPAxNlfIOIGq1CfAhNc7MXBrPT4BA/s1600/IMG_4734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uC5gICU9fE5rLfEJ4J0CRyfLMM2YVBwWVpLr-e4uV2im-2l-kXYDWc0wHJ_mygcDbkyXgP94J37EXSg79OG9WW0naO-qYAxtjYfOhiTDHRLMNBGPAxNlfIOIGq1CfAhNc7MXBrPT4BA/s640/IMG_4734.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking back down Ellendalen early on day 2. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmFlKQi3CxFELkq9CXUd-076Wxj9lyIBCyuJT8N3rKz0lwH1Insr4MCIjv9ijOE3MAJmgSEbj5sn-vED-59paEsMTmgqxB9rKuR_51zReoZOWRdC48-9X09ss2Ea5IZLBlwBDRDyk9QU/s1600/IMG_4684.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmFlKQi3CxFELkq9CXUd-076Wxj9lyIBCyuJT8N3rKz0lwH1Insr4MCIjv9ijOE3MAJmgSEbj5sn-vED-59paEsMTmgqxB9rKuR_51zReoZOWRdC48-9X09ss2Ea5IZLBlwBDRDyk9QU/s640/IMG_4684.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stunning early morning light at the edge of Steindalsbreeen.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The glacial plateau of Steindalsbreen.</td></tr>
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A short ski and a gentle skin brought us to the pass just east of Nallangaisi, from which we enjoyed a fast ski down Veidalen, with a good a crust meaning we could skate and double pole the flat sections.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte in the upper section of Veidalen.</td></tr>
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We reached Lyngsdalen around 5:30 and decided to stop for breakfast and coffee in the sun. Then a short bootpack up to Bredalen and a gentle ski down to Kvalvikdalen. It was only a little after 8am, but the snow was already getting alarmingly warm so we opted to hike up a shoulder of scree to reach Goalsevarri.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte with Kvalvikdalstinden in the background.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnpx1u-puuKAAHhtYv4M618tEoDLWOcfZDYl_-blWlKTTF4mkCgBp2WQGpEiwwjhCXnwIpc7sJPcN4J7nX6nNQuBR7uRz4WjShCzuILB6PM8fxIPTDKc3sltbjYxU0U7b6k2uhFfoQeu8/s1600/IMG_4739.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnpx1u-puuKAAHhtYv4M618tEoDLWOcfZDYl_-blWlKTTF4mkCgBp2WQGpEiwwjhCXnwIpc7sJPcN4J7nX6nNQuBR7uRz4WjShCzuILB6PM8fxIPTDKc3sltbjYxU0U7b6k2uhFfoQeu8/s640/IMG_4739.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I think Bjarte took this photo when we were headed up Goalsevarri, but I could be wrong...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnFzTa4KFrS-E72cvbzfGfoC7Az0hO4UJDbLcq4YLlelww2HpfPs7rBVUyI67hipns8HF7bpXyE8OEeHtg3XfUUvwuqVotgi3EKs9IkqEbF7OD4mfvnHsn12fvJeWJSKVsj4SHSbDnVQQ/s1600/IMG_4748.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnFzTa4KFrS-E72cvbzfGfoC7Az0hO4UJDbLcq4YLlelww2HpfPs7rBVUyI67hipns8HF7bpXyE8OEeHtg3XfUUvwuqVotgi3EKs9IkqEbF7OD4mfvnHsn12fvJeWJSKVsj4SHSbDnVQQ/s640/IMG_4748.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bit of scree hiking up to Goalsevarri made for a nice change to skinning. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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From the pass near point 1094 we skied down to Gjerdedalen and on to Lyngseidet, passing a few people setting out on ski tours on the final part of the descent it felt strange again to be finished for the day when other people were just starting out. We reached Lyngseidet around 11am and bought a pile of food from the supermarket which we enjoyed as a picnic on the balcony at the <a href="http://www.magicmountainlodge.no/" target="_blank">Magic Mountain Lodge</a>.</div>
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Even though we'd only had two nights out (including the short bivvy by the car before we started), it was really nice to have a shower and enjoy the luxuries of an afternoon in civilization. As usual the hospitality and welcome provided by Patrik and Henrika was wonderful and much appreciated. We set the alarms for 2am again and settled in to some comfortable beds for the night.</div>
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Getting moving the next morning was a mental struggle for me, the sleep deficit from three consecutive days of waking around 2am was starting to take a toll on me. On the hike through town and up to the snow line at 300masl I was feeling drowsy and grumpy, once we started skinning and encountered a long stretch of breakable crust my "grumpiness" morphed into rage for a short period as I skinned along and unpredictably punched through the melt freeze crust into isothermic slop up to my knees. I was pretty disheartened that conditions were already so trying at such an ealy hour of the day and knowing that conditions were only likely to deteriorate even further. But trying to catch up with Bjarte, who is a beast and totally zen about things like breakable crust helped keep my mind off things.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is was shitty ski conditions look like. Early on day 3.</td></tr>
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The descent from the pass south of Fastdalstind featured a lot more breakable crust, but strangely, once we reached Russedalen the conditions improved markedly and we were skinning in warm but predictable snow up towards Tafeltinden. We had decided the night before to change our route slightly, and head up the big glacier east of Tvillingstinden. The snow here was kind of rotten and we were both struggling with skins failing due to them being totally saturated from the warm, wet snow. It felt extremely foolhardy to be setting out on this heavily crevassed glacier with out ropes, but we decided to get a closer look before making up our minds.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT8qdTYU7RJwWv7tQ7RWL-ePjg5EUZy4fzcNwLxem0P0SQ8CFZrmJ2xpvWt5Q0vhEkTX3J13WClbFn4J3SXjflGHg1Te-VFIQhOiGVS3d6K08t1M_kB0U-VNgAwdL3Pl-Lj2iUsZorMys/s1600/IMG_4729.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT8qdTYU7RJwWv7tQ7RWL-ePjg5EUZy4fzcNwLxem0P0SQ8CFZrmJ2xpvWt5Q0vhEkTX3J13WClbFn4J3SXjflGHg1Te-VFIQhOiGVS3d6K08t1M_kB0U-VNgAwdL3Pl-Lj2iUsZorMys/s640/IMG_4729.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching the glacier. We ended up taking a route up the lookers right side (not pictured in its entirety). Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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In the end, after a lot of expletives I found an okay route weaving between the crevasses and we reached the upper section of the glacier which is flat and much safer. We ripped our soggy skins at the pass between Store Jægervasstinden and Tafeltinden and skied down Lenangsbreen. This was where we finally got what would generally be described as "quality skiing", with some fun corn beside the blue glacial ice.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQQGxcGnAR-2gWnISMmFcluCQVcTSmWHwXu7lEMjdESBPTW3SdDbXeT0D6pm_IVCUpZe_6Zl_B2lcQn9I8YA2H8v8CCjwX107dq4KrBR_W5nwxW3NcBw5WAMNfb6Uf87PcW-lyeNGt1U/s1600/IMG_4744.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvQQGxcGnAR-2gWnISMmFcluCQVcTSmWHwXu7lEMjdESBPTW3SdDbXeT0D6pm_IVCUpZe_6Zl_B2lcQn9I8YA2H8v8CCjwX107dq4KrBR_W5nwxW3NcBw5WAMNfb6Uf87PcW-lyeNGt1U/s640/IMG_4744.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halfway down Lenangsbreen. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRAEyoNAWDkR1uMz5zcNx-UBjM97xoTNN38OdBUlbPPyDKk50ilXrLGCQmJnIv7dJWoZ48gMdG9hd5OD_8zMbBxS1GhgXtZCOHA2DEG4XR7drR69p9N8Q3n5aWNX8uRWCLPShogVs_hKU/s1600/IMG_4713.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRAEyoNAWDkR1uMz5zcNx-UBjM97xoTNN38OdBUlbPPyDKk50ilXrLGCQmJnIv7dJWoZ48gMdG9hd5OD_8zMbBxS1GhgXtZCOHA2DEG4XR7drR69p9N8Q3n5aWNX8uRWCLPShogVs_hKU/s640/IMG_4713.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte enjoying some great skiing down Lenangsbreen.</td></tr>
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Down at Blåvatnet we were faced with the decision of following the same route as Espen had, which would require a few kilometres of hiking now that the snow had melted out in the preceding week, or attempting a different route over a pass due SE of Veidalstindan. Given the warm temps and concerns of unstable snow we opted to stick with the safer albeit more arduous option of hiking...</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYMOOpk7HfvxEd87vdZh-DElMtsWGsg_z-W-0u9vUwcLIOxXWTSuh8iaVqMh5Zm9fuj6-j7KV20HgvWJ6CrFbPY-0ipAqMBxOf1FC7gJFZtVWJTW8d_9GZHq3Dcy6_v0x6XgHP5UAQ2fs/s1600/IMG_4712.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYMOOpk7HfvxEd87vdZh-DElMtsWGsg_z-W-0u9vUwcLIOxXWTSuh8iaVqMh5Zm9fuj6-j7KV20HgvWJ6CrFbPY-0ipAqMBxOf1FC7gJFZtVWJTW8d_9GZHq3Dcy6_v0x6XgHP5UAQ2fs/s640/IMG_4712.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte apparently unphased by several kilometres of rock hopping in ski boots.</td></tr>
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We hiked for about 2-3 hours, over rocks, through swamps, over small patches of rotten snow and through some birch forest, then traversed up to Botnfjellet where we were finally able to put our skis back on at 400masl. A short, traversing ski descent in some light rain brought us to Veidalen where we searched for a place to pitch the tent. Being tired we weren't particularly fussy and soon settled on a small, lumpy patch of heather to pitch the tent on. We'd been on the move for about 12 hours.<br />
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It should be noted here that I had chosen the tent for the trip based on a weather forecast which was calling for dry weather. The tent (<a href="http://blackdiamondequipment.com/en/tents-and-bivys/firstlight-tent-BD810151WASAALL1.html" target="_blank">BD's Firstlight</a>) is nice and light, and offers ample protection from wind and snow but is certainly not waterproof. I knew this from earlier trips and as we cooked up some dinner and the rain battered down I knew we only had about 30 minutes before it would start seeping through. Bjarte, ever the optimist, cheerfully pointed out that atleast it was drier inside the tent than out. Thankfully it cleared about 2 hours later and a light wind even dried things out a little bit. With no room inside the tent for drying gear without it saturating our down bags though, we opted to leave our boot liners, clothes, skins etc. outside the tent and hope they dried a bit through the night.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDtnjj3PZAWlvsxuLGiKKmhkULFS6iseEb6U7yyn9aOoPoCxLt3a9T2cN6rxoGV6XBIB9vT9n0_-3jnKaIaYEGyJTIob39lHk4hHwakyphUE-jsMvwI1w0x7sNIMdTffh7ywQff_r7coE/s1600/IMG_4746.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDtnjj3PZAWlvsxuLGiKKmhkULFS6iseEb6U7yyn9aOoPoCxLt3a9T2cN6rxoGV6XBIB9vT9n0_-3jnKaIaYEGyJTIob39lHk4hHwakyphUE-jsMvwI1w0x7sNIMdTffh7ywQff_r7coE/s640/IMG_4746.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the tent once the rain had passed. Photo by Bjarte</td></tr>
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The next morning we had a sleep in til 4am and then put our still wet boots back on and started skinning up to the pass NE of Veidalsvatnet. It had been a warm night and the snow hadn't refrozen at all. We skied down to Reindalen in some slush at 5am and veered off our intended route again by skiing down valley a few kms to a gully below Stetinden which we skinned up in more slush to reach another pass into Raudtinddalen. The ski down the valley was slow going on account of the sloppy, rotten snow and once we reached Nordlenangsbotn the impact of the previous weeks warm weather on the snow cover became very clear. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy8iPuAiVIMsmvoFNiY98ao0wurd1tSIjaNtOpVxL3Z1lfEjcQNL32zCijGBYnmlKl5rklHCJ4P7M4kPT1Wk3rshfJeLlgMcMDRhfUidiw4IfJJsRHfsFD4uLdl4pJhxRmM8dhjNu6iY0/s1600/IMG_4745.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy8iPuAiVIMsmvoFNiY98ao0wurd1tSIjaNtOpVxL3Z1lfEjcQNL32zCijGBYnmlKl5rklHCJ4P7M4kPT1Wk3rshfJeLlgMcMDRhfUidiw4IfJJsRHfsFD4uLdl4pJhxRmM8dhjNu6iY0/s640/IMG_4745.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coffee and breakfast at the snowline in Nordlenangsbotn with the final northern stretch of the peninsula in the background. Photo by Bjarte </td></tr>
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It appeared there wasn't much snow left on the final northern section of the peninsula, whilst the upper section of Store Galten looked to have a decent cover, the route north from there, which is mainly under 500masl promised to be a mix of rotten snow and hiking over scree and talus. Lacking any other shoes, and not particularly excited by the prospect of having to hike in wet ski boots we opted to hike along the fjord to Nord Lenangen, missing out on the final 10km and the right to say that we skiied "Lyngen på langs". In total we had travelled 115km and 8900 vertical metres. It felt kind of ridiculous to quit with only 15 km and 1800 metres of vert left, but both our feet felt like shit by this point from so many hours in saturated ski boots. And even now; a day later, sitting inside warm and dry I don't really regret the decision. It'll be nice to go back and re-do the entire traverse in the future when the snow cover is a little better and we can ski the entire thing.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgecVub6tNn_QuJ3B9ccKQXV-3Fk_Q1vMKTmUjuWyNio8u-iQ5jsZOOEgJyb2wb5S62IMKxcljynbwLpiM77KUERO7mrODtkmGsfAUyqPDSSz8JW-70ae_Jc8puNuJaYNcNQ3Ays7_IG-0/s1600/IMG_4727.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgecVub6tNn_QuJ3B9ccKQXV-3Fk_Q1vMKTmUjuWyNio8u-iQ5jsZOOEgJyb2wb5S62IMKxcljynbwLpiM77KUERO7mrODtkmGsfAUyqPDSSz8JW-70ae_Jc8puNuJaYNcNQ3Ays7_IG-0/s400/IMG_4727.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte's feet: wet, swollen and blistered after 14 hours in soggy ski boots</td></tr>
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We spent the next 8 hours hitch-hiking back to Nordkjosbotn and talking about how much we were looking forward to taking our ski boots off.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte and I played "balance the ski pole" to pass time whilst waiting for a lift.</td></tr>
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I've already got a lot of ideas of things I want to do differently next time I do the traverse. A slightly different route, and a slightly different approach and gear choice. I think I'll go for this route:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To see the route in detail click <a href="http://www.lommekjent.no/ruter/1793713" target="_blank">here</a></td></tr>
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It was a great trip. Lyngen truly is an AMAZING place, with a lifetimes worth of inspiring mountains. I'm already looking forward to my next trip there!</div>
Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-39621817037070244782016-04-30T07:13:00.001-07:002016-04-30T07:13:26.087-07:00Lyngen for the weekend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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.<br /><br />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 <a href="https://vimeo.com/75958128" target="_blank">kokekaffe</a> 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</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzpPoGUhOVFJWjO1bRR_mwfh3Aw67l4pPmlppsbo-YMrf5Z541pLyy27UD0mB03cHWAEUoBnsFZXA9oJOFOOaeq-xi-uznlIf2fWEqbufm8q8TMw1whR3knbjk4SKoGGynDIx9vyVqG8/s1600/13084080_10153416392925997_455572662_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzpPoGUhOVFJWjO1bRR_mwfh3Aw67l4pPmlppsbo-YMrf5Z541pLyy27UD0mB03cHWAEUoBnsFZXA9oJOFOOaeq-xi-uznlIf2fWEqbufm8q8TMw1whR3knbjk4SKoGGynDIx9vyVqG8/s640/13084080_10153416392925997_455572662_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Posing at the top of Tomasrenna. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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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.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgG7LwyhYOJLTULUaPlgpptBQ1z-SJxvbx96qxdvLQiWm_pr_yrlLs4kFrBRi-C1Ma-ElkOsk8h42aNJ_dk6RbFtd8YJoM94f1_0CqGO-mIfIG440HiAbMJtmn7kTjd7iU5k2m_zOUXbw/s1600/13081890_10153416392940997_1745275496_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgG7LwyhYOJLTULUaPlgpptBQ1z-SJxvbx96qxdvLQiWm_pr_yrlLs4kFrBRi-C1Ma-ElkOsk8h42aNJ_dk6RbFtd8YJoM94f1_0CqGO-mIfIG440HiAbMJtmn7kTjd7iU5k2m_zOUXbw/s640/13081890_10153416392940997_1745275496_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Down climbing the upper section of the couloir on Store Lakselvtind. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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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).</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny exiting Store Lakselvtind couoir</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0IHwP3D29sqEstb_agLvgYmX68oG1Dl3EgZuvsa0fvc4nrxSeDAyy31JtTXrnZtQAjfYJA2_D1MMIemH02ZA96eea5MNN4ZGpckSVNK1-1De57YrDr_VsgYqJDfRfXY_veYU8h6wdMVA/s1600/IMG_4495.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0IHwP3D29sqEstb_agLvgYmX68oG1Dl3EgZuvsa0fvc4nrxSeDAyy31JtTXrnZtQAjfYJA2_D1MMIemH02ZA96eea5MNN4ZGpckSVNK1-1De57YrDr_VsgYqJDfRfXY_veYU8h6wdMVA/s640/IMG_4495.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Efficiency- defrosting the gas canister and cooking dinner simultaneously.</td></tr>
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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.</div>
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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. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhARuE_YDNsPQQoVm35_MEl6aKkZP8jY0y4sEbh6iVzIK924kBcZRF8CiOMBjtccPZGU_sleKmPKrgrmVLqdthEJ6djL6-ndVzAmvO7KId58X_wRbVqjyQS6XfhAQnWqm0nSD0Hnlb1N7o/s1600/IMG_4499.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhARuE_YDNsPQQoVm35_MEl6aKkZP8jY0y4sEbh6iVzIK924kBcZRF8CiOMBjtccPZGU_sleKmPKrgrmVLqdthEJ6djL6-ndVzAmvO7KId58X_wRbVqjyQS6XfhAQnWqm0nSD0Hnlb1N7o/s640/IMG_4499.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning up to Holmbukttind</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidlAfA5v3Wek7Ktz4ddXuwgRG0oNaFhDh1g-3LzVhXi5uCNyjSU4LogBAIKY_ZnB8HbHkfY3lbpiTDk1_3SFMBf2PnsqIJ3XBr0L58ZfxSxpt0hXU4W0LYle_1tWk9NJXG780HvQ-T8K8/s1600/IMG_4501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidlAfA5v3Wek7Ktz4ddXuwgRG0oNaFhDh1g-3LzVhXi5uCNyjSU4LogBAIKY_ZnB8HbHkfY3lbpiTDk1_3SFMBf2PnsqIJ3XBr0L58ZfxSxpt0hXU4W0LYle_1tWk9NJXG780HvQ-T8K8/s640/IMG_4501.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The final ridge up Holmbukttind has some nice views over the next section of the traverse.</td></tr>
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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.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPLQvc6X0paQDX2VkuBR1xBETUBm4X_H0sAzCRmxU6Hc81GZoYdW5jvlJIEeBkN5QKVMNzib08jSmzyCDkOfOFCdRUFryKu9WwSXGWCCgAM8dg_Dg1F_DE5OseRjf7XHjWPNusMRilkc/s1600/IMG_4504.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpPLQvc6X0paQDX2VkuBR1xBETUBm4X_H0sAzCRmxU6Hc81GZoYdW5jvlJIEeBkN5QKVMNzib08jSmzyCDkOfOFCdRUFryKu9WwSXGWCCgAM8dg_Dg1F_DE5OseRjf7XHjWPNusMRilkc/s640/IMG_4504.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About to ski from Holmbukttind down to the glacier. Jiehkkevarri centre background.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLwcIO9YSWDJplR0OrZyqEmamNC970qDKHkEGeBjvVFBNCnZ9GMjDFAMkH7BcWZuufHokwbHX9JQ39lWQrZCkJTmKmbUvjBz05GmwkxGNF2z6W_ZftAz1jbo_Evx2W6vOKovRFWt2GL58/s1600/13084195_10153416393115997_530660082_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLwcIO9YSWDJplR0OrZyqEmamNC970qDKHkEGeBjvVFBNCnZ9GMjDFAMkH7BcWZuufHokwbHX9JQ39lWQrZCkJTmKmbUvjBz05GmwkxGNF2z6W_ZftAz1jbo_Evx2W6vOKovRFWt2GL58/s640/13084195_10153416393115997_530660082_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">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</td></tr>
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It was blowing pretty hard up on the glacier and the wind chill meant we were soon wearing all our layers.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRr6ZCMXTbmLe7Ds-04SQWZdinxV62S1KyREgSTsyfqDM8pcQH3jIVA9QxcWf_RdOPH4JtnRF1HLf6eK8o2i6DIto6A5GBWNn8JmLifXSpQzlEUNh98Yz2PFbH67pEYkRIsYqshOBKFk8/s1600/13090464_10153416393085997_1758867795_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRr6ZCMXTbmLe7Ds-04SQWZdinxV62S1KyREgSTsyfqDM8pcQH3jIVA9QxcWf_RdOPH4JtnRF1HLf6eK8o2i6DIto6A5GBWNn8JmLifXSpQzlEUNh98Yz2PFbH67pEYkRIsYqshOBKFk8/s640/13090464_10153416393085997_1758867795_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning the final flat stretch to the summit. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0RggCnlQNPx0blOYwYej6Mgmah9FZ376elDJcmIYiUwYu-hxD0VVtT61XRh57MRIzz27ZU3ZGMnAKTm5atdvWXntZVEdRZACSjvN4t8tYm6EDrzt1sJO24ZuBs4GpQYGKF49U2-7Okc/s1600/IMG_4508.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0RggCnlQNPx0blOYwYej6Mgmah9FZ376elDJcmIYiUwYu-hxD0VVtT61XRh57MRIzz27ZU3ZGMnAKTm5atdvWXntZVEdRZACSjvN4t8tYm6EDrzt1sJO24ZuBs4GpQYGKF49U2-7Okc/s640/IMG_4508.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny s<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">kiing from Jiehkkevarri towards Kveita.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisHsA-pUN7bwcQjMfRC8QUnYSpN8ANA9uavfyDfxQTk3OGsHBoPJKRXqRBaSSm99l_cRN04v2DLTupbimgTbJew4VJE_iAqXfJtmRvvnSYpE1qvW8CdCWZT0bw63iJrhgvnRBIz4cBfK8/s1600/13101232_10153416393140997_710323934_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="638" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisHsA-pUN7bwcQjMfRC8QUnYSpN8ANA9uavfyDfxQTk3OGsHBoPJKRXqRBaSSm99l_cRN04v2DLTupbimgTbJew4VJE_iAqXfJtmRvvnSYpE1qvW8CdCWZT0bw63iJrhgvnRBIz4cBfK8/s640/13101232_10153416393140997_710323934_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing from Jiehkkevarri towards Kveita. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4_GS82g7eO1DylWtzQJ0oH9rS1Jdnw99Sgm8eXwy3cmAPXQygXquj-EClMcNh88aMIW2yDFPUlXPjTGuDjOb4gH9B_e2TD0p3lD0klo0ErzCe0a5XGXvb_VbUWvkHgoxYyTitAmxOco/s1600/IMG_4545.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4_GS82g7eO1DylWtzQJ0oH9rS1Jdnw99Sgm8eXwy3cmAPXQygXquj-EClMcNh88aMIW2yDFPUlXPjTGuDjOb4gH9B_e2TD0p3lD0klo0ErzCe0a5XGXvb_VbUWvkHgoxYyTitAmxOco/s640/IMG_4545.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking back towards Jiehkkevarri on the skin up to Kveita, our ski tracks visible in the background.</td></tr>
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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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVpCYvU3i4BARI7LENcRo_34SCgwjSSoWoApws9IfituRprRSVbbCzQgLcVJFQOSO9BbefKdGnD8qNPg9RQo05YgXEbcgkh4RI3aZTVS7rGkaInnwwpdYpFW7FNukI7jUOXBjwwEHZ2o/s1600/IMG_4514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVpCYvU3i4BARI7LENcRo_34SCgwjSSoWoApws9IfituRprRSVbbCzQgLcVJFQOSO9BbefKdGnD8qNPg9RQo05YgXEbcgkh4RI3aZTVS7rGkaInnwwpdYpFW7FNukI7jUOXBjwwEHZ2o/s640/IMG_4514.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">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.</td></tr>
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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</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQtnrImgUt2_vcdHslR-6p7bXaCBUQ3m07BsdG11zHap8B2-LgoPbHfQzuC8uF77N9tYrMqvpWglXSD4z3zS7_MUsU8KJ1AyMsopVQAR5Sui09E1qpMV0WzWLhTtSrUw0hyrxRdajfPig/s1600/13082076_10153416393150997_1027382263_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQtnrImgUt2_vcdHslR-6p7bXaCBUQ3m07BsdG11zHap8B2-LgoPbHfQzuC8uF77N9tYrMqvpWglXSD4z3zS7_MUsU8KJ1AyMsopVQAR5Sui09E1qpMV0WzWLhTtSrUw0hyrxRdajfPig/s640/13082076_10153416393150997_1027382263_n.jpg" width="638" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tsunami like wind lip near Fugldalsskaret.</td></tr>
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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.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The only steepish pitch on the final descent, just after terminus of Fornesbreen. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reaching the quarry at the end of the tour.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny finishes up the day with a ski boot stroll along the edge of the fjord.</td></tr>
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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.<br /><br />We spent 6:10 from road to road.<br /><br />For anyone wanting more details of the travserse (or any other route in Troms for that matter), an excellent resource is <a href="http://kugo.no/2009/09/jiehkkevarri-1834-moh/" target="_blank">here</a></div>
Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-32847278076237627312016-04-06T13:00:00.001-07:002016-04-06T13:12:13.153-07:00Dudalstind/ Nonstind and GNARbars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Core members of the Narvik Toothpick Mafia topping out on Dudalstind</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte skiing from the summit with Jan Eirik supervising.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte enjoying some cold snow on a warm day. Photo: Jan Eirik</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me on the first turn from the summit. Photo Jan Eirik</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Jan Eirik</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gang ski</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning up from Botnsletta enroute to Nonstind, Dudalstind in the background.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ridge on Nonstind is as scenic as it is simple.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Einar sprinted ahead so he could make a detour and sit on the false summit whilst he ate a sandwich.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A short bootpack up the summit pitch on Nonstind. Photo Jan Eirik</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte about to top out.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjarte about to drop in. Photo Jan Eirik</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Einar on his first turn from the summit of Nonstind.</td></tr>
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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).</div>
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<b><u>GNARbars:</u></b></div>
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I've been getting a lot of requests for the recipe recently and thought I might as well share it here.</div>
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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 <a href="https://www.larabar.com/our-products/larabar" target="_blank">these</a> and <a href="http://www.rawblend.com.au/cacao-bliss-balls.html" target="_blank">this type of thing</a> 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!</div>
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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.</div>
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<u><b>GNARbar ChChCh (ie. chocolate/chia/chilli)</b></u></div>
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300g pitted dates</div>
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80g almonds (or other nuts, but peanuts don't work so well in my opinion)</div>
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50g chia seeds</div>
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50g oats</div>
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5g sea salt</div>
(additional extras):<br />
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30g cocoa</div>
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80g dark chocolate (crushed into small pieces)</div>
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5g chilli</div>
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<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">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.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Add all the othe</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">r ingredients to the food processor and mix for a minute or two until everything is mixed well and the dates are totally p<span style="font-family: inherit;">ur<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px;">éed</span>.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scoop everything into a freezer bag and use a rolling pi</span>n to press the mixture into a rectangle about 2cm thick and 20cmx20cm long. Put it in the freezer overnight to set.</li>
<li>The next day slice it into bar size pieces and wrap in cellophane.</li>
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-34850269447060022772016-04-05T11:23:00.001-07:002016-04-06T13:02:24.057-07:00NarvikRando- a track setters perspective #2 <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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.</div>
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With the lessons learnt from <a href="http://kajsonnichsen.blogspot.no/2015/03/narvikrando-track-setters-perspective.html" target="_blank">last year's race</a>, 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 <a href="http://skittentind.no/" target="_blank">Skittentind</a>, meaning we had 4x more than last year, aside from a bunch of yellow bootpack flags, we pretty much used them all!</div>
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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.</div>
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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.<br /><br />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!<br />
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The result list is here: <a href="https://www.webscorer.com/narvik_rando">https://www.webscorer.com/narvik_rando</a></div>
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And here are some articles in norwegian published about the race:</div>
<a href="http://www.friflyt.no/Ski/Sprekest-i-Narvik" target="_blank">Fri Flyt- Spekest i Narvik</a><br />
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<a href="http://inarvik.org/2016/04/02/vant-narvik-rando-resultater-og-bilder/" target="_blank">I Narvik- Vant Narvik Rando</a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi267OxNOqridTIYgcOP91Hb6gVCsc6c3z4yhUefURKZgmumsOnHpBm1HRO2dvOZiYziEmG3ZohuRzswiVXBMjDjMdsfYyaBxgvsUbZ2HSPZN9D6rYy4DnXHecjM5xrBPOeahhntTliaos/s1600/7715_10153906276455873_7930545783227240016_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi267OxNOqridTIYgcOP91Hb6gVCsc6c3z4yhUefURKZgmumsOnHpBm1HRO2dvOZiYziEmG3ZohuRzswiVXBMjDjMdsfYyaBxgvsUbZ2HSPZN9D6rYy4DnXHecjM5xrBPOeahhntTliaos/s640/7715_10153906276455873_7930545783227240016_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Rune Dahl</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Rune Dahl</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Rune Dahl</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Rune Dahl</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Rune Dahl</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Rune Dahl</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Photo: Rune Dahl</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The course for the competition class</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Course profile for the competition class</td></tr>
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-45593063580122774142016-03-30T02:41:00.000-07:002016-04-11T21:46:05.870-07:00Skånland and Lavangen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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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.</div>
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Firstly a weekend spent skiing around Skånland, with descents from Skorvetind, Niingen, Skittendalstind, Litletind and Stortind and two nights at Blåvatnshytta.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QAwgAi9yB_XNHZFZvKiXuIC3bfuspshGlOw7ve8jEWNnCLNMdk2Lu59Ka53QHQXjb3Ms2Kf5fzU6E_GqQssJog5uOkmVGwukBFlpqFtROQYP2l808NSP2KL2iQ7wzjQ2SE87XU-HK4M/s1600/IMG_3846.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0QAwgAi9yB_XNHZFZvKiXuIC3bfuspshGlOw7ve8jEWNnCLNMdk2Lu59Ka53QHQXjb3Ms2Kf5fzU6E_GqQssJog5uOkmVGwukBFlpqFtROQYP2l808NSP2KL2iQ7wzjQ2SE87XU-HK4M/s640/IMG_3846.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny enroute to Skorvetind, the line we ended up skiing is a couloir which breaks up the cliff band pictured.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLcxPJCOUcRwBgdBRW2ovn2BbFLj-2WH47x4pmbCuFNOryKlRfiO9CtooWTlSRdE8-y1gfFy2ts2f-L3UcGooF-I850OUvpomjAxCFVuvFLcgdjPnqxjvmPGFVpdXo4KySrRgXX5Ngel0/s1600/Foto+2016-03-07+14+38+28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLcxPJCOUcRwBgdBRW2ovn2BbFLj-2WH47x4pmbCuFNOryKlRfiO9CtooWTlSRdE8-y1gfFy2ts2f-L3UcGooF-I850OUvpomjAxCFVuvFLcgdjPnqxjvmPGFVpdXo4KySrRgXX5Ngel0/s640/Foto+2016-03-07+14+38+28.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Summit pose. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNerNA_PJKNtpiF_o6MaGTo7mZ5wF5dAAhlxleKhyphenhyphenQ0NSEjJoLEUCXIqNK8HNoWbscy3Vm7b-hsYIuzUJdKXJkW92Jj7sZZfEHij8MGXYYQHVL1cEoURUyOwXHLoh1SWCtO0rgA4eiR8Y/s1600/Foto+2016-03-07+14+40+38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNerNA_PJKNtpiF_o6MaGTo7mZ5wF5dAAhlxleKhyphenhyphenQ0NSEjJoLEUCXIqNK8HNoWbscy3Vm7b-hsYIuzUJdKXJkW92Jj7sZZfEHij8MGXYYQHVL1cEoURUyOwXHLoh1SWCtO0rgA4eiR8Y/s640/Foto+2016-03-07+14+40+38.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">alternate summit pose. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96aB9xacqWuUaFmspekpLYjcEaiw1k2nDVHve55ogqvfT-cd-HsawnCHr-hs5fZ0a8uoXu2dKeBTXQJENbFmK-tKxa49ToVIsbIIFf2l13tMMw0tAC2zXuuRRe6EGFtOJwxk5CJ1qPQg/s1600/IMG_3878.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="414" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96aB9xacqWuUaFmspekpLYjcEaiw1k2nDVHve55ogqvfT-cd-HsawnCHr-hs5fZ0a8uoXu2dKeBTXQJENbFmK-tKxa49ToVIsbIIFf2l13tMMw0tAC2zXuuRRe6EGFtOJwxk5CJ1qPQg/s640/IMG_3878.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny demonstrating more summit pose, we weren't in much of a rush.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQhXhYSj07E4XuZduP9s_n2ntIfNkDvmDr2WweabaC4RH2fBplns0x0IP8XSMXHqJj6shpNrWRobV3x_mQHgqezV-iK2izYteSfPRAkshwe6zWAnaLqmW58WP7oCcTFVj5Kefse2cDmI/s1600/Foto+2016-03-07+14+53+03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQhXhYSj07E4XuZduP9s_n2ntIfNkDvmDr2WweabaC4RH2fBplns0x0IP8XSMXHqJj6shpNrWRobV3x_mQHgqezV-iK2izYteSfPRAkshwe6zWAnaLqmW58WP7oCcTFVj5Kefse2cDmI/s640/Foto+2016-03-07+14+53+03.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing some breakable crust in a new line which we called "Skorperenna". Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny in Skorperenna.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">B/W Skorperenna. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2wcElyv2UHi5Lc-so3Isz058IwFk5V6-TCn9yHohXxEUCjqhmmgKj8ijOp32GrCp0btz28xLHAmuxMU3rEk512VG56qZDSS2qRkwOGfxONKR5QeS-gRP8aw5Oqc-Aw2eHI70BC9mymkM/s1600/IMG_3871.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2wcElyv2UHi5Lc-so3Isz058IwFk5V6-TCn9yHohXxEUCjqhmmgKj8ijOp32GrCp0btz28xLHAmuxMU3rEk512VG56qZDSS2qRkwOGfxONKR5QeS-gRP8aw5Oqc-Aw2eHI70BC9mymkM/s640/IMG_3871.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skiing down to the fjord from Skorvetind.</td></tr>
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ftYZrqMt2S3eeBBtD5x5cFjsmgTsGBbERRqa5ojJFs4CcRTEq1J_vH273Eu09FW8i3gtCspA3u_t5Z3lAjU_A7IIsvlZ7eK5gV99cKiemAupARuSkavvndEzOPsf-qTqrhm1imXpUn4/s1600/IMG_3899.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ftYZrqMt2S3eeBBtD5x5cFjsmgTsGBbERRqa5ojJFs4CcRTEq1J_vH273Eu09FW8i3gtCspA3u_t5Z3lAjU_A7IIsvlZ7eK5gV99cKiemAupARuSkavvndEzOPsf-qTqrhm1imXpUn4/s640/IMG_3899.JPG" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This icefall provided just about our only reference point on the descent from Skittendalstind.</td></tr>
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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.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfQ7xElM3pGnW4RFQkePXALVv5dK1tjWNKLANEptSSmtPfqpR0X6whQfjji9K3R9sQwFfT_6SUKekVTLlANNhH8XeaC2mAwUDH18HfAQnoGHORCKakJWrPK3aIHpUzznCzLpj-FSBlqA/s1600/Foto+2016-03-09+08+57+24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfQ7xElM3pGnW4RFQkePXALVv5dK1tjWNKLANEptSSmtPfqpR0X6whQfjji9K3R9sQwFfT_6SUKekVTLlANNhH8XeaC2mAwUDH18HfAQnoGHORCKakJWrPK3aIHpUzznCzLpj-FSBlqA/s640/Foto+2016-03-09+08+57+24.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blåvatnshytta, another great DNT cabin to use as a base for ski touring. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6E3XoxQ7U_JzTnoB3ohCUL3plBSJ6cKWtf_TwlPd4RMIwBHtblEjQQFYOfErxGGcswuWhrhbM0lEBngCg4q836gtHkZkp2PuX4xE9UCNeqf0xg1FSGzGlbepXPwpmjsfZZ011TzPIZ1M/s1600/Foto+2016-03-09+11+19+53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6E3XoxQ7U_JzTnoB3ohCUL3plBSJ6cKWtf_TwlPd4RMIwBHtblEjQQFYOfErxGGcswuWhrhbM0lEBngCg4q836gtHkZkp2PuX4xE9UCNeqf0xg1FSGzGlbepXPwpmjsfZZ011TzPIZ1M/s640/Foto+2016-03-09+11+19+53.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning some windboard enroute to Stortind. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdk_6HwcLPvg6iKtW0dgTr2QAEoxoG3Tkm6rLESvU8YqLmkjfpyk_iqNimwbl2qCNOwPyYHojrqA0D_y01-1sKxGt22ye_hPmZlmHnBRFjGDghNM3taPE2M2mU8IvkOswZIX9RrJYmDDU/s1600/IMG_3933.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdk_6HwcLPvg6iKtW0dgTr2QAEoxoG3Tkm6rLESvU8YqLmkjfpyk_iqNimwbl2qCNOwPyYHojrqA0D_y01-1sKxGt22ye_hPmZlmHnBRFjGDghNM3taPE2M2mU8IvkOswZIX9RrJYmDDU/s640/IMG_3933.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny about to ski into the fjord on the descent from Stortind.</td></tr>
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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.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJiqDy1WR4esQAItqG_ZpHWu5wksXgURvBj6lK95Fe7MjHRg76m15uTM8uvtDFBy1cbKy_guZBBUUvp39PpHbNq773tkAyHN7C-P44ot5UqrCOm1nOurL07t6PSVYgvz1DDVbGB11afE/s1600/Foto+2016-03-21+11+17+33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJiqDy1WR4esQAItqG_ZpHWu5wksXgURvBj6lK95Fe7MjHRg76m15uTM8uvtDFBy1cbKy_guZBBUUvp39PpHbNq773tkAyHN7C-P44ot5UqrCOm1nOurL07t6PSVYgvz1DDVbGB11afE/s640/Foto+2016-03-21+11+17+33.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A scenic skintrack up from Årstein. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Practicing for the "Powder-8". Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny Skiing Tverfjellet.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny skiing fro Årsteinshorn.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last ski run of the day, from Årsteinshorn. Photo by Jenny</td></tr>
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-75325351720798495772015-11-18T11:13:00.000-08:002015-11-18T11:18:52.854-08:00R2R2R<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Five days after the bailing 64ish km into the Trans Zion I ran the R2R2R in the Grand Canyon. </div>
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Going in to the run I knew I'd have to be a little more focussed in terms of hyrdrating properly, to avoid a repeat of the debacle in Zion. But with the water sources spaced so conveniently on the main corridor trails in the canyon I knew this shouldn't be a problem.</div>
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I camped just outside the park and downed some coffee and a clifbar on the drive in. Starting out at 5:30am was cold and dark, but far from solitary: within the first 30 minutes I'd passed a total of something like 30 people, nearly all of them hiking in big gangs. Once the sun rose, the views were incredible and stayed that way for the entire day. Every single metre of the route was amazing, from the sweeping views close to the rim, to the choked sections down near the river. It was incredible and lived up to all expectations.</div>
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Its been nearly four weeks since the outing and I figure its better to simply publish these photos now than wait until I have time to write up a proper report on the day. A few quick facts: I started on the North Rim and ran up the South Kaibab Trail, which I reached in 4:20 before turning around and returning the same way. My roundtrip time was 10:00. </div>
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I drank a total of 12 litres of water! (I didn't think this would be possible, but I didn't have any stomach sloshing or discomfort- this felt like about the right amount of water for me given the heat. Interesting to note that this was about 3x more than I drank on the TransZion attempt).</div>
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Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-83091193553176615832015-11-08T09:43:00.000-08:002015-11-18T11:13:37.066-08:00Trans Zion attempt- part four of the US trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After a few days in SLC getting myself organised and renting a car, I drove south. I had two real objectives for the last 10 days of my trip: the Trans Zion run and the R2R2R in the Grand Canyon. Both classic test pieces of the trail running scene in the US southwest.<br />
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The big hurdle with trying to run across Zion solo was going to be the car shuttle, with the start/end trailheads being about 2 hours drive apart. I was tentatively planning on simply starting out early and trying to hitch-hike at the end of the day, but the prospect wasn't very enticing. I was stoked to learn that a mate of Tom's was planning on doing the run with his brother on the upcoming Saturday. Tom put me in touch with Lars and we made plans to meet at the East Rim TH on Friday evening and do a car shuttle together. Stoked!<br />
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On Friday I put in a water/coke cache where the trail intersects with the Kolob Terrace Road and swung by the backcountry desk at the gigantic Zion Visitor Centre, they gave me the latest info on what springs were flowing and I marked all the info on the map. Around 9pm Lars and Thomas met me at the TH and I jumped in with them for the drive back to Cedar City where we crashed at a hotel for a few hours sleep.<br />
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With a 4:15 alarm we were at the start of the trail at Lee Pass around 5am. We settled into a steady pace, running in the bubbles of light from our headlamps on the pleasant trail beside La Verkin Creek. It was a shame to miss the views here along the start of the trail, but with the prospect of a long day ahead and hot afternoon temperatures it definitely made sense to be starting at the time we did. I was carrying a topo map and Lars had the route downloaded onto his watch, but we nevertheless managed to run straight past the signed intersection with Hop Valley and continued up La Verkin Creek. It wasn't until we reached Bear Trap Canyon over 2km after the junction that our mistake dawned on us and our early start was made pointless. We backtracked to the main trail until we sheepishly reached the sign, which was indeed quite obvious now that the sun was rising and we could see a little better.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lars and Thomas heading into Hop Valley just after sunrise</td></tr>
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It says a lot about how beautiful Zion is to note that the section through Hop Valley is renowned for being the least interesting section of the entire trail. It is still pretty amazing! The trail is kind of sandy for a few kilometres which made travel slower and more tiring than it would otherwise have been.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dodging cow pats in the Hop Valley</td></tr>
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After about three hours (I can't remember any of our splits exactly...) we got to the cache and drank a few cold cokes and refilled the water bottles. The next section along the Wildcat Canyon trail featured some pretty scenery and plenty of shade from the trees. The trail very runable and while our pace wasn't fast it felt like we were maybe making up some time we'd lost earlier in the day. Doing the math in my head though I realised we were already quite a bit behind the expected splits.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lars on the Connector trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thomas and Lars on the Wildcat Canyon section</td></tr>
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We reached the West Rim TH after about 40km (including our little detour), and Thomas, who had been feeling pretty rough over the last few kilometres, decided to bail and hitch-hike over to Zion Valley. It was a shame that he couldn't continue on with us, but he hadn't been getting too much training in over the past few months and with another 42km left in the heat of the day he wasn't too optimistic about how he'd fare.<br />
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Lars and I continued on the West Rim trail. The scenery continued to be beautiful, however I started sagging badly: thirsty and unaccustomed to running in the heat. My water supplies (I was running with one 500ml softflask and a 1L flexi-bottle in my vest), were calculated for a slightly faster pace. But I found myself unable/unwilling to run a faster pace and so I was rationing my water... I was comforted by the knowledge that we'd reach the Cabin spring at kilometre 56 where I planned on catching up on my hydration before continuing on.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lars somewhere near Potato Hollow</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the West Rim trail</td></tr>
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Reaching the spring, my disappointment and shock was enough to cause a string of expletives; I'd envisioned a steady stream of water flowing over some rocks, maybe even a small trough which collected the water... What we found was a shallow trickle of scummy water about 5mm deep on top of some silty mud, which made filling my flask, without also filling it with mud, all but impossible. If I'd been using a life-straw I probably could have got enough to slake my thirst, but I was using iodine tabs...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibmG0ucSYJRfHJd-c6uS2WgERZnk5p94vl2RvL9CxuVdwJ_c-zCS83Ky1nUg8KEusHkQQzHMHw6legZCXRSJdZNaflSHGm1LdmKminBz1kV6f5XCg-94sdX0BFqc_TwV1Zx5I9HJWsvi8/s1600/IMG_2331.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibmG0ucSYJRfHJd-c6uS2WgERZnk5p94vl2RvL9CxuVdwJ_c-zCS83Ky1nUg8KEusHkQQzHMHw6legZCXRSJdZNaflSHGm1LdmKminBz1kV6f5XCg-94sdX0BFqc_TwV1Zx5I9HJWsvi8/s640/IMG_2331.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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We continued on but it was obvious that Lars, who is in an entirely different league as a runner, was being slowed to an awkwardly slow pace by my increasingly graceless attempt to run. I was feeling clumsy and foggy headed and I knew that water was the only thing which would set me straight. I struggled for a short while with the knowledge that running long distances on trails is by definition not meant to be easy, that overcoming some temporary struggle and challenge is what it's all about. These thoughts were balanced out by the uncertainty of how long it would take for me to start feeling good again once we reached the next water source at the 64km mark and the daunting prospect of having another 18km with around 1000metres of vertical in order to reach the car. Yet another thing to take into consideration was how much I was slowing down Lars. Running at someone else's pace for 1km is very different to doing that for 30+ km and I felt bad about forcing him to slow down so much. So after a quick chat I gave him the car keys and made plans to meet him in Zion Valley later that afternoon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZgIQENHiOfmdEfj4rCIg_YuXVZ673wr8zvlULnW8CPb6e3o7d51NmjMizbEJvzmC7_iusd95rh2zrv0AN7h_8plSu_kzgOGNv9iUKIJ0cY0UVoPl-QAUcmmM325a1Yxk-d6Sd_o63BCg/s1600/IMG_2361.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZgIQENHiOfmdEfj4rCIg_YuXVZ673wr8zvlULnW8CPb6e3o7d51NmjMizbEJvzmC7_iusd95rh2zrv0AN7h_8plSu_kzgOGNv9iUKIJ0cY0UVoPl-QAUcmmM325a1Yxk-d6Sd_o63BCg/s640/IMG_2361.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiuFCq6EJQxvl3KMzsAe-M2voL5vBdWWcY3m87CHwPPrKL9by_1yNw2Lm7cjkPH1KInRA3NPyNDLyPp0JlPuONbbFoqpV5hBysyLYtLTu9tvvAnF_vymS6qn2CKfqRVDeY_gKWHjz2oc/s1600/IMG_2357.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiuFCq6EJQxvl3KMzsAe-M2voL5vBdWWcY3m87CHwPPrKL9by_1yNw2Lm7cjkPH1KInRA3NPyNDLyPp0JlPuONbbFoqpV5hBysyLYtLTu9tvvAnF_vymS6qn2CKfqRVDeY_gKWHjz2oc/s640/IMG_2357.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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The final 10km into Zion Valley along the West Rim trail are mind bendingly beautiful, the scale of the sheer red cliffs really has to be experienced first hand. Even in my weary, dehydrated state I was able to appreciate and be blown away by the immensity of it all. The photos, as they say, don't do it justice, and while mostly I was fantasizing about getting some water and lying down in the river I was also thinking about the next time that I come to Zion and looking forward to running the trail in it's entirety.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last few kilometres to the valley floor are surreal, with the path carved out of the cliff.</td></tr>
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I reached the valley floor after 9 hours and roughly 65kms, feeling trashed and promptly drank about 4L of water and sat in the cold Virgin River thinking back over the day. Rather than feeling disappointed about not having completed the trail like planned I was feeling grateful for having seen so many incredible landscapes and also for having learned some valuable lessons about running in the heat and not trusting beta on water sources from employees of the US National Park Service.<br />
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-54806082942951411632015-10-31T09:53:00.001-07:002015-10-31T09:53:18.516-07:00Back to Utah- part three of the US trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I had a few big days on the bike getting from the Maroon Bells over to Moab. Highlights included soaking in the Penny hotsprings, the apples and cider near CedarEdge, a longer than expected climb up Grand Mesa and one confusing evening as I sat munching on another rice filled tortilla and noticed the moon was looking pretty strange and by the time I was on to my desert burrito it was totally eclipsed. I found out a few days later that this "blood moon" as the media were calling it was a major news item. Seeing it without any sort of expectation was pretty amazing, even if I was temporarily wondering if my eyes were playing up or the world was about to end.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHHT96UB791YWoWkF8CPpSKtXRmVf3eRIyIRCBudTagB0gsktUP3a461k7QYh1UjQImrfdVtB1mrqo0lzPQl2xgAm-p9jNQU9TQFselo2agOqx8zZmL0RLHvA5hAU9sEqdHDlaLzQtcqs/s1600/IMG_2175.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="368" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHHT96UB791YWoWkF8CPpSKtXRmVf3eRIyIRCBudTagB0gsktUP3a461k7QYh1UjQImrfdVtB1mrqo0lzPQl2xgAm-p9jNQU9TQFselo2agOqx8zZmL0RLHvA5hAU9sEqdHDlaLzQtcqs/s640/IMG_2175.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Morning coffee on Grand Mesa.</td></tr>
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Cycling in the desert required some strategy in terms of water access. I remember seeing people cycle across the Nullarbor Plain in Australia about ten years ago and thinking that they were masochists for riding somewhere so inhospitable and couldn't fathom the logistics and effort of having to carry so much water. Whilst cycling the Nullarbor still holds no appeal to me, the idea of carrying extra water to travel through such remarkable landscape now seems like a very small price to pay. The most I ended up carrying at any one time was 9 litres. </div>
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The ride through Castle Valley was particularly beautiful:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Colorado River and Castle Valley.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlwrT-7CKm3RsXR2LtTcvAyxvp4mvlgMdkqnneZ8noztQ5ixRw6vYdnDRywH79G-JpaGyM9iAOdP21YVu3iMjyDrFumF8oJd46c3KVMYWb6tSk47QZedG0qV9YhJWUjmgD7ZshSh3W0I/s1600/IMG_2189.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlwrT-7CKm3RsXR2LtTcvAyxvp4mvlgMdkqnneZ8noztQ5ixRw6vYdnDRywH79G-JpaGyM9iAOdP21YVu3iMjyDrFumF8oJd46c3KVMYWb6tSk47QZedG0qV9YhJWUjmgD7ZshSh3W0I/s640/IMG_2189.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Castle Valley</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9OYy0gn0YKtAcaZVsYcugcJR53yET_N5iMjNgr90gUJeszKgFBPK8jyVv7tBmCckrYBBMRNzCzKVTlbOPMCuSrneKJU3IXls53K5vG9_ihxEOOmJGuew_2OeAxExe9m_W8a1gRH_QnDI/s1600/IMG_2194.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9OYy0gn0YKtAcaZVsYcugcJR53yET_N5iMjNgr90gUJeszKgFBPK8jyVv7tBmCckrYBBMRNzCzKVTlbOPMCuSrneKJU3IXls53K5vG9_ihxEOOmJGuew_2OeAxExe9m_W8a1gRH_QnDI/s400/IMG_2194.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Castle Valley</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkus-1fE5J4gpAUsvIA6R9YRKrsYp86Zdpa7nQu8c1b1eZhdvPIpY5RgawM1LX88S5iHmSgkK0QbwMduFa-ppTadbr6ohQPOfhDxjfUQhuNNtx4EmwRmnHI-gviCmmg3TrDZEMf1WKMM/s1600/IMG_2225.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkus-1fE5J4gpAUsvIA6R9YRKrsYp86Zdpa7nQu8c1b1eZhdvPIpY5RgawM1LX88S5iHmSgkK0QbwMduFa-ppTadbr6ohQPOfhDxjfUQhuNNtx4EmwRmnHI-gviCmmg3TrDZEMf1WKMM/s640/IMG_2225.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I had a nice sunrise trail run around the Fisher Towers</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiwp8gynpOJLmc4N4jKJykSxi0J1Z7ctByGQMBCaJTV3K2cEkOEe6jm36F7V3Z0lPKbfeIjj5jyuzdjGwRv0t8u2-HlWqSpfKgU_Ow4Y5xeczdLxL4jR8ajfxhyphenhyphen-Hjanbo7dEO7wsQL-o/s1600/IMG_2234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiwp8gynpOJLmc4N4jKJykSxi0J1Z7ctByGQMBCaJTV3K2cEkOEe6jm36F7V3Z0lPKbfeIjj5jyuzdjGwRv0t8u2-HlWqSpfKgU_Ow4Y5xeczdLxL4jR8ajfxhyphenhyphen-Hjanbo7dEO7wsQL-o/s640/IMG_2234.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting close to Moab, their was even a designated bike path.</td></tr>
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I had a few uneventful days around Moab and then rode up to Green River where I met Tom who'd driven down from SLC that same morning. We met at a food truck and chowed down on delicious mexican food before taking apart my bike and putting it in Tom's car for the drive to the Henry Mountains. This small range in southern central Utah holds special significance to me, after having seen it from the back seat of a Jeep whilst on the Burr Trail about ten years ago and having promised myself that one day I would return and spend some time in those remote peaks on the horizon. They were the last mountain range in the lower 48 to be surveyed. And their location sandwiched between the low elevation Canyonlands NP and Capitol Reef NP belies their impressive prominence, with Mt. Ellen Peak rising 1800m above the surrounding area.<br />
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I was mistakenly under the impression that the access roads were extremely rough and that simply getting to the trailhead was going to be a serious undertaking in itself. However between Tom's rally skills and what turned out to be an incredible spiderweb of BLM roads, we soon found ourselves parked at 10,500 feet. The run to the summit of Mt. Ellen was a short one on a trail the whole way, reaching the peak was somehow anti-climatic after imagining the range as being so remote. Back at the car we didn't waste much time in deciding that we should definitely drive around to the southern end of the range and tag the summit of Pennel- the second highest in the range.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJ884xipNrYCPClZk4mJGgM3uOP7ZECW2QgNO-fxNcy5TPq5y11ggKDCp9ghyMljbw9sN5jWAmgCZStkSO_98k4uA6edXLthcrzYyRO5CAxTco4HcuGx93rufOXjv-A6dSLXMrIz_2xU/s1600/IMG_2247.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWJ884xipNrYCPClZk4mJGgM3uOP7ZECW2QgNO-fxNcy5TPq5y11ggKDCp9ghyMljbw9sN5jWAmgCZStkSO_98k4uA6edXLthcrzYyRO5CAxTco4HcuGx93rufOXjv-A6dSLXMrIz_2xU/s640/IMG_2247.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking East from the summit of Mt. Ellen</td></tr>
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The route we took up Pennel's north ridge proved to be much more interesting than Ellen. The views across the desert were immense, and a fire which went through a few years back has cleared alot of the vegetation and left some really beautiful char black trees. Talk immediately switched to how great the skiing would no doubt be on the NE face. It's a bit of a journey to get there from Norway, but I'm sure Tom & co will get some amazing skiing there in the not too distant future.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70SvWQJdnjPQ7bhutxfyTk2vINNAMM-a9yKmbBc9PkOC9jbxtjNi5CuNyb9A0IyCWKtdqsN5D0zH7BbzocNzvj0UoL640mo5KN5S5f0oiym4BSxxPqi0M8koXdxp44pm5M4feMI3ZFmU/s1600/IMG_2253.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70SvWQJdnjPQ7bhutxfyTk2vINNAMM-a9yKmbBc9PkOC9jbxtjNi5CuNyb9A0IyCWKtdqsN5D0zH7BbzocNzvj0UoL640mo5KN5S5f0oiym4BSxxPqi0M8koXdxp44pm5M4feMI3ZFmU/s640/IMG_2253.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On Mt. Pennel, looking over towards Hillers, Holmes and Ellsworth</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIUDlVbrDCmLwR4C9H9H37mjCkShNWqoO5JRCjGo9C3fFHj0jc_wyMkP98ZQn83WeL0-Xlt2uYTpThkQFvLQJTiAmVxKMAwH9Ulv7NOS-AVyo0Frv5qeXhncMVzPqQ-YQyvDKvBJFa80/s1600/IMG_2257.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFIUDlVbrDCmLwR4C9H9H37mjCkShNWqoO5JRCjGo9C3fFHj0jc_wyMkP98ZQn83WeL0-Xlt2uYTpThkQFvLQJTiAmVxKMAwH9Ulv7NOS-AVyo0Frv5qeXhncMVzPqQ-YQyvDKvBJFa80/s640/IMG_2257.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Running back to the car on Pennel's north ridge</td></tr>
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We drove back to SLC that night ( after a brief stop in Green River for another mexican food truck feast) arriving around 1am. The following day after an enjoyably lazy morning we went for another run along a route which Tom had been wanting to do for a while, and apparently now was the time to do it because the rattlesnakes which like to hang out on the ridge should be gone, I really hoped Tom was right about this last bit...</div>
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We started out at the crack of 1pm and went up Grandeur, down the other side and then up Desolation Trail, once we gained the Wild Cat Ridge we followed it over Triangle and onwards to Olympus. The section along Wild Cat was particularly fun, lots of class 3 terrain and a bit of route selection in order to find the best line over/around all the minor highpoints. By the time we reached Olympus the sun was just setting and we tried to descend quickly, not having any headlamps and knowing that our pace was going to be forced to slow to a walk in the impending darkness. Thankfully Dom was able to pick us up from the Olympus TH, thus avoiding the run back to the car. It was a great run, and satisfying to get some first hand experience on these peaks which I'm so familiar with from reading blogposts.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguuJaidISVGl1pZ1seUx5bHxMCOMjkDMOqGxuX5Hnrd8KHn6pWHQCRLWwXdPCtZVuuicpUCvUHCWzA_JpHgLkDJATm99NlnBIMd4VhpUTVUSZi49xUTorSPgwUrwj96eXA5PLZTDC24UQ/s1600/IMG_2263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguuJaidISVGl1pZ1seUx5bHxMCOMjkDMOqGxuX5Hnrd8KHn6pWHQCRLWwXdPCtZVuuicpUCvUHCWzA_JpHgLkDJATm99NlnBIMd4VhpUTVUSZi49xUTorSPgwUrwj96eXA5PLZTDC24UQ/s640/IMG_2263.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the Wild Cat Ridge, excited to see a dusting of snow on what I think is the Broads Fork Twins</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmHnHIHpY8HabwbgVF90uQFaRlL1Uwh1yWd6KVSiozsjRfcIP3z5YLxjafaLd_nOP9OoXhZR8V11pittjKAOZn3cUuacEe7Rr7oOSCN66aNirmx9XnvA9c9aYIGUpDBgFAPOVcswBtMw/s1600/IMG_2265.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmHnHIHpY8HabwbgVF90uQFaRlL1Uwh1yWd6KVSiozsjRfcIP3z5YLxjafaLd_nOP9OoXhZR8V11pittjKAOZn3cUuacEe7Rr7oOSCN66aNirmx9XnvA9c9aYIGUpDBgFAPOVcswBtMw/s640/IMG_2265.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bit of route scouting was called for at times, but there was always a simple way around.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ_JsZ070Qc_zF_3NjThdNDyu88UB5zUpkblukSE-Qalq-Nd97BMu_XxesbfO5sn0AaLKR5Ib0IDB9oa22v1xTSmR8Fl7xy343jn19kiHv6lzxGtFp4QeXlRdfAwv1f1n_dpxmnsz_cWo/s1600/IMG_2271.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ_JsZ070Qc_zF_3NjThdNDyu88UB5zUpkblukSE-Qalq-Nd97BMu_XxesbfO5sn0AaLKR5Ib0IDB9oa22v1xTSmR8Fl7xy343jn19kiHv6lzxGtFp4QeXlRdfAwv1f1n_dpxmnsz_cWo/s640/IMG_2271.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've said it before and I'll say it again: SLC has some amazing mountains right next to suburbia.</td></tr>
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And we didn't see any rattlesnakes.</div>
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Another post or two coming about an aborted attempt at the TransZion and a successful attempt at the R2R2R.</div>
<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-17600231985817188292015-10-25T11:07:00.000-07:002015-10-25T11:07:15.679-07:00In The High Country- part two of my recent trip<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Leaving Crested Butte saw a change in my style of travel- rather than covering many miles each day on the bike the focus was shifted to running up the 14'ers of the Sawatch and simply using the bike as transport between campsites. World class mountain trails are pretty dense in this part of the world, and I only planned on cycling about 250km over the next week and a half.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ZlH8TstqRxVFVFnw_vjgBgZYo0z4W-OAHIp-N3uPRwfpTQzzYJ2kQ68SAvj5__yaUk2RnkQzVd7dwSpOEGIWe-ZlexL2X5aP6za8Vn_CqQ0qfL0Uu6wWIAHXzZFeQRCGVEbvzSyStXs/s1600/IMG_1967.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ZlH8TstqRxVFVFnw_vjgBgZYo0z4W-OAHIp-N3uPRwfpTQzzYJ2kQ68SAvj5__yaUk2RnkQzVd7dwSpOEGIWe-ZlexL2X5aP6za8Vn_CqQ0qfL0Uu6wWIAHXzZFeQRCGVEbvzSyStXs/s400/IMG_1967.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mandatory bike portrait on a mountain pass. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjqDCD3Jeyhg5LD3vAm8Yt8axwrkXNYFdcxB1zSD6Fc86wPrxax7nE4To4UA-9vfu5e-HOjQNRvuMWeccgPk-Eek68zgpUQifn3Esheu8NQvdSI3Wi4OXldq11aYeEEpb9CDZuzwR6INY/s1600/IMG_1943.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjqDCD3Jeyhg5LD3vAm8Yt8axwrkXNYFdcxB1zSD6Fc86wPrxax7nE4To4UA-9vfu5e-HOjQNRvuMWeccgPk-Eek68zgpUQifn3Esheu8NQvdSI3Wi4OXldq11aYeEEpb9CDZuzwR6INY/s640/IMG_1943.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After grinding uphill for hours on a dirt road to a 3700m pass, the 30km, 1200metre coasting descent felt pretty nice.</td></tr>
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I cycled from Crested Butte over the Cottonwood pass and ran up Yale that same afternoon. The following day I rode through Buena Vista and stocked up on food for a few days of camping near the ghost town of Winfield, an area I'd be able to base myself in for 5 different 14'ers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaBZNBWxu9WTy6XtNJ1MJN3O8IlR6p870cRkKhtj1PYZfuhd_kTRkTkKwOfkzYtDMmIPDHIYXukNFPDe61LjFrgTOhnx920MJ-94h944GKva3RdqlDSXvAc58XTamN05zkL8Lposi_zII/s1600/IMG_1954.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaBZNBWxu9WTy6XtNJ1MJN3O8IlR6p870cRkKhtj1PYZfuhd_kTRkTkKwOfkzYtDMmIPDHIYXukNFPDe61LjFrgTOhnx920MJ-94h944GKva3RdqlDSXvAc58XTamN05zkL8Lposi_zII/s400/IMG_1954.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After the ride over from Crested Butte, I figured I still had enough time in the day to tag the summit of Yale. <br />I made back down to the TH just as the sun was setting.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpi_jqYoJY_zTpkcn7qnJ8lR4w7JdYt6HXTqQBbZ9YoXRi2REgY0cfMzhIofmTjg0FCX8GPnARW5rYyI9B5ojIfAWJtEePUPRp6nFUqgNc42krkNcipzI2sFnIfC7KkWib7J26OrISH1E/s1600/IMG_1968.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpi_jqYoJY_zTpkcn7qnJ8lR4w7JdYt6HXTqQBbZ9YoXRi2REgY0cfMzhIofmTjg0FCX8GPnARW5rYyI9B5ojIfAWJtEePUPRp6nFUqgNc42krkNcipzI2sFnIfC7KkWib7J26OrISH1E/s640/IMG_1968.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty colours in the hills on the ride up to the ghost town of Winfield</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxBPdRd93LVmoLntZJJD2tWpDMMSXr8U_Ul9LO5Pp52H60eRCU6XsxoCrJUS8GGa-eeIMTiYpiw048HKH-SNepN0DTMaUmcsbWXN86xbwlsSsmDAbYNet-hDvCVLtZKVmv6S8lHCdWZQ/s1600/IMG_1976.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxBPdRd93LVmoLntZJJD2tWpDMMSXr8U_Ul9LO5Pp52H60eRCU6XsxoCrJUS8GGa-eeIMTiYpiw048HKH-SNepN0DTMaUmcsbWXN86xbwlsSsmDAbYNet-hDvCVLtZKVmv6S8lHCdWZQ/s640/IMG_1976.JPG" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I spent three nights in this idealic campsite, whilst running a few of the surrounding peaks.</td></tr>
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My first day in the Winfield zone was my 30th birthday and I decided to celebrate with one summit for each decade. Linking together Missouri, Oxford and Belford is a really logical route which doesn't involve much backtracking, but which features a lot of ridge running, with expansive views and fun trails. The weather was perfect and ,with none of the infamous afternoon thunder storms which Colorado is known for, I had a sleep in and didn't start out till 9am.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyX64gW8lI8-9dHgWvNp4R8ssNIZrf0Vc93AaZRaG2yE8NY8YKbVaPsdD4idav0b1qHLRBXIe0eCr87mtmRIJnwe1vCEILICwA2-JjJ6npUf-xUUQ_ZtFmkX9cyc2rsx0H_nJLIPSLyao/s1600/IMG_1980.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyX64gW8lI8-9dHgWvNp4R8ssNIZrf0Vc93AaZRaG2yE8NY8YKbVaPsdD4idav0b1qHLRBXIe0eCr87mtmRIJnwe1vCEILICwA2-JjJ6npUf-xUUQ_ZtFmkX9cyc2rsx0H_nJLIPSLyao/s640/IMG_1980.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enroute to Missouri, the first summit of the day.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Second on the list for the outing was Oxford</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhna19l_Rzv8JXmJkjwlXkcP-3RYz1WzNSHjAqbIDl1m6oZPuOqhMZwUT-SuZOCgyhQZBgQitzzQ8JbMKF5h7f4BgIplCYUaeB19U5PsIDJ71HvgXpSwn9NXuXspmhQte4pqjKf0sOq3Dg/s1600/IMG_2008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhna19l_Rzv8JXmJkjwlXkcP-3RYz1WzNSHjAqbIDl1m6oZPuOqhMZwUT-SuZOCgyhQZBgQitzzQ8JbMKF5h7f4BgIplCYUaeB19U5PsIDJ71HvgXpSwn9NXuXspmhQte4pqjKf0sOq3Dg/s640/IMG_2008.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the third summit: Belford, note the mountain goats in the middle of the photo.</td></tr>
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My round trip time for the three peaks was 5:50 and I spent the rest of the afternoon eating, reading and enjoying the amazing campsite.<br />
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For my second day in the area I decided to tag two more summits, despite being one summit less than the previous day this was a bigger day, both in terms of vertical and distance. First I cycled up to Winfield and locked my bike to a tree before heading up Huron. Being a weekend the crowds were out in force: I think I must have passed close to 100 people on the way to the summit. I've never experienced anything quite like it. Most people seemed pretty perplexed by the sight of someone running, some were friendly and encouraging, others were disparaging and spoke to me as though I was trying to show off or be overtly competitive. Rather than bothering to explain I just tried to smile and said hello as I hopped off the trail to get past them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZyy5stGj8VJcEWqnrqJt2ZcQNQljT5nOQ39HBCKcvIpbY3amn9i6YxO1M3B83IDgQlPFX8lA6KHz9IeOV7ITKc0fHs4ZWhABCm67nqqJjCq4D4cO7Dr-IGbp-3LOv5bHA3XbAEvZMoA/s1600/IMG_2031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZyy5stGj8VJcEWqnrqJt2ZcQNQljT5nOQ39HBCKcvIpbY3amn9i6YxO1M3B83IDgQlPFX8lA6KHz9IeOV7ITKc0fHs4ZWhABCm67nqqJjCq4D4cO7Dr-IGbp-3LOv5bHA3XbAEvZMoA/s400/IMG_2031.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Busy day on Huron</td></tr>
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I reached the summit (1:07) where a crowd of about 15 people were lounging around and after a quick snack went back down the way I'd come up (1:55 roundtrip). I rode the bike a mile over to the Winfield cemetery and set out on La Plata, this trail isn't the standard route up the peak, so it was much less busy. I think I only saw about 10 people on the way up. The trail was immaculate though and it made for really nice running, except for the last few hundred metres on big, loose talus.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjZPQpSZ1pa7o8OemKSGnC0pfgyJ-D9EEDxW6YOy9f58lyq6tteOjmK7wLloG28gHCL2rVmUzem5qCq24eF7GJXoAKC0sb8kgFwor5SSJnC9LLt1RWJlQhlM5jHyVZhzrnta7MXcd12Pg/s1600/IMG_2039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjZPQpSZ1pa7o8OemKSGnC0pfgyJ-D9EEDxW6YOy9f58lyq6tteOjmK7wLloG28gHCL2rVmUzem5qCq24eF7GJXoAKC0sb8kgFwor5SSJnC9LLt1RWJlQhlM5jHyVZhzrnta7MXcd12Pg/s640/IMG_2039.JPG" width="438" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Smooth alpine singletrack- exactly what I came here for. </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTdSwqW2lbAC_CfM3e6ka9YxeewRNDl-9LK34CKin0TIg6JJz9TM9dDtWtTPZrIaXFFmyMnHItqvBdDCH8vj0AmntiDdykkveI4QHys36F1ExMmTPmXF9tSO0OsEhvHqqVXTWUKwuu-c/s1600/IMG_2051.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWTdSwqW2lbAC_CfM3e6ka9YxeewRNDl-9LK34CKin0TIg6JJz9TM9dDtWtTPZrIaXFFmyMnHItqvBdDCH8vj0AmntiDdykkveI4QHys36F1ExMmTPmXF9tSO0OsEhvHqqVXTWUKwuu-c/s640/IMG_2051.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More trailporn</td></tr>
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The next day I rode 50km in to Leadville with a horrendous headwind the entire way which slowed my pace to around 15km/h. I spent the remainder of the day resting in town with bbq and belated birthday beers, having just completed one of the biggest weeks of training in my life: 122km/8550m/22 hours of mountain running and 250km/3000m of cycling.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoypSDnrywv5x74X-grVqMv24HLZ0FJ7Gv_ZDCeTAV6Z0SYuInzX8Ny0gRzlK_94aJJQS8GBzxabrculpv4qEc6Efw_kAw9yQh3O7Zbi1ZsPLVSNThp-hZkiSKtyokaajzkoBBq9IlBHU/s1600/IMG_2071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoypSDnrywv5x74X-grVqMv24HLZ0FJ7Gv_ZDCeTAV6Z0SYuInzX8Ny0gRzlK_94aJJQS8GBzxabrculpv4qEc6Efw_kAw9yQh3O7Zbi1ZsPLVSNThp-hZkiSKtyokaajzkoBBq9IlBHU/s400/IMG_2071.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was standing next to my bike drinking some chocolate milk straight from the 2L bottle when this fellow wandered over. Bill Dooper- "The Ultimate Fan", made famous by Salomon in <a href="https://vimeo.com/118818029" target="_blank">this video.</a> A nice bloke, he'd just gotten back from spectating at Run Rabbit Run.</td></tr>
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The following morning I restocked food supplies and rode a short distance to the next TH, having a few hours of light left in the day I ran a nice loop on Mt. Elbert (up the NE ridge, down the E ridge and back along the Colorado Trail) 3:30 for the loop.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhJZwZkaQnzkBV2fXWOREovLpM65VVTpe-2xW59tcZHdmVlNUIKFB0YI4uQtbLPRVfpxoDgfRJAbZ6wTT6_ohhtIJhCQSySt4XIEKiAmdFWlFxi6x0fvYzixCjRM9tx7E_uRBlMestyc/s1600/IMG_2072.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhJZwZkaQnzkBV2fXWOREovLpM65VVTpe-2xW59tcZHdmVlNUIKFB0YI4uQtbLPRVfpxoDgfRJAbZ6wTT6_ohhtIJhCQSySt4XIEKiAmdFWlFxi6x0fvYzixCjRM9tx7E_uRBlMestyc/s640/IMG_2072.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As is common in mountains, the highest ones aren't usually as interesting as the slightly smaller ones.<br />This shows the final section to Elbert's summit.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLd9vHOD66dRHpjL3pk9gjNYmZ95egZUVEW122bPLbzg-oAyVz61YGBT3LsCVaiXyGQJbW1S5GJVeFykR_lblTwlAsBpbxjTKK_X_7-GyYozZXvmClueRDgleJ9CZ1MoEmKkJcijgOgM/s1600/IMG_2082.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLd9vHOD66dRHpjL3pk9gjNYmZ95egZUVEW122bPLbzg-oAyVz61YGBT3LsCVaiXyGQJbW1S5GJVeFykR_lblTwlAsBpbxjTKK_X_7-GyYozZXvmClueRDgleJ9CZ1MoEmKkJcijgOgM/s640/IMG_2082.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fast running down Elbert.</td></tr>
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The next day I ran Mt Massive from the same campsite. My legs weren't feeling very peppy and I found myself power hiking sections of trail which I normally would've been happy to run. It was damn nice to be out in the mountains though and the trail was nearly empty except for a small herd of mountain goats who were hogging the trail. We had a stare down, they won. I kept my distance and watched as they scampered around on the rocky ridge, showing me how it's done.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77mcAy1AuQdbmIJdwpRHStXQpFPe2PywlkvvWP6R0bzdb2dSlc4voM3xqEGcC-xqD7eNXRJkzs6p21QGM9yvArUzFQfhPig4GS0fYp7KbbqhaW2ipF_VGAauKZfMLLnELjVLfDNPFzZM/s1600/IMG_2111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77mcAy1AuQdbmIJdwpRHStXQpFPe2PywlkvvWP6R0bzdb2dSlc4voM3xqEGcC-xqD7eNXRJkzs6p21QGM9yvArUzFQfhPig4GS0fYp7KbbqhaW2ipF_VGAauKZfMLLnELjVLfDNPFzZM/s400/IMG_2111.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These fellas were hanging out near the summit of Massive, completely unperturbed by my presence.</td></tr>
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The next day it was back on the bike and over another high pass: Independence, and a screaming fast descent to Aspen. I took another easy day here, resting up for the next day by eating donuts and catching up on emails at the public library (just like the last time I was in Aspen 7 years earlier).<br />
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The next day featured a trail I'd been looking forward to since before the trip: the renowned Four Pass Loop around the Maroon Bells, a 45km route with 2400m of vert which is usually done as a multi-day hiking trip but which also has a reputation as one of the best runs of it's length in the the USA. It's seen a healthy amount of competition for its FKT from some big name American trail runners; Krupicka, Ricky Gates and Sage Cannaday have all held the fastest time at some point, and I figured that the trail must have demanded so much attention for a reason. It definitely lived up to the hype!<br />
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Here's a few photos from the day:<br />
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My time ended up being 6:54, including a lot of photo stops and time spent gaping at the incredible scenery. Topping out on the third pass of the day I realised how close to Crested Butte I was again and started dreaming about a potential longer route which would head to Gothic and back via the Conundrum trail- something to look forward to the next time I'm in this part of the world.<br />
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Another post coming soon about riding over to Moab, Utah and checking out the Henry Moutains.<br />
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-67774042036610777092015-10-24T13:46:00.001-07:002015-10-24T13:50:12.472-07:00USA from a bike seat- part one of my recent tripNow ensconced back in Norway I thought I ought to post a few photos and share a few highlights and incidental memories from my recent trip stateside. The posts are necessarily going to be quite dense because I can't see myself taking the time to properly document a 7 week trip filled with innumerable memorable moments.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The trip
started in Salt Lake City, where I was put up by the ever gracious and generous
Miles and Erin. It was awesome to see them again after so many years and they
showed me a really good time: Oktoberfest at Snowbird, the Spiral Jetty, delicious food in SLC’s many
eating joints and afternoon beers on the porch.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-JmM-J03sLsNyBGpJcNDEbO1pAZhRaXJhtALd4BUQjuVAaNv8vSXVI0tFSun-dnc4yrcnoSqahhnng9-L9UUL6Tw4X8lgE4Tadu9AFVKFPUaPAxvf7EVV3kCknK_yqz18A5H0y02TqI0/s1600/IMG_1788.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-JmM-J03sLsNyBGpJcNDEbO1pAZhRaXJhtALd4BUQjuVAaNv8vSXVI0tFSun-dnc4yrcnoSqahhnng9-L9UUL6Tw4X8lgE4Tadu9AFVKFPUaPAxvf7EVV3kCknK_yqz18A5H0y02TqI0/s640/IMG_1788.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The otherwordly <a href="http://www.diaart.org/sites/main/spiraljetty" target="_blank">Spiral Jetty</a>, most impressive was the pink coloured water of the lake itself which we wandered over the salt flats to dip our toes in. Photo: Miles</td></tr>
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I got a couple really nice runs in whilst in SLC, including Grandeur and Pfeifferhorn. The heat and altitude were a far cry from what I’m used to in Norway, but the sweet trails and incredible views more than compensated for any of that.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4H42toZtq7STQbAkF4J106c-EWFDgfofBRynu5PaWTfaTHC83uJCbb7f-pzX9rAzmH6EFV1jc6f9SPUUYGCbGiJYc7qZzBThK1ozj4rs0i6gF3tsv-Xe7QdugVYpflOA03gu2H_D9Bs/s1600/IMG_1787.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4H42toZtq7STQbAkF4J106c-EWFDgfofBRynu5PaWTfaTHC83uJCbb7f-pzX9rAzmH6EFV1jc6f9SPUUYGCbGiJYc7qZzBThK1ozj4rs0i6gF3tsv-Xe7QdugVYpflOA03gu2H_D9Bs/s640/IMG_1787.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From trail on the backside of Grandeur. Not too many cities the size of SLC can boast such incredible access to real mountains and an amazing network of quality trails.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM-9o18-2Z4DalqlrwYqiZRQ149unc4s5FN35BYwcqVUTTe70dauqdDKg_3olElTaZof7bkLRIo3cd3MK4c95J_c7ZBzm5GKJ-xZuHH7eA8qwSmnJW_qqkI8tWoXkt2ePuq9mXdjlcRl8/s1600/IMG_1803.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM-9o18-2Z4DalqlrwYqiZRQ149unc4s5FN35BYwcqVUTTe70dauqdDKg_3olElTaZof7bkLRIo3cd3MK4c95J_c7ZBzm5GKJ-xZuHH7eA8qwSmnJW_qqkI8tWoXkt2ePuq9mXdjlcRl8/s640/IMG_1803.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Went for a run with the speedy Tom Goth on the Pfeiff. It's hard to keep up with him, but I like running with him all the same.</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">After
waiting a few more days than I had planned, my new bicycle finally arrived at
the store and the next morning I set out; clad in lycra and with a mixture of
excitement and apprehension at the prospect of having 700km of road to ride
over the following 6 days in order to make it to Crested Butte for a WFR
re-cert I was enrolled in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-gzplEsNwV5by4joV7105CKfMdjSR4RnvO7_ud6V5j_l6PD5FqtiPZfmempDtcJSTVq-amTwqZa6u8PU3mQ71HvTGNYZcHu6u7jZF_RuimVVsYCsR4ujYJa5mQNPv3ik_dNu1s_O3LtQ/s1600/IMG_1810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-gzplEsNwV5by4joV7105CKfMdjSR4RnvO7_ud6V5j_l6PD5FqtiPZfmempDtcJSTVq-amTwqZa6u8PU3mQ71HvTGNYZcHu6u7jZF_RuimVVsYCsR4ujYJa5mQNPv3ik_dNu1s_O3LtQ/s640/IMG_1810.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On a backroad in between Altonah and Monarch in northern Utah. I fell in love with my bike when I discovered how well it handled the dirt/gravel as well as being super comfortable and fast on paved roads.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4w0QwkK6n2MPaxvxURc9Dj3Q0EG74TTLlWQWG3xkcfjj2F4klHfiXlXL4dEooFbD7FojE33bK658yjryecNqMVueQzA3-6ITcUZBDSgf3UlWigkq_VOnw8B6T7d2VUwZhS7OUWemGvlE/s1600/IMG_1820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4w0QwkK6n2MPaxvxURc9Dj3Q0EG74TTLlWQWG3xkcfjj2F4klHfiXlXL4dEooFbD7FojE33bK658yjryecNqMVueQzA3-6ITcUZBDSgf3UlWigkq_VOnw8B6T7d2VUwZhS7OUWemGvlE/s400/IMG_1820.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm used to seeing empty beer bottles and cigarettes along the roadside which people have thrown out of cars. This was the first time I've found a pistol though.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGOl5dQCzl_WA2ILqUbI9SGxfyntnTacTELiZsXAu0eqOP_qpYfy7XOIs1X8-a0GiPrQT2nbGp9IIus1c8L58qE8JiWn-T29mz4If6dguw3x9YN22gt7AQJ37abmWPrEcuv502LbOoLQw/s1600/IMG_1816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGOl5dQCzl_WA2ILqUbI9SGxfyntnTacTELiZsXAu0eqOP_qpYfy7XOIs1X8-a0GiPrQT2nbGp9IIus1c8L58qE8JiWn-T29mz4If6dguw3x9YN22gt7AQJ37abmWPrEcuv502LbOoLQw/s640/IMG_1816.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photos can never do justice to the immensity of a landscape, so you'll just have to take my word for it...</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Compared to
the bike tours I’ve done it Europe the key challenges I discovered to cycling
in the US can be boiled down to: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US"> 1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Finding campsites when there are “Private
Property/ No Trespassing” signs posted every 20 metres along the road for what
seemed like 100km stretches. (Compare this to “allemannsretten” which
makes free camping easy.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US"> 2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Lack of regular access to water (not
surprising given how arid most of Utah and Colorado is- apart from the
mountains). (Compared to perpetually rainy Norway, where you pass a stream of clean water
seeminly every few minutes on a bike).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US"> 3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Some busy roads being unavoidable
and having nearly non-existent shoulders. (I guess even the rural areas I've cycled in the past have been more densely populated so there have been more roads to choose from.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">None of these
problems were hard to overcome though. And the simple solutions I found were:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US"> 1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Simply riding a little bit further
each day until either a) a decent campsite presented itself or b) I became too
tired to care and found somewhere atleast discrete enough to go unnoticed. Once
I got into the mountains again it was easy to find great camping, and Forest
Service areas in particular allow dispersed camping in really beautiful areas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-US"> 2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-US">Gas stations, which are common
enough, turned into my typical water refill stations. Or, if I was in the mood, I
could get a half gallon cup of Root Beer with ice. Also having a 6L MSR
dromedary was key to having enough water to ride stretches where there were no
gas stations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;"> 3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">If it was possible: timing my travel
on the sections of busy road to early morning, when there wasn’t as much
traffic certainly helped. Otherwise it was simply a matter of seeking out the
quiet back roads.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLoWOjufAonSvEp14_XbmVP2UysKSXJfoKsLhEQS0opJFmBc4zW0jyx3xYBDrA-4Ai8wQcgwUdahUy2_t5KctTzn9srpdsZEkkTCCeu90iFjfRhHWDAczrvkoVoPQbJlZWeBeOevBlypc/s1600/IMG_1826.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLoWOjufAonSvEp14_XbmVP2UysKSXJfoKsLhEQS0opJFmBc4zW0jyx3xYBDrA-4Ai8wQcgwUdahUy2_t5KctTzn9srpdsZEkkTCCeu90iFjfRhHWDAczrvkoVoPQbJlZWeBeOevBlypc/s640/IMG_1826.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Sopris as seen from the road near Carbondale, despite being just underr 13,000 ft. this mountain offers the biggest vertical you can ski in Colorado: apparently 6500 feet or 2000 metres.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdfrj6wOj1I_6ubgJb4_tjOhrG7a-JreAPa2B0RwMtgUosmNzRxdrtu-8ozcXJ7TL582CrtNgRclxFeu7MlxFddaj-etDdjOVlSrFKu1EJE2K7pO1GUNUDto1lR0C2Om1Ck8ARiWhE7Yk/s1600/IMG_1864.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdfrj6wOj1I_6ubgJb4_tjOhrG7a-JreAPa2B0RwMtgUosmNzRxdrtu-8ozcXJ7TL582CrtNgRclxFeu7MlxFddaj-etDdjOVlSrFKu1EJE2K7pO1GUNUDto1lR0C2Om1Ck8ARiWhE7Yk/s400/IMG_1864.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carb loading. This was a typical dinner: flavoured rice and cheese in a tortilla. I'd usually start with one as an appetizer then eat two for my main, and then finish up with one more for dessert.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I averaged about 140km and 1400 metres of vertical per day for the first five days, and before I knew it I was in Crested Butte ahead of schedule. I camped out in the mountains 10 miles out of town for a few days, went running in the mountains, swimming in icy cold lakes and was kept awake at night by bugling Elk, which is pretty terrifying when its pitch black, you're half asleep and you have no idea what an bugling Elk sounds like. You can close your eyes and imagine whilst listening to this: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSpGd9p17n0&ab_channel=gregbalvin" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSpGd9p17n0&ab_channel=gregbalvin</a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2wwjZkSMlXqiPIbUMxLh2c2IiTGbH3PYwPqd37CpAe7hoJ1IvcVyQ1M8GB-CyjU8ckaX4tuq3U6dJ4Rbb8wndB6EVjmqm4hM6M-y-8XI5qXmEW5e5ITQy4dt1OvM0lfKa4O2tkEknvEo/s1600/IMG_1837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2wwjZkSMlXqiPIbUMxLh2c2IiTGbH3PYwPqd37CpAe7hoJ1IvcVyQ1M8GB-CyjU8ckaX4tuq3U6dJ4Rbb8wndB6EVjmqm4hM6M-y-8XI5qXmEW5e5ITQy4dt1OvM0lfKa4O2tkEknvEo/s640/IMG_1837.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last of several passes I cycled over enroute to Crested Butte was Kebler. The views were stunning and people driving by were very friendly, offering watermelon and encouragement.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Having never
been to Crested Butte I based my expectations of the place on Aspen, but I was
happy to discover that the place has a much more local and welcoming atmosphere
than the famous town on the other side of the mountains. It might be related to
the time of year I was there (prime shoulder season) but everyone I met was
super friendly and the place seemed like a real community and not just a
collection of second homes for well-heeled city dwellers. As much as it says
something about the place, flannel shirts and pickup trucks were more common
than Gucci handbags and flashy convertibles. Also the quality of trails for
running/mountain biking was truly incredible.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9_8pnN5pnF8FZyHnKPxUD7XKB9NredbRsyE34NwBfFXN1Cn_5a5HrDZK9MhFkRm9rMlx8nVcgMXY6fJQcglpBkPs8jh9-lVgY1immCCcFZai1O4g0JM_QHIj5ui-SoCN9mk73Ujya7Qo/s1600/IMG_1882.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9_8pnN5pnF8FZyHnKPxUD7XKB9NredbRsyE34NwBfFXN1Cn_5a5HrDZK9MhFkRm9rMlx8nVcgMXY6fJQcglpBkPs8jh9-lVgY1immCCcFZai1O4g0JM_QHIj5ui-SoCN9mk73Ujya7Qo/s640/IMG_1882.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My first run near Crested Butte was up to East Maroon Pass, this is looking over Copper Lake</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnhPqyZj75btOq7hcbbTv5oonMCAsqOdrRpZZV_GSUr9sHuClncRbc0U_NoQAOTFqZaL8JPbDePddRn2CyJD5Lvvuu5fYrxAhWL4ETm9K_F7tvVH_-wABECcSs-OYo5LYULdJ-h8v0lQg/s1600/IMG_1884.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnhPqyZj75btOq7hcbbTv5oonMCAsqOdrRpZZV_GSUr9sHuClncRbc0U_NoQAOTFqZaL8JPbDePddRn2CyJD5Lvvuu5fYrxAhWL4ETm9K_F7tvVH_-wABECcSs-OYo5LYULdJ-h8v0lQg/s400/IMG_1884.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trail Porn: there's enough single track around CB to keep anyone busy for a long time</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4yiFaybk0mABkgb8RwFH6lfRTn-qctads5cRgWOYr8rPGLghfUHGdtnR9_vxD81G-lm1rHEW_S0dSUCnDdfuMLBrD9hihzUw-TXaCYiKzZRjHAy3rhdGIwosWKcVfSjjxLpI8ulgHTOA/s1600/IMG_1912.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4yiFaybk0mABkgb8RwFH6lfRTn-qctads5cRgWOYr8rPGLghfUHGdtnR9_vxD81G-lm1rHEW_S0dSUCnDdfuMLBrD9hihzUw-TXaCYiKzZRjHAy3rhdGIwosWKcVfSjjxLpI8ulgHTOA/s640/IMG_1912.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the coolest grade 3+/4- scrambles I've ever done was on Avery Peak. These were the views from the summit.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicydozysaTzr58T4VOycYV3LzxurKs6RmqFNqmb6cTWCpt8989jzxjbtFFKYljkjEUT5paIOBpDZJyeXfsFS6X_g67likPK96p0BQwcHlFEqk303CqRG8TbT69IFZhk2g2EQAdkG75RrU/s1600/IMG_1925.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicydozysaTzr58T4VOycYV3LzxurKs6RmqFNqmb6cTWCpt8989jzxjbtFFKYljkjEUT5paIOBpDZJyeXfsFS6X_g67likPK96p0BQwcHlFEqk303CqRG8TbT69IFZhk2g2EQAdkG75RrU/s400/IMG_1925.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Had another really nice run from the aptly named "Oh Be Joyful TH" up to Poverty Gulch, over Daisy Pass and back down Democrat Basin to the TH.</td></tr>
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More posts to come over the next few days about running 14'ers in the Sawatch and my take on the Four Pass Loop.Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-91952596628544231042015-08-05T10:59:00.000-07:002015-08-09T10:43:03.334-07:00Skiing in July and Tromsø Skyrace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Post SAU recovery went surprisingly well, after limping around like an invalid with stiff legs for a day and a half I went for a shake out run and after that I was pretty much back to normal.</div>
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With only 3 weeks until the Tromsø Skyrace, my goal was to try to get a decent amount of vertical into my outings, having focussed mainly on mileage whilst preparing for the relatively flat SAU course. I got some quality runs in: 3de Toppen, Rombakstøtta, Beisfjordtøtta, but the absolute standout was a run up Dronninga. I ran from home under a clouded, murky sky, not really anticipating any great views. Over Ankenesfjellet and up the regular route, with no views of the surrounding peaks. But once I'd passed Litltind I broke through the cloud cover and was rewarded with some amazing views with the peaks around Skjomen jutting up proudly from the sea of clouds. My time to the summit was 2:55 from home in Narvik and I lounged around a bit on the summit before running back. Round trip time was 5:30</div>
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Out of the blue, on a run up to Forsnesvatn, a day or two later, it suddenly felt like someone had stabbed a knife into the outside of my knee. Early stages of the dreaded ITB syndrome I think. The impact of running was quite painful, so I decided to play it safe and cut out running for a few days. Happily this coincided with an sms from Markus asking if I was keen for a bit of skiing somewhere in Skjomen.<br />
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We left town at 5pm (after a day at work) and decided that Storitten would probably be the most likely candidate for having decent snowcover that wouldn't require too much of an approach hike. I had stupidly forgotten my ski socks, and discovered just how difficult it is to get a tight pair of alien sock style skiboot liners on without them. It took me about 15 minutes to get the bloody things on, and I was pretty close to giving up.<br />
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The approach looked a lot worse than it actually was, a mere 200 metre hike and we reached the first snow band. A few more short hikes through thick vegetation brought us up to the plateau and from here the skin to the summit was stunning and surreal. 9pm skinning in the sun in late July- the perfect antidote for someone with a dodgy knee pining for winter.<br />
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The summit itself straddles the border of Norway and Sweden, so it has a particularly cool cairn with a rock carving from 1930. The turns down were terrific, and not just because they were unusually late in the season, they really were just as good as any day in spring.</div>
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This past Sunday it was time for a proper sufferfest and Tromsø Skyrace delivered the goods. I don't know why I should be surprised given the course is designed by Kilian Jornet and Emelie Forsberg, but it was without a doubt the most brutal 45km imaginable. With 4500 metres of elevation gain/loss, plenty of off trail, and some wildly technical (for a race setting atleast) scrambling with lots of exposure. The steady drizzle and rain only served to make the rock slick and even more sketchy.</div>
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The field was pretty stacked as it is part of the Sky Running world series, so there were plenty of speedy euros who made the trip north for the race and even a handful of Australians. I'm reasonably happy with how my day went, I felt like I was managing my pace pretty well and overtaking people at a steady rate on the first climb up Tromsdalstind and the second major climb up Hamperokken. However my descending skills were severly lacking, due to a combination of being worried about falling and a simple lack of training on this sort of terrain, my pace slowed to what felt like a snail's pace.</div>
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In the end I crossed the line in 8:50, making it by far the slowest and most debilitating 45km run I've ever experienced. Strangely though this was still enough for 32nd place in the mens field out of 125 starters. The most telling stat for the brutality of the course is that the DNF rate was 25%. </div>
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I only took one photo during the race as I was too busy trying to keep it together, and also was unable to unlock my phone because it was saturated from the rain.</div>
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Three days after Tromsø and I'm starting to feel pretty good again. I was up on Tredjetoppen doing a bit of renegade trail maintenance and marking this afternoon and snapped the photo below.</div>
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-7853669118469198262015-07-13T10:31:00.000-07:002015-07-14T07:24:18.345-07:00SAU<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This past Saturday I ran the Swedish Alpine Ultra. An amazing day in the mountains to put it mildly!</div>
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SAU is a 105km point to point run through the mountains of northern Sweden, there are no aid stations and there isn't even any road access to anywhere on the course apart from the start/end. If you reach the half way mark at Tjäkta pass and decide you aren't really feeling up to it it doesn't really matter because there's no faster route back to civilization than continuing to the finish line. On the one hand this makes it a more daunting task- bailing simply isn't an option, on the other hand this is makes it a surefire way of ensuring you complete the race.<br />
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A safety net of sorts is provided by the staffed cabins located every 12-20km along the trail, if a runner is injured or exhausted they can always recuperate in one, or use their sat phone to call for a chopper.</div>
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Being my first ever 100+km run, I was hesitant to set myself a time goal, I figured on about 15-16 hours, but decided to bring along enough food for 18-20. Adding to the uncertainty were reports about conditions on the trail itself. On account of a particularly cold spring there is quite a bit of snow up high. One of the winners of last year's race did a recce of the course the day before and reported many km's worth of postholing in rotten snow and multiple creek crossings up to waist deep.</div>
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I was strangely unapprehensive at the start line, I think mostly due to the fact that I was going into it not with a racing mindset, but rather simply having a goal of crossing the finish line with a smile on my face.</div>
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The weather was perfect: sunny with a slight breeze and temperatures of around 12 degrees in Nikkaluokta. The first 19km up to Keb went by smoothly, the trail is really flat in this early section and my legs were fresh enough that the rocky, technical sections were really fun. After a quick pit stop in the Keb fjällstasjon to use the bathroom I was off again towards Singi. This 14km stretch is the most spectacular of the whole run, with awesome views of Tuolpagorni rising above the valley- this peak alone would justify a trip in here on skis during the winter.<br />
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Crossing a marshy area a few kms after Keb spelt the end of dry feet, for the remaining 80kms my shoes remained waterlogged, but I managed to get through without any major blister issues.<br />
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By this stage I had settled in to a steady pace and was running with Kjetil from Beisfjord, the only Norwegian in the race. We cruised over the mellow but rocky pass and in to the Tjäkta valley together. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">closing in on Singi</td></tr>
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Another 5 minute bathroom stop on account of some stoma<span style="font-family: inherit;">ch troubles and we continued up to Sälka, passing a few runners on the way. Just after S</span>älka we encountered the first continuous snow bands and having Kjetil as a running partner really paid off, as we were able to help each other scout the best route over the rotten snow with numerous indistinct tracks from early season hikers. The snow coverage wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared, but it was so slushy, with about 20cm of water underneath a foot of snow, that it was tiring both physically and mentally. Our pace slowed necessarily at this point, but when we crossed Tjäkta pass, the high point of the route and also the halfway mark, our energy levels were still pretty good.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2DSWBRqdI1ojXWECJccNrw6titCJU5LBXwcXTt156wnCOw1dBBJxxGg7uh6_9kjUGFu1gLSyDZ35VRu3CybEb0K6BGdhJ68bfYphuYpjzJ-U7ecsVjK-FehqVQAkkrYMrRaSJWCqLao/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2DSWBRqdI1ojXWECJccNrw6titCJU5LBXwcXTt156wnCOw1dBBJxxGg7uh6_9kjUGFu1gLSyDZ35VRu3CybEb0K6BGdhJ68bfYphuYpjzJ-U7ecsVjK-FehqVQAkkrYMrRaSJWCqLao/s640/9.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heading towards Tjäkta pass</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpZ51sNIcDlebFDo1FepOJRShyphenhyphenRu5MmjlBMK0K7jI9_cCbNtyokTI7NFUFwtRuCkESYAmBS80R0w_NFke57H_sXhMfdt4S2UaQdeagvHVOHREspcOYoZ0MsxEvhmhgoBfKbgB_FisMA9U/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpZ51sNIcDlebFDo1FepOJRShyphenhyphenRu5MmjlBMK0K7jI9_cCbNtyokTI7NFUFwtRuCkESYAmBS80R0w_NFke57H_sXhMfdt4S2UaQdeagvHVOHREspcOYoZ0MsxEvhmhgoBfKbgB_FisMA9U/s640/10.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Soggy conditions as we neared the pass</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3kWvssajpme37mHoiFVkVlGAtkeT8alBqmdN_eTW0jn1YOAC4UlqEPcfqKOUcxb-NferIC3VJRXe_ANBbaMIWj5e-4y9UuSA6qrlOvfuiXRku7-1ru1Z8vrzisFv82SmxD88127q0l4/s1600/11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3kWvssajpme37mHoiFVkVlGAtkeT8alBqmdN_eTW0jn1YOAC4UlqEPcfqKOUcxb-NferIC3VJRXe_ANBbaMIWj5e-4y9UuSA6qrlOvfuiXRku7-1ru1Z8vrzisFv82SmxD88127q0l4/s640/11.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view north from the pass- a few more kms of snow to go</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">cold!</td></tr>
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The snow continued on for a few more kilometres worth of wet, cold, tiring post holing after the pass, and it was a huge relief to finally reach dry trail conditions again and cruise on towards Alesjaure. We had a 10 minute break here and bought a can of coke from the cabin store and even a small bag of chips before continuing on.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finally back on dry trail and getting close to Alesjaure</td></tr>
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By this stage, a little over 80kms and 10 hours in to the day I was starting to really feel the effort, my calves were feeling pretty hammered and my joints were sore. This section of the trail beside Alisjavri was quite muddy and seemed to stretch on forever. I made sure Kjetil knew not to wait for me, and put some music on to help distract myself from thinking of the remaining 35km, fully conscious of how pointless any negative thoughts were going to be.<br />
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Running along, alone in the mountains glowing in the dramatic evening light, listening to Kishi Bashi and Arcade Fire something clicked and I had one of the real high points of the whole day. My pace probably only quickened imperceptibly but it suddenly didn't feel as hard as it had a short while before and for a few miles couldn't wipe the grin off my face. Everything was flowing along nicely and I was revelling in the moment, simply stoked to be where I was and happy that I was still feeling so happy.<br />
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On the descent to Abiskojaure, my stoke started wavering as I found it increasingly hard to lift my legs over the rocks on the trail and run with any sort of fluidity or economy. I started feeling clumsy and tired again and opted to swap over to walking for a spell. The final 15km were definitely some of the hardest of the day, my energy levels were at an all time low and taking in food left me feeling nauseous. I plodded on however and interspersed running on the flat, easy sections.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9u7a8uOR201yrEINmIp-qM9Zxx0kaWUKCbfJvhoGCWCnonCEVLT2Dokl6OsTHNjAV4ogtfUuRGUdHgsm4pnbyLLB-6V_p5SixsgjJv8MK5hXZZHfKOJiQ9mJPw7r4z1yZWtrvvSCBH2A/s1600/IMG_1467.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9u7a8uOR201yrEINmIp-qM9Zxx0kaWUKCbfJvhoGCWCnonCEVLT2Dokl6OsTHNjAV4ogtfUuRGUdHgsm4pnbyLLB-6V_p5SixsgjJv8MK5hXZZHfKOJiQ9mJPw7r4z1yZWtrvvSCBH2A/s400/IMG_1467.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A few km out from the finish</td></tr>
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Getting to the finish line in Abisko was a happy moment. In the end I spent 15:07 on the trail, enough for 5th place in a field of about 40 people.<br />
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These were my splits to the various cabins (in/out)<br />
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Nikkaluokta- 0:00<br />
Kebnekaise- 2:05/2:12<br />
Singi- 3:55/4:00<br />
Sälka- 5:50/5:55<br />
Tjäkta- 8:10/8:10<br />
Alesjaure- 9:50/10:00<br />
Abiskojaure- 13:10/13:10<br />
Abisko turiststasjon- 15:07Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-45430702495797886992015-07-08T08:59:00.004-07:002015-07-08T09:01:54.131-07:00SAU prep.Three days left 'til the Swedish Alpine Ultra, a 107 km run through some of Sweden's highest mountains which I've been training for for quite some time and which I am pretty excited about. The course starts in Nikkaluokta at 8am on Saturday and ends in Abisko (hopefully sometime later that day), following the northern portion of the Kungsleden which is Sweden's most popular long distance hiking trail.<br />
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For the first time in about a decade I've continued with some running through the winter months, in an effort to maintain a bit of running specific fitness and tendon/ligament strength which I always lose with a 6+ month ski season. I wasn't running much, only about 30km/week, but it was enough for me to start running some more volume in late april and stay injury free.<br />
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One of the big challenges of the race is presented by just how early in the summer it occurs (by arctic scandinavian standards atleast). There is still a lot of snow higher up in the mountains, and this record cold spring hasn't really helped matters. Infact I was able to ski as low as 650m. in the mountains around Narvik as late as last week. As a result of all the snow in the mountains most of my training up until a few weeks ago was happening down at sea level. This has been nice, and the flatter types of runs I've been forced to do are definitely more specific to the course which has a pretty mellow profile (only 2000ish metres of elevation gain over 107km)- but I'm really looking forward to plenty more alpine runs over the next couple months.<br />
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Below are a few photos from training the past few weeks.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBMfUyuUrF6jxx3rfHjVgTljkYV8qTe2weBS7ypOWWiJ7PXqkl5UwWORxbHJtd5CstdJnWJxx63IJalUajZVd5hIDnUuP_igZR_AWr1_eQSMLJAyEbTal89fdZKtbkro3W0tHZwg5fBN0/s1600/FullSizeRender+%252849%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBMfUyuUrF6jxx3rfHjVgTljkYV8qTe2weBS7ypOWWiJ7PXqkl5UwWORxbHJtd5CstdJnWJxx63IJalUajZVd5hIDnUuP_igZR_AWr1_eQSMLJAyEbTal89fdZKtbkro3W0tHZwg5fBN0/s640/FullSizeRender+%252849%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rallarveien down to Rombaksbotn a week ago.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWiCsC-W3IfJwGmY-aM17YtTj4hjCm4VQwZmhpoHdsFkD-HuvoG_KGQnDom7n82239Y4ctMB4IjPCXGyNppr87c3se9hkvj9o98WjwvSFxzzpdf7xVGaAzrOdl_1s6fObsn-LZxbr1lU/s1600/FullSizeRender+%252850%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWiCsC-W3IfJwGmY-aM17YtTj4hjCm4VQwZmhpoHdsFkD-HuvoG_KGQnDom7n82239Y4ctMB4IjPCXGyNppr87c3se9hkvj9o98WjwvSFxzzpdf7xVGaAzrOdl_1s6fObsn-LZxbr1lU/s400/FullSizeRender+%252850%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More Rallarveien- one of my favourite runs in the area</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLwho_TcBh5wOJ_UHiV9SvTue9icFFBuGKCh0_tlrrUXKIiaYGH3C949Vl0pblMHl7xRjdKEUgCvx1kFvyKG5OjJsS7-a1PcUzG01VktZ5iGkKsLdnipCsU8YbT-H6o2vjyCMpdOlnz8k/s1600/FullSizeRender+%252852%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLwho_TcBh5wOJ_UHiV9SvTue9icFFBuGKCh0_tlrrUXKIiaYGH3C949Vl0pblMHl7xRjdKEUgCvx1kFvyKG5OjJsS7-a1PcUzG01VktZ5iGkKsLdnipCsU8YbT-H6o2vjyCMpdOlnz8k/s400/FullSizeRender+%252852%2529.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Summer has been late this year- but its arrival dramatic as always down below treeline</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgcd1Qz_KONoZPLPE_1Eo8ReSjT4rP4kZQCmvZeC6K_zRED9Fuwyz-ifVz6xTyBXmgdx9eHfoCWgDd5zU8E5h3431JG7eoptdrkSwDUit8eYMT1k0Aewjs7wn9uGsxqZFB2AFEHc5Pxk/s1600/IMG_1411.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgcd1Qz_KONoZPLPE_1Eo8ReSjT4rP4kZQCmvZeC6K_zRED9Fuwyz-ifVz6xTyBXmgdx9eHfoCWgDd5zU8E5h3431JG7eoptdrkSwDUit8eYMT1k0Aewjs7wn9uGsxqZFB2AFEHc5Pxk/s640/IMG_1411.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From an outing with Bjarte on the northern section of the SAU course a week ago, where winter hasn't entirely let go.</td></tr>
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The photos below<span style="font-family: inherit;"> are from the first and only other time I've run the SAU course; over two days with Cl<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24.8888893127441px;">é</span>ment back in August 2012. All photos from Cl<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24.8888893127441px;">é</span>ment- cheers!</span></div>
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The race website (in Swedish): <a href="http://www.swedishalpineultra.se/">www.swedishalpineultra.se</a></div>
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Another report coming after the race.</div>
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Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-63207616594918044852015-05-17T04:32:00.001-07:002015-05-17T05:20:41.280-07:00Hinterlands Traverse<div>
The idea was to make a 2 day traverse starting in Håkvikdalen and finishing at Katterat with an overnight at Lossistua. Our intended route was pretty exciting- sticking in the alpine for about 72 of the 75km route, following a few ridgelines, crossing a couple glaciers, descending a few couloirs and some open faces. The forecast for bluebird weather was encouraging in the planning stage as decent visibilty was going to be a key factor.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7TKCnCCRPMgl0Cfcp2C1xhzamwmQQ9KkAe8qteH5DUy_YhZk3TYOceqyuyhfiV0gGsafoSRIo4bAVrkNkalULJSbpXDG93ln4rTasZE6UsUCIfhyokiWKieZxSsNOXV_14LBcXN3gKCM/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7TKCnCCRPMgl0Cfcp2C1xhzamwmQQ9KkAe8qteH5DUy_YhZk3TYOceqyuyhfiV0gGsafoSRIo4bAVrkNkalULJSbpXDG93ln4rTasZE6UsUCIfhyokiWKieZxSsNOXV_14LBcXN3gKCM/s400/Capture.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The luxury of DNT cabins means that traverses like this don't require lugging a bunch of heavy camping gear along. The 7 gram key effectively replacing the need for tents, sleeping bags, pads, stoves and fuel. So the only difference in my pack contents was some extra food and a sleeping bag liner.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All the gear for a 75ish km and 6000ish metre skimo traverse</td></tr>
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As is want to happen, we were forced to abandon our perfectly planned route on day one on account of the weather never really clearing. This was pretty frustrating at the time, but in hindsight its just this sort of forced improvisation which makes traverses like this one start feeling like some sort of adventure.</div>
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<b><u>Day one: a traversing traverse</u></b></div>
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The bus driver on the 7am bus up Håkvikdalen was nice enough to take us a little bit further than the scheduled route, dropping us off just near the trailhead. A few hundred metres of walking brought us to snowline and we were soon skinning up Sandviktind. There was still a bit of cloud cover about the summits, but we were pretty certain it would clear up within a few hours. By the time we reached the summit of Sandviktind, 1300 metres and two hours later, visibility was down to about 10 metres and our proposed route down the south face, which involved skirting around a cornice and skiing a reasonably steep unknown face, suddenly seemed pretty foolhardy. We waited around for about 10-15 minutes hoping for a quick clearing which would give us an overview so we could start the ski. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning into the white</td></tr>
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The weather window never came and we made the decision to ski back the way we had come up and figure out another plan. And so began an arduous few hours of traversing through "north norwegian trouble terrain", rotten snow, thick stands of birch trees with interlocking branches- the whole affair was a real drain on my motivation and at one point I suggested to Micke that we just call it quits and head back to Narvik and get an early start the next day and do a longer day trip. We continued on, more in resignation than excitement, from Håkvikdalen over to Skamdalen and up to Nihkejavri and over the pass directly west of Kuniarcohkka and then a traversing descent down to Lossistua. The day involved about 40-45 kilometres and 2800 metres, of which about 1/4 was spent skiing fall line.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This photo shows what much of the terrain for the next few hours looked like...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proper maze skiing, piecing together patches of snow in Skamdalen.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finally in the alpine again, skinning up Skamdalsbakken</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A murky Kuinarcohkka and our pass on the lookers right.</td></tr>
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<b><u>Day two: the reward</u></b></div>
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In stark contrast to the previous day, perfect conditions made for an awesome day which was memorable due to the quality of the skiing and the terrific views rather than the lack thereof. We skinned up to Storsteinsfjellet- the highest mountain in the region, and booted up the steep summit slopes. Our hopes of rapping from the summit were foiled by the cliff being about 30-40 metres and our rope not being long enough, so we wandered down the east ridge for about 200 metres from where we could ski the NE glacier. This was a fantastic ski descent, close to 1000 metres of rolling glacier, it ought to be skied a lot more often, but its remote nature means it doesn't see a whole lot of traffic.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lossistua- our home for the night.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke skinning towards Storsteinsfjellet- Kuinarcohkka in the background</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fitting crampons for the bootpack up the slopes to the summit of Storsteinsfjellet.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking west from the summit of Storsteinsfjellet</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And to the east...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24Ox8PWt-pdUbSJBGNyk-DasvOYb02oGg-wnKMtrL4hpVRgf4cppaidLSDu_BYHYwU7sZvdHupwJxlTWOpP0UJsP71rvmIw3HY4sKpjE7fmRHFZRSpftaakYIni0GHFgy4adVh14GfbY/s1600/IMG_1150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24Ox8PWt-pdUbSJBGNyk-DasvOYb02oGg-wnKMtrL4hpVRgf4cppaidLSDu_BYHYwU7sZvdHupwJxlTWOpP0UJsP71rvmIw3HY4sKpjE7fmRHFZRSpftaakYIni0GHFgy4adVh14GfbY/s640/IMG_1150.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The awesome NE glacier of Storsteinsfjellet</td></tr>
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Another skin up the south side of Ristacohkka was followed by a short but engaging ski into the western bowl. Then a final, short climb up to the northen summit. We skied the famed Sørlenning down to Hunddalshytta and then skate out to Katterat for the train ride back to Narvik.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning up Rista, with our glacier descent directly behind Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ristacohkka from the south</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our silly line into the western bowl of Ristacohkka (if you look carefully you can see Micke just below the crux)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nearing Ristacohkka, the last peak of the traverse</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke in Sørlenning</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke making Sørlenning look easy on tired legs</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty good ski conditions in Sørlenning for mid May.</td></tr>
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Stats for the day were about 2500 metres and 35 km. The map below shows the route we actually ended up taking.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioM8zrPRqesOu-TgIBP33RikuY7A6nH8erDNjkv6X60xBS1MJqsoM9tXkr2a6LYLxpft_axeIVXojw1IdvVhy9xDYb7xu-BRbWtSv-8c4kwWoFaHgSWD6je20hoTSl5to3dF5QR9C95AQ/s1600/Capture2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioM8zrPRqesOu-TgIBP33RikuY7A6nH8erDNjkv6X60xBS1MJqsoM9tXkr2a6LYLxpft_axeIVXojw1IdvVhy9xDYb7xu-BRbWtSv-8c4kwWoFaHgSWD6je20hoTSl5to3dF5QR9C95AQ/s400/Capture2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-70895995806800632602015-05-04T03:50:00.003-07:002015-05-04T03:50:36.691-07:00Lappviktind Couloir- putting the bootpack back in bootpacks and skintracksThe alarm went off at 3:30 this morning for an outing with Micke to Lappviktind in Sør Skjomen. Our plan was to ski the main couloir line <a href="http://andreasfransson.blogspot.no/2011/04/lappvikstind-probable-first-descents-in.html?m=1" target="_blank">first skied by Andreas Fransson and a few of his friends four years ago</a>.<br />
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Firm conditions lower down made for efficient skinning and the bootpack up the main couloir was straight forward. We topped out 1:50 after leaving the car. A short bootpack from the top of the couloir brought us to the summit of Lappviktind, an airy little perch with a 300 metre cliff on one side and views of the fjord on the other. Its a pretty good vantage point for checking out the other choice lines of the area.<br />
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The line itself is a classic open book style couloir characteristic of Skjomen: Gagnesaksla, Middagsfjellet etc. All the mountains in the area seem to have couloirs of a particular flavour, with a gigantic cliff looming above you on the skiers left, whilst the right side is more mellow. The pitch a sustained 35 degrees is just the right angle to be super enjoyable but not so steep that it requires white-knuckle concentration or any pause between turns. It is just plain fun.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This impressive face holds three unlikely ski lines- none of them visible from the road.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gagnesaksla looks like it'll be in for a couple more weeks- though the mid-section is probably a down climb.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke slaying some nice dry snow on the sheltered side of the couloir</td></tr>
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Once I got home at 8:45 I quickly realised that the keys to my apartment had been left on the ground where the car was parked. So I got to enjoy the scenic 130km drive to Sør Skjomen twice.Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-30158168145989173482015-04-30T13:11:00.000-07:002015-04-30T13:20:10.193-07:00Shame Valley Chute<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Got back into Skamdalsrenne today with Mike, it was the first time I've skied it in years and I was reminded of the reason why I've always referred to it as the greatest couloir in Norway. It is mythic. So ridiculously deep that to take photographs of it I ended up having to use the panorama mode in a vertical setting.</div>
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The snow left a bit to be desired. Wind affected and slabby in places, firm bed surface from some dry loose slides in other places; in the lower section the left hand side was sun affected and spring like whilst the right side was shaded and held cold, dry wintery snow. Every turn was different, but the immense granite walls towering above were enough to keep the stoke level pretty high.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On top of Tverdalsfjellet the views aren't too bad.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kL0G-lvTSc1we3STCIOZy8R-8lzMalIIfLi61leGgiL6DLjImlOk3sw74816rt3F7MOdGDe2198gNlIqE08rQrjkixNjjnjawoqD6ron59E2gLMYmzOR8fHywqx6Wv2WYFWt9RLr_V0/s1600/IMG_0837.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1kL0G-lvTSc1we3STCIOZy8R-8lzMalIIfLi61leGgiL6DLjImlOk3sw74816rt3F7MOdGDe2198gNlIqE08rQrjkixNjjnjawoqD6ron59E2gLMYmzOR8fHywqx6Wv2WYFWt9RLr_V0/s1600/IMG_0837.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The entrance was more filled in than I've seen it in the past, rocks lurked centimetres below the surface though, so side stepping was called for<br />
</td></tr>
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We were back at the car a little after 11, so we were even able to squeeze in lunch before heading to work.<br />
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-76574594010209506192015-04-27T09:06:00.001-07:002015-04-27T09:09:15.650-07:00Narvik to Straumsnes- a few photos The past weeks I've been making a transition into running again in preparation for the summer ahead. There is, however, still plenty of great skiing to be had in the mountains, with the decent snow cover and longer days now is the time for enjoying some longer tours.<br />
<br />
On Friday Mike and I skied from Narvik over to Straumsnes. Highlights included 30cm of dry pow on the Forsnesvatn ramp, some sunbaked avy debris in the picturesque Isvattenrenne and hitching a ride back to Narvik with the first car that drove by. I've skied these lines many times in the past, but never got any proper photos of them, so here they are.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIkitXR8mE8RJ5RlVrZOCfdeNf2W8yMNZ52OaFdWcOnqoDmz8UPbabUjc98vLYll-hCSlWhHPHlxpovE_UxFrenZCX9hLLPoxaFn5428aWy-NOw06hKrmcxIyK4MbBv7QTiwQfoHphDmM/s1600/FullSizeRender+(14).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIkitXR8mE8RJ5RlVrZOCfdeNf2W8yMNZ52OaFdWcOnqoDmz8UPbabUjc98vLYll-hCSlWhHPHlxpovE_UxFrenZCX9hLLPoxaFn5428aWy-NOw06hKrmcxIyK4MbBv7QTiwQfoHphDmM/s1600/FullSizeRender+(14).jpg" height="428" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike enjoying 30cm of dry pow on the descent to Forsnesvatn. Not bad for late April.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsOsZSJyS1Fs_GCH0Yrul3mPE5mqY3arjf8gpWXqZxsR4kdefQ21mMuXdtz3_1kjhgSKbDzAJSszXHvJ6vZW_LCZpdyoqg4vh7I75rJkOCDwmqb_ldoBGeSMPQ7OVefVS2G0ud6WIrLY/s1600/FullSizeRender+(15).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsOsZSJyS1Fs_GCH0Yrul3mPE5mqY3arjf8gpWXqZxsR4kdefQ21mMuXdtz3_1kjhgSKbDzAJSszXHvJ6vZW_LCZpdyoqg4vh7I75rJkOCDwmqb_ldoBGeSMPQ7OVefVS2G0ud6WIrLY/s1600/FullSizeRender+(15).jpg" height="384" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike on the ramp. Forsnesvatnrenne in the background- which we skinned up half an hour later.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-hq1eUDp0ee4kBHpncycuOIP2Rssx7Pe5zZRl63PVbCL9iYoW8xqbNHqameDRZJT948lwRmDVh3SZ3vZErR8ldmVjxxigssQ6VWYWOvZ-5qmvOOJu8G-iS3j_ZcEO6lcp9MsBIR8sngw/s1600/FullSizeRender+(10).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-hq1eUDp0ee4kBHpncycuOIP2Rssx7Pe5zZRl63PVbCL9iYoW8xqbNHqameDRZJT948lwRmDVh3SZ3vZErR8ldmVjxxigssQ6VWYWOvZ-5qmvOOJu8G-iS3j_ZcEO6lcp9MsBIR8sngw/s1600/FullSizeRender+(10).jpg" height="398" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning up the path <a href="http://kajsonnichsen.blogspot.no/2014/01/forsnesvannetrenne-avalanche-mistakes.html" target="_blank">where I got taken for a ride last year</a>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiupeZVPXwfv-ljFwFMhAs2Vyqr0Kg0BOTRbvsdXQruduVjJ4mNxfrC1xEOnywb7DoZrwhbhhVl6by3dg3BNBQk2WamM0Dms076WEKKG_A4DLwY7JC1iFKRRPIzPLTuqVmOy2kqZEOcE0/s1600/FullSizeRender+(9).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiupeZVPXwfv-ljFwFMhAs2Vyqr0Kg0BOTRbvsdXQruduVjJ4mNxfrC1xEOnywb7DoZrwhbhhVl6by3dg3BNBQk2WamM0Dms076WEKKG_A4DLwY7JC1iFKRRPIzPLTuqVmOy2kqZEOcE0/s1600/FullSizeRender+(9).jpg" height="432" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike nearing the top of the Forsnesvatnrenne. Our last descent clearly visible in the background.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmON_enE_zv6INHU5LPDC5NR_dv0C1hW2K5V7l4yUMMD8A7iRnUAurF8GSuRA6K7PETHLbkR_Ti2dw5Qx7PX3lcXXEwxqdlgCBJPy90BDn-X03MODpErj9SlaKJDxr374jXvYvGSfeI7c/s1600/FullSizeRender+(11).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmON_enE_zv6INHU5LPDC5NR_dv0C1hW2K5V7l4yUMMD8A7iRnUAurF8GSuRA6K7PETHLbkR_Ti2dw5Qx7PX3lcXXEwxqdlgCBJPy90BDn-X03MODpErj9SlaKJDxr374jXvYvGSfeI7c/s1600/FullSizeRender+(11).jpg" height="560" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inspiring views of the Hunddalen peaks on the descent from Beisfjordtøtta</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmL8gGJdn9pqRxCjxwJwn8cFXQr7CrVenzVLKcAn4OqRGylC8qCGatZy2JcQxyl3lLMZiGELaKaHB-qXYTyXxjXhex6R4zqtKASk4h5cnElubyuklhT4qarXDLbg-4Ew_CQVgojAjevz4/s1600/FullSizeRender+(12).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmL8gGJdn9pqRxCjxwJwn8cFXQr7CrVenzVLKcAn4OqRGylC8qCGatZy2JcQxyl3lLMZiGELaKaHB-qXYTyXxjXhex6R4zqtKASk4h5cnElubyuklhT4qarXDLbg-4Ew_CQVgojAjevz4/s1600/FullSizeRender+(12).jpg" height="550" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike cruising over Isvatten after skiing the obvious couloir down from the saddle.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwN6ai4TpSLaDB1w75e8r9VKQR5RFH50w_acLUbcLo48EC__Sqf0fldPkNukZtAhRH706N8J2oJsQroqZwI_fcZEH0M74SsxLwAPjQ3eJmP93oh3I1vpxpT0sfvwVUo6Iv-x_LIBeOJQ/s1600/FullSizeRender+(13).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwN6ai4TpSLaDB1w75e8r9VKQR5RFH50w_acLUbcLo48EC__Sqf0fldPkNukZtAhRH706N8J2oJsQroqZwI_fcZEH0M74SsxLwAPjQ3eJmP93oh3I1vpxpT0sfvwVUo6Iv-x_LIBeOJQ/s1600/FullSizeRender+(13).jpg" height="550" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bit more dry snow to go with the pretty views on the last descent down to Straumsnes.</td></tr>
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<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-54093025826335021962015-03-19T14:12:00.000-07:002015-03-19T14:47:47.833-07:00NarvikRando- a track setter's perspective.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The
inaugural Narvik Rando went down this past Saturday, with about 55 skiers (31
in the race category/ 24 in the tourist category) toeing the line. From most
accounts it seems like everyone had a pretty good time and are psyched to
return next year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The whole
event has been many months in the planning, with Micke at the head of a troupe
of volunteers (myself included). Plenty of meetings, lengthy online discussions
and countless hours went it to the whole thing and it was a relief that it all
went roughly according to plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I was
responsible for setting the track (but got a LOT of help from Andreas, Micke,
Jon and Mike) which was necessarily carried out pretty much at the last minute.
A few days of very stiff winds (gale force above tree line the day before)
followed by a night of heavy precip (which came as rain below tree line)
created some real challenges and forced some changes in the course even in the
last few hours leading up to the race. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I’m not
making excuses, and the following is really just a record/call for comments to
draw on in the future in order to make next year’s race even better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US">F</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">lags.
A ski mountaineering race like this (1650metres of vert.) eats up a LOT of
course marking flags. Next year we need about 2x the number we had this year.
Or better yet 3x as many. I think composite sticks would be more durable than
bamboo sticks like we had this year, but maybe a bit more expensive.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Hi-viz
spray paint works well when you don’t have enough flags. But they are certainly
no replacement as it gets covered by windblown snow and isn’t visible as
something poking above the skyline.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Skins
tracks should be mellow and bootpacks should have steps that even short people
can comfortable manage. I feel like this aspect was done okay, but a few sections of the skinner were on wind scoured slopes and the booter had some sugary sections which made it tricky to maintain much consistency.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Transition
zones ought to be on flat terrain. The skin to boot transition this year was
all off-kilter (because I didn’t have time to shovel it level).</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;"><a href="http://www.ismf-ski.org/www/?q=content/ismf-rules-regulations" target="_blank">These signs</a> are pretty sweet.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Track
setting (at a reasonable standard) is a bigger job than I had anticipated.
Ideally an even bigger crew should be involved and an even earlier start is
probably wise.</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Last
minute changes to the course (due to weather/avalanche hazard/ surface
conditions etc.) are stressful and create a shit load of extra work. Having a
course which can be skied in any sort of weather/snowpack would likely mean
that the course is not sufficiently challenging, so a certain degree of
flexibility is of course necessary. However having a very firm plan at least
two days before the race starts will ensure a lot more efficiency in setting
the track and lead to it being of a higher quality.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span lang="EN-US">All things
considered I think it went pretty well and I’m psyched for next year and making
the event even better. </span>I didn’t
get a chance to take any photos during the competition. But there are some
photos and reports in Norwegian from FriFlyt <a href="http://www.friflyt.no/Eirik-Haugsnes-vant-Narvik-Rando" target="_blank">here</a> and from Kondis <a href="http://www.kondis.no/marte-mondrad-hansen-og-eirik-haugsnes-vant-narvik-rando.5720259-127693.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Below are a
couple photos from some other outings this past week, ‘cause a blogpost without
photos ain’t much apparently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiti0Y_PUn-KBuWlwd-cd824ufzZZD8gHfGYnjS3H16yRLw5nyCh9xYatesuMFCrcoIwqVynVRxNZ3BoE0OyVdlqagl1WJQFgK-ChJKn8qnPI1WAYPjhmlGM63K6MtQiKw42f8jH2TTyuk/s1600/IMG_0344.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiti0Y_PUn-KBuWlwd-cd824ufzZZD8gHfGYnjS3H16yRLw5nyCh9xYatesuMFCrcoIwqVynVRxNZ3BoE0OyVdlqagl1WJQFgK-ChJKn8qnPI1WAYPjhmlGM63K6MtQiKw42f8jH2TTyuk/s1600/IMG_0344.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lapping the backside of Linken with Damien and Sarah from Schweiz</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hn__j7kspwX3LxYbrfvTcW4PjmuKNx9jZLylxdskxgG2xyIgzi2UuDdOlTeGcPTlDDhgAWhWkVWrhxajzcqOQetN4S4Dxi0pOfSGva7ysiH7Ew14KolDKfl1FwVUdeJL9E5Zo4pPR0g/s1600/pan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hn__j7kspwX3LxYbrfvTcW4PjmuKNx9jZLylxdskxgG2xyIgzi2UuDdOlTeGcPTlDDhgAWhWkVWrhxajzcqOQetN4S4Dxi0pOfSGva7ysiH7Ew14KolDKfl1FwVUdeJL9E5Zo4pPR0g/s1600/pan.jpg" height="282" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike's first ever skin to Tredjetoppen</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8JkbGvcrE4bMHbdWwY84-QSTyWeolMggXngBYaF_RHvjPwzEuifkeK6ctgV70VkcRHaZPiQ4gPrg73WcAcTELaJALt1zwqb4UDXcrFEIE6-m3vorlOe9PdprNBzRp2BfD44qQr45QLJo/s1600/pan2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8JkbGvcrE4bMHbdWwY84-QSTyWeolMggXngBYaF_RHvjPwzEuifkeK6ctgV70VkcRHaZPiQ4gPrg73WcAcTELaJALt1zwqb4UDXcrFEIE6-m3vorlOe9PdprNBzRp2BfD44qQr45QLJo/s1600/pan2.jpg" height="268" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike scoping lines from 3de.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQkHEyA3vDnBKrTjC4nmQGhFHhaBEmjHhhKFLuC7gOk0rSTyxyJB7msurFsDsS4nzo3HsxLcW4cBbhtY7f7_6LY2vFwJBJsZssjg2QZvjPmM-79HCDEx6qHUaPS_ri9S_T3kcJ-ChDR0/s1600/IMG_0382.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQkHEyA3vDnBKrTjC4nmQGhFHhaBEmjHhhKFLuC7gOk0rSTyxyJB7msurFsDsS4nzo3HsxLcW4cBbhtY7f7_6LY2vFwJBJsZssjg2QZvjPmM-79HCDEx6qHUaPS_ri9S_T3kcJ-ChDR0/s1600/IMG_0382.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some decent turns on solar aspects earlier this week- this is in one of the 5 fingers.</td></tr>
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Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-45108832238213471792015-03-08T14:54:00.002-07:002015-03-08T14:55:56.232-07:00Beisfjordtøtta Glacier<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Earlier in the week Micke mentioned a new line on Beisfjordtøtta he was keen to check out. With a decent weather forecast and work not starting until the afternoon we decided to go for it on Thursday. Skinning up from the base of the ski hill we did a bit more reconnaissance for the upcoming <a href="http://www.narvikrando.no/" target="_blank">Narvik Rando</a> which will be happening next weekend. If the weather cooperates this course promises to be the best, most scenic and memorable ski mountaineering event in Norway- if you haven't signed up already it isn't too late. Around treeline we were joined by Einar and continued up along the course route to Tredjetoppen.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJP1StZtLz-I8udXnbazvQOulwcENAHv18dsuhVSPkHuPNB_G9LI2pMjHBsV2t1kCa609m0gm3gmTo5Px3SBbm-ackAdY6Lbcg7BjQg5LskwGTBID6QOxbkefqFvKWIxJqkOTMnrWT__Q/s1600/11053526_643401955759723_8544736807322165152_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJP1StZtLz-I8udXnbazvQOulwcENAHv18dsuhVSPkHuPNB_G9LI2pMjHBsV2t1kCa609m0gm3gmTo5Px3SBbm-ackAdY6Lbcg7BjQg5LskwGTBID6QOxbkefqFvKWIxJqkOTMnrWT__Q/s1600/11053526_643401955759723_8544736807322165152_n.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Typical views from the Narvik sidecountry. Photo: Einar</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVBjM1m3tevdx5EQZWYcZ1p4zC2-sSCmkUQEfz-JA4BkV_scX3cMa6tPuFZALplysV3pLf5xhPUMSxvo138RZpF_SSIlG8CLJ1GdzapTxkYZ9e59IEm87CWVud9grDFGcc8U93PGChtT4/s1600/IMG_0176.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVBjM1m3tevdx5EQZWYcZ1p4zC2-sSCmkUQEfz-JA4BkV_scX3cMa6tPuFZALplysV3pLf5xhPUMSxvo138RZpF_SSIlG8CLJ1GdzapTxkYZ9e59IEm87CWVud9grDFGcc8U93PGChtT4/s1600/IMG_0176.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enroute to Tredjetoppen with some of the driving forces behind NarvikRando</td></tr>
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From Tredjetoppen we skied the usual line, wrapping around the cliff bands at 1000m. before skinning back up to the Forsnes ramp. The normal line down to Forsnesvatnet skied beautifully like it usually does. Then we skinned up to the saddle between Jøden and Beisfjordtøtta, followed by a short bootpack along the rimed up ridge line until we reached a notch in the ridge where Micke's idea awaited. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZLZ_lVrDml0QaGvE08Wkhca5KivkmIRhobbjU73PbH6qiI1HTDllYBFTD6iQvrjvmYqufSWpOlW9PvNL7hxvuBY0ZGRNWRXmn9BfdTOP2U3OUXDFZ0heX_n7xppjF0BsALlOEpiGsQrY/s1600/IMG_0179.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZLZ_lVrDml0QaGvE08Wkhca5KivkmIRhobbjU73PbH6qiI1HTDllYBFTD6iQvrjvmYqufSWpOlW9PvNL7hxvuBY0ZGRNWRXmn9BfdTOP2U3OUXDFZ0heX_n7xppjF0BsALlOEpiGsQrY/s1600/IMG_0179.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke skiing from 3de toppen</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgSr1MRrjzUIhqyttUwM6rkt3BPRHTLxnOq-xDY3Lc2toCCeuqSbQGjZmpH48Hw8o4wCUKwy5jOev-HwGF4DT77Xkuf52Lc4rFSHTOERIGJwmz3Z_sQb2WoP47S7OX_S2fT6TUeln5gYA/s1600/IMG_0190.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgSr1MRrjzUIhqyttUwM6rkt3BPRHTLxnOq-xDY3Lc2toCCeuqSbQGjZmpH48Hw8o4wCUKwy5jOev-HwGF4DT77Xkuf52Lc4rFSHTOERIGJwmz3Z_sQb2WoP47S7OX_S2fT6TUeln5gYA/s1600/IMG_0190.JPG" height="310" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skinning up to the Forsnes ramp with Sovende Dronning in the background</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fTFT3kKErf2iYI4QW_xZoPQd1Fo-BsWImGYrK5U1zv4I58uUACCmwHXkjgoDOWSqg34QfqW3nx16m8khgmN9sZ7lH_L48iKBuYCcB99A6HXEwc7vF2WjCghfEatp6ktLxpEgGJJqToY/s1600/IMG_0196.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-fTFT3kKErf2iYI4QW_xZoPQd1Fo-BsWImGYrK5U1zv4I58uUACCmwHXkjgoDOWSqg34QfqW3nx16m8khgmN9sZ7lH_L48iKBuYCcB99A6HXEwc7vF2WjCghfEatp6ktLxpEgGJJqToY/s1600/IMG_0196.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke dropping in on the Forsnes ramp</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4MUz3nvy-X57YHMoc_SHQ8iHwD6vXqK5xr5UuGKDQqK96tUD-0k6bHMphFgTzp79weEX7fySygT4hIUoy3PBDKGofrEXJYk5gKzvqcsx0xe-ITJFLOHk379EVd-PTty4dk5NRC5qSx8/s1600/IMG_0199.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4MUz3nvy-X57YHMoc_SHQ8iHwD6vXqK5xr5UuGKDQqK96tUD-0k6bHMphFgTzp79weEX7fySygT4hIUoy3PBDKGofrEXJYk5gKzvqcsx0xe-ITJFLOHk379EVd-PTty4dk5NRC5qSx8/s1600/IMG_0199.JPG" height="314" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Einar making his way down the Forsnes ramp</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjORqVJpBTNl4aOU6XsyFrKO5qDNbG2l3dOCNHSjG3UmacaJbqYO8KdRYV5hcFqcZZV7GuTm9TTz5L2M9VECngxbLJJz-MNrUaFlPh5fiExdyMk2Ob7XN5PvgJSBhn1wYrwroZVSycYXF4/s1600/IMG_0212.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjORqVJpBTNl4aOU6XsyFrKO5qDNbG2l3dOCNHSjG3UmacaJbqYO8KdRYV5hcFqcZZV7GuTm9TTz5L2M9VECngxbLJJz-MNrUaFlPh5fiExdyMk2Ob7XN5PvgJSBhn1wYrwroZVSycYXF4/s1600/IMG_0212.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke slaying the Forsnes ramp</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqawz2KKAF7QAPgdxXbp8sGgnjGT8RFZSH2TGE1aCvchpZdhss_gh0bn87BdndOqwXRknRlq6J9B6B0zwvTyHr2VIPz3UmjBJimzVrrCMWC-rW8ieIbPU9I1MI1pgYLgb1p9hf_EpMGdY/s1600/IMG_0219.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqawz2KKAF7QAPgdxXbp8sGgnjGT8RFZSH2TGE1aCvchpZdhss_gh0bn87BdndOqwXRknRlq6J9B6B0zwvTyHr2VIPz3UmjBJimzVrrCMWC-rW8ieIbPU9I1MI1pgYLgb1p9hf_EpMGdY/s1600/IMG_0219.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Einar booting up the rimey ridge line</td></tr>
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The entrance to the line was guarded by a small cornice, which made viewing the couloir below kind of tricky- Micke made short work of tidying it up with shovel whilst tied in. After a steep rollover in the entrance around 45, the couloir mellowed a little to around 40 and offered some fun turns with a double fall line. Once down on the glacier the slope angle eased up and offered some fun, cruisy turns straight down the fall line. Below this another couloir, in the realm of 30-35 was skied to exit the glacier. From here some traversing and a bit of bushwhacking took us down to the road near Beisfjord. In total the final descent involved about 1400 metres of vertical, varied in the sort of skiing it offered up but also somewhat consistent and sustained in the attention it captured. Like any really good line, once it has been skied, it seems totally obvious and I was left wondering why it wasn't skied regularly.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sizing up the entrance couloir. Photo: Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Einar skiing the entrance couloir.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fun pow turns on the glacier sandwiched in between two nice couloirs</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Micke in the exit couloir</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Einar and myself skiing the exit couloir. Photo: Micke</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whilst skiing through the trees on the way down I saw a wolverine!<br />
He bolted uphill. These are his tracks.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walking the last hundred metres to the road.</td></tr>
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Down at the road we were a little late for the bus we had planned on catching, but instead of waiting for the next one happily got a lift back to town from one of Einar's work buddies. </div>
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This was all before work and all accessible without a car. After years in Narvik I am still amazed by the proximity of great ski lines and the fact that there are still so many "un-skied classics" like this one waiting to be discovered.</div>
<br />Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-61244574264766173102015-03-04T09:11:00.000-08:002015-03-04T09:11:19.955-08:00Rånkeipen and some unsolicited advice on ski crampons<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I've had a little unplanned hiatus from the blogosphere on account of being busy with other stuff and not having much to report on. We're entering the prime season here in Norway though so I think its about time I pulled my finger out and started posting again.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Today invovled a sterling outing on Rånkeipen with Markus, Magnus and Axxa. </span>I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Suffice to say it was very fun.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Once we cleared the dense birch trees the views over Ofotfjorden were totally OK</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Axxa has a red speed suit. She is also one of the most enthusiastic and speediest touring partners I've ever had.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking South</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking North</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magnus and Axxa approaching the summit of Rånkeipen</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Axxa covered about 2x the vert that the rest of us did.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As usual the summit pitch was rimed up and kind of wind jacked. And as usual the views were pretty decent.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The skiing was mostly dust on crust. But this is better than simply crust</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Magnus and Axxa on the cruisy lower section</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEetoyLXBeVyVWOqFfpbHoSPk46zYF_BnK80_vLzW15ntx-ChBEjJ72ftfg4u7dFCh4i8Z0oUsAaHBgXaJFYC7dmYmCMgPH6w6_6RMGX_aTGtY1m63MRW-zQsZZzxBKy1whqsIwjq3Gs/s1600/IMG_0165.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEetoyLXBeVyVWOqFfpbHoSPk46zYF_BnK80_vLzW15ntx-ChBEjJ72ftfg4u7dFCh4i8Z0oUsAaHBgXaJFYC7dmYmCMgPH6w6_6RMGX_aTGtY1m63MRW-zQsZZzxBKy1whqsIwjq3Gs/s1600/IMG_0165.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Markus and Ofotfjorden</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Markus and Rånkeipen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><b>And now for some unsolicted advice on ski crampons</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">One of the
fantastic things about all the wind jacked snow in northern Norway is the great
value for money we get for our ski crampons. Despite how regularly I feel like
I use them I am constantly surprised by the number of people who don’t own a
pair or don’t know how to fit them to their skis effectively. So I decided to
share a little unsolicited instructional rant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">First off,
get some. If you ever bring an ice axe and crampons on your outings in the
alpine, then you will also benefit from having some ski crampons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I have seen
some weird techniques for fitting/removing ski crampons. Some people even go so
far as to remove their boot from the binding to fit the ski-crampon, this is
unnecessary and just as ridiculous as taking your ski off to rip your skins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Like any
decision in ski mountaineering, the choice to fit or remove your ski crampons
is all about anticipation. Look ahead, think about the snow surface and slope
angle. It’ll be much easier to fit on a small ledge in softer snow than on some
steep boiler plate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If I’m
expecting to use ski crampons I have them hanging on a small toy carabiner from
my pack somewhere easily accessible, <i>not
inside my pack</i>. They make a nice jangling noise like chimes and mean you
can put them on in a jiffy without having to take your pack off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Step 1)
Unclip your ski crampons one at a time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Step 2) If
you are fitting the ski crampon to your left ski, hold the ski crampon in your
right hand and </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">plant your left pole solidly in the snow/ice to help balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Step 3)
Stand on your right ski and lift your left ski up, swing it around behind your
right leg.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Step 4)
Bend over and slot the ski crampon into position.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Step 5)
Repeat the process for the other ski.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Below is a
little demonstrational video<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/121263612" width="700" height="525" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/121263612">Ski Crampons- how to put them on better</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user9637652">Kaj Sønnichsen</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Kajhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03375721564933079543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1656600019533588781.post-22991863944334898222014-11-13T09:28:00.002-08:002014-11-13T09:28:47.359-08:00Running in Australia<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Just
finished up a two weeks visit back in Australia, aside from catching up with
family and drinking a lot of coffee and beer, I was keen to get some training
done. In particular I was eager to log some vertical in preparation for the
upcoming winter of touring and also to revisit some of the mountains in the SE
corner of Australia which were such an integral part of my upbringing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Over the
years I’ve found that most people (Australians included) are oblivious to the
mountains of Australia, thinking that beyond the picturesque beaches lies a
flat and arid interior. Whilst it is true that the climate in Australia is
arid, the idea that it is all flat isn’t quite accurate. The area in the SE of
Australia, including the Snowy Mountains (something of a misnomer) and the
Victorian Alps comprise dozens of peaks with a respectable relief from the
nearby valleys. True, mountain terrain is mostly quite gentle and benign with
rounded “hills” rather than jagged spired dominating the skyline; and true, the
snowline is usually quite high, but if you are keen there is some great trail running and some interesting ski touring to be had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I enjoyed
four standout trail runs while I was in the country:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><u>Mt Bogong,
up and down the Staircase (about 16km and 1450+ metres, 2:20)</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The highest
point in Victoria, and one of the first mountains I hiked up as a kid. I have
many memories of this peak, such as sleeping on the summit without any water as
a teenager on a summer hike over from Hotham, and on another occasion teaching
myself how to self-arrest with an exceptionally long, old axe borrowed from a
friend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The run was
nice, however I discovered that I’ve spent enough time out of Australia in the
past years to have grown unaccustomed to reptiles and had a few frights
encountering half a dozen blue tongued lizards which I instinctually thought to
be snakes.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><u>Mt Buffalo,
up the Big Walk (about 11km and 1050+ metres, 1:30)</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was the first place I ever went skiing at the age of 5. Good to see it again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Earlier this year this place hosted <a href="http://www.buffalostampede.com.au/" target="_blank">Australia's first ever event in the SkyRunning series</a>.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><u>Mt
Feathertop, up the Bungalow Spur and along the Razorback Ridge (about 22km and
1700+ metres, 2:55)</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The nicest
mountain trail in Australia in my opinion; a perfect balance between being runnable and also steep sections which require more effort. Not much in the way of views whilst I was there though:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><u>Mt
Kozciusko and the Main Range Track from Thredbo (about 44km and 1800+ metres,
5:02)</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">I used to
think that the Main Range track was the best trail in the Australian Alps, and
it certainly does have some terrific views over the highest peaks in Australia.
The trail has received an immense amount of upkeep in the past decade, to the
point where a quad bike could now comfortably traverse most of the track. After a winter with heavy snowfall there was still quite a bit of it around for early November, I even saw one fellow skiing on Carruthers Peak<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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