Bo Rune Tore, his brother and a group of their friends came and visit me and Claire in the Sunnmöre Alps for a few days. Most of the same crew where here last year but then we got rained out and had to escape to Sogndal. This year we had better luck.

Day 1

Bo Rune Tore and co. met us at the Austefjord to climb and ski Eidskyrka. It’s a great peak for ski touring. There is a small road the takes you up to 390m which is pretty much above the tree line. From here it is about 1150m to the top which gives you a top of the line view over the Sunnmöre Alps.

It was everyones first day so the main focus was not to get blisters and to see that everybody’s equipment was working. The bonus was Blue sky, no wind and perfect powder pretty much all the way down.

We finished the day with beers and a great dinner that Bo Rune Tore had prepared.

Another day with a blue sky. Today the objective was Skårasalen. A perfect roundtrip that finishes in a north east facing bowl that goes straight down to the fjord for 1200 vertical meters with an average angel of 25-30 degrees.

The tour starts with 5 kilometer on a road. It takes you up the beautiful Bondedalen. After that the climbing starts. From here its about 1200m and about 1450m in total from the car. It was a warm day and it was roasting in the sun on the south face. When we got to the col at 1200m the weather changed. The wind picked up and it got freezing cold. After being too warm in my t-shirt I was now cold with all my clothes on. It’s funny how the weather works in the mountains.

The summit is the highest point in the area so the view was tremendous. After signing the top book and few quick shots with the camera we were all happy to start skiing down. The snow was excellent. Very dry and very cold and very fun. When we got down into the bowl it got even better. This north east facing bowl has high steep walls that protects it from both wind and sun. I felt like there was about 20 cm of surface hoar (Rime frost crystals that forms on the surface of a snowpack on a cold clear night). I think this is one of the most beautiful descents in Norway.

When you reach the fjord there is a trail that brings you to an isolated farm that you only can access from the water. From here we took the ferry back to our house.

We had all brought a beer to top of the day with the idea of drinking it on the ferry on our way home looking at the line we had just skiied. Which is exactaly what we did!

Day 3

This was the bad weather day with poor visibility and strong wind gusts and a bit of snow. I thought that if there was not too much new snow a couloir could be a good option for the day. I had spotted one form the road the other day that I thought could be good for today. We went to have a look but when we got there both the wind and the snowing had increased a lot. I told them that the avalanche danger was probably to high but they wanted to go had have a look anyway. They wanted to have an adventure.

The tour up was beautiful. A bit surreal, like the winter you would imagine in Narnia. The birch trees were heavily covered in snow and it was snowing so wildly that we could only see about 50 m ahead. The stillness created by the soundproof blanket that the heavy snowfall provided was broken by the roar of avalanches selfreleasing in the rough weather. Even before we left the car I had decided not to attempt to ski the couloir but the conditions were even more crazy than I had foreseen. We continued up to where we could see that couloir and paused to embrace the landscape and the weather. The ski down was better than expected.

A few hours later when we were sitting in a hot tub overlooking the fjord with a 18 year old Laphroaig in hand, and porpoises swimming in the distance, life seems pretty good.

Day 4

Last day. The blue ski is back. The fresh snow is everywhere. And so was the avalanche danger. I decide to do a tour with less than 30 degrees angle. We went to Sandfjället. The snow the absence of wind the blue sky the people, it all made it in to a perfect day. The pictures speak for themselfs.

Thanks guys. For a great day and a great week.

This week has been a difficult week. The Binje Brothers have been down here for the past 6days. They are great people with good energy and I really wanted to give them some fun skiing. The weather forecast was crap with high temperatures, bad visibility and just small amounts of precipitation pretty much over the hole Alps. Our first had choice for this week was Cortina. But the weather was even worse there than here in Chamonix and sins I have never been there that was out of the question. Onsight guiding in bad visibility is a bad combination.

We stayed in my home area and just took every day as It came.



Day 1

We whet to Courmayeur. to our suprise we found some fun skiing in the north facing forests. It was borderline of been to warm, but it worked and we were all alone.

Day 2

Hellbronner on the Italian side seemed like a good choice for the day. It’s higher and there had been a quit a lot of precipitation on altitude. And there is a good restaurant for lunch. It turned out to be a good choice. There were only us and a hand full of other people, and the snow was great. A little heavy towards the end but still good.

Day 3

We whet up and did the Italian vallee blanch. Down at about 2400m we put on the skins and walked 800 vertival meters up to col de Tacul. This tour have a spectacular ambiance. You are walking under the Dent du geant and Arete Du Rochefort. From the col we did a little steeper variation further to the skiers right. It is the third couloir to the right when you looked from above. I can highly recommend this variation. Fun skiing with good snow and it is rarely skied.

Day 4

The visibility was next to zero both in Chamonix and Courmayeur so we decided to go further down the Aosta valley. Up above Morgex there are some nice ski touring terrain. The top is at 2600m and there are some fun north facing tree skiing to be had there. Strangely enough the sun was shining down here. We thanked the generosity of the weather Gods and had a great day out. It was so good that we looped the lower section twice.

Day 5

The visibility is back in Courmayeur and it has snowed quite a bit. To say that it was good visibility might be stretching the truth a bit. But it was skiable and it did clear during the day. The snow however, was amazing. We looped a couple of times from The Youla lift and finished from the Arp when it cleared and skied down the Dolonne valley. We had first tracks pretty much the hole way and the entire valley to our self.

Day 6

Another great day in Courmayeur. Today it was good visibility. It’s amazing to leave an overly crowded rainy Chamonix with low clouds and come to a quiet Courmayeur.

When we came to the top of the Arp we were the only ones there. Just us and a Russian couple. It was quite high avalanche danger that day and these two didn’t have and avalanche equipment. I told them it was a bad idea to ski from the Arp with no avalanche gear since there are no pistes up there, but that only seemed to have the opposite effect. Its funny how that works.

We set of to do the Arp valley. To get to the Arp Valley you need to tour for about 30 min. 30 min well invested. We had the Arp Valley all to our self and there were no tracks. After a great lunch we whet up again and skied the Dolonne valley from the Youla.

A great finish to a good week.

Thanks guys for a great week. See you soon in Norway!

This week I have been skiing with Jerk and Simon.                                                              
On our first day we did col de Beuguant. A great tour in the Aiguill Rouges mountain range. After about 750m vertical of touring you put the skis on the backpack and put on the crampons to do a small trevers through a rock band. After that you reach the col and then there is a 50m down climb on the other side before you put on the skis. 

The little climb at the top really makes the tour and it keeps a lot of the people away. But the best thing with this tour is the descend.  You ski pretty much in the fall line all the way from the top to the bottom of the Berard Valley.

We had nice light, fast powder all the way. A good day to be touring.

The second day it was -26 at the top of the Aiguille du Midi. No wind and blue sky but crazy cold. The plan of the day was to do the Vraie Vallee Blanc and then skin up to breche Puiseux. From the salla manche under the Requin Hut we put on the skins and climbed about 800 to the start of the finish couloir. Then it gets too steep for skinning so we put on the crampons on and take the skies on the backpack for the last 250m. On the back side of the col there is a 60m rappel. After that we put the skies back on and have a 1100m descent with the north face of Grandes Jorasses majestically rising above you. The snow was good and it was not a problem to ski all the way down to Chamonix.

In total we did ca 3700 vertical meters downhill and 1050m uphill. Good work boyz.

The third day was a shorter day. We did les Grandes Autannes. It’s a superb route with a minimal of effort. From the top chair lift from Le Tour we walked straight up for 500m with the skies on the backpack.  On the north side of les Grandes Autannes you can normally find cold protected powder. This was the case when we were there.

The terrain is quiet steep but not too steep and really playful. This was probably the most fun run of the week.

On our last day we decided to go to Les Houches. It was windy up high but still cold enough for it to be good In be lower mountains. There is a secret forest on the backside of Les Houches that only a few people knows about. We skied first tracks all day.

                                                                

Thanks my friends for a great week

This week I have been working for Mountain Guide Travel together with Rasmus Krogerus.

We explored the off-piste and ski touring around Grindelwald,Wengen and Murren. This 3 ski areas are liked with a great network of trains that are climbing the steep cliff sides of the Lauterbrunnen valley. At first glance the terrain seemed quite limited with big cliff bands cutting of the flow of the landscape. But as we got to know the areas it revealed both fantastic off-piste skiing and great ski touring.

The cold weather, the fresh snow and the light winds gave us optimal conditions to play in. At least if you like cold, light, dry, champagne like powder. It’s always great to see respected supporters of the society become playful children screaming of pure joy.

Thank you Rasmus, Lars, Birgitta, johan, Jonas, Anders, Fredric, Erik, Erik, Erik, Martin and Jenny for 4 fun days.

This week i have been working for Mountain Guide Travel.

We have been based in Varcorin, a small village on the north side of the Rhone valley in Switzerland. From here you can easy access both ski areas as St-luc and Nax. They are all small quiet ski areas with good off-piste possibilities.

Thanks Ola, Lars, Fredrik, Rickard, Fredrik and Johan for 4 great days

For the last few days we have had a glacier course for Active Education. It’s a Norwegian school based in Chamonix with focus on skiing and ski touring.

We did 2 days with each class.

Day one we skied vallee Blanche and talked about how to ski on a glacier, what to look for and how to find the safest way down. We ended the day with a crevasse rescue exercise.

Day two we did a ski tour on the glacier and learned the essential knowledge of rope work, how to rope up and how to ski on a glacier with a rope  

Thank you all for fun days in the mountain

18th of January

It was a cold morning. -14 degrees Celsius down in the valley. After the strong winds we had the last few days we decided to go to the more sheltered Les Houches. Les Houches is often overlooked by the people that come to visit Chamonix. It’s a small place at the end of the valley and it has some outstanding forest-skiing. This day was no exception. With a little bit of hiking you can get a lot of first tracks.

19th of January

Fortunately the weather forecast was wrong for today. They had predicted that the temperature was going to rise to 12 degrees in the valley and rain up to 2200m. We went to Le Tour and skied different variations from Tete de Balme all day. The snow was great and we were all alone.

20th of January

It had snowed heavily in Italy all day yesterday so Courmayeur seemed to be the best choice for the day. All the northerly aspects were in great condition. We had knee deep powder all the way down to the valley floor. We skied different variations down to Val Veni all day.

21st of January         

Another day in Courmayeur. Today the top lifts were closed. But no one had opened the furtherest skiers right variation from the top of the Baite drag lift in to the Dolonne valley so there was plenty of fresh knee deep powder to be had. After a couple of runs people had started to follow in to our little secret spot and it was time to put the skins on. With about 45 mins of skinning you can reach a higher entrance to the Dolonne valley. From here there was about 1000m of vertical untracked northfacing 35° snow to be had. We did it twice and agreed that this was as good as it gets.

Thanks Bo Rune Tore for 4 great days

Salbit

This was my first time in The Salbit area. It is impressive. Here you can find granite ridges up to 1000m vertical and probably enough climbing to last you for a lifetime.

The walk up to the hut takes 2 to 2.5 h. It’s about 900m vertical ‘on a good trail.

The first day we started with the walked up to the Salbit hut and stopped for a light breakfast. The plan was to climb the Ostgrat but when we reached the start of the route we realized that there was too much snow. We setteled for the more sun exposed little brother of Ostgrat of Salbitschijen (2981m), the Paralleler ostgrat (300m 5a). We kept practicing the simul climbing technique to make it smoother and more efficient for the next day’s adventure.

Even thou there was quite a lot of snow on the descent we got back to the hut with plenty of time before the dinner.

We had a 5 a clock start the next day. A perfect day. No clouds and on wind. It was a couple of degrees below zero but we were going to the Sudgrat (south ridge, 600 5+) of Salbitschijen, so as soon as the sun was up it was going to be warm.

The Sudgrat is a long esthetic ridge that goes all the way to the top. Even this peak has a bonus top, Hauptgipfel. After having practiced simul climbing for two days we finally got to put the skills into action on a real mountain route.

The result was amazing. We did the 16th pitches in 5 and cut the recommended time in half. Without any stress we just floated up the route. It was a great day on a great route.

About 20 min before we reached the hut I called and ordered to large rösti. It’s highly recommended.

Thanks Barry for three great days

Aiguille de la Gliere SSE Arret. 2663m

I and Barry had 3 days to climb. The plan was alpine rock climbing and the weather forecast looked really good. It had snowed down to 2500m the previous days so the options were a bit limited. The classic SSE ridge of Aiguille dl la Gliere in the Aiguilles Rouges (the massif north of Mt Blanc) seemed like a good choice for the first day. And it has a fun little bonus peak at the top.

The route is about 400m D+ with climbing mostly around 4c and 5a. It’s very scenic with a not too long approach and is still of the beaten track.

I introduced simultaneous climbing (simul climbing) to Berry for the first time. With this method both climbers are climbing at the same time with running belays between each other. If this type of climbing is practiced in the wrong way it can quickly become very dangerous. But if practiced in the wright way it is very efficient and is ideal for long alpine routes.

The route took us 5 hours roundtrip and we were down in the valley at about 2 pm. The plan was to go to Salbit in the evening to stay for two days. The drive is 5 h so it was nice to be down early.

We have had great weather the last few days in Chamonix, perfect conditions for alpine rockclimbing. I and Barry have enjoyed two classics on Pointe Lachenal and the south face of Aiguille du Midi.

The first day we went down to Pointe Lachenal to climb Harold et Maud. It’s a 250m crack line that offers high quality climbing around 5+ with one pitch of 6a, one of the best routes in its grade in this area. Except for the cold wind the conditions could not have been better.

The second day we did Rebuffat on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi. This is the nr 1 classic in this area. In combination with the high quality climbing in moderate grades, easy access and that it tops out at the lift station makes it very popular. We arrived early, but not early enough. There was already a team on the route when we arrived. But they were kind enough to let us pass and after that we had the whole route to our self.

These two routes are superb and I can highly recommend them to everyone that comes to Chamonix for alpine rock climbing. Thanks Barry for two great days