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!