TR: Norway - Lyngen Alps with Video Series.
In the midst of a month long mooch around the Lyngen Alps of Northern Norway from 15th of April to 15th of May, so thought I'd post this TR with some info, my video series and updates along the way.
Already a cracking Lyngen TR on here from some fella last year. Wicked info in that, so give that a read too.
The details..
So we're based in a naughty little AirBnb just outside of Lyngseidet, which is the main urban centre of the Lyngen peninsula and situated slap bang in the middle of it all. The gaff is pretty much straight outta the 60's with even a bunch of family photos dating back a 100 years. Slightly weird, but kinda cool.
We drove here from Chamonix and yes it was a fucking long way. Took us 4 days. Would definitely hire a car next time. Nice to bring up a load of extra gear though... fishing equipment etc. (more on that in a future video).
So this place completely lives up to the hype and more. I've never been to an area with so many easily accessible mountains, literally covered in lines. The sea view's ain't bad either... it's a ski tourers wet dream.
There's 2 good guidebooks in English (Ski Touring in Troms and the other one is The Lyngen Alps). We've been using these, along with Google Earth, the Norgeskart map app and following these Instagrams hashtags: #lyngen #lyngenalps.
I've been creating a video series as I go along. Got a bit of a backlog of episodes to create, which I'll add to this post when ready.
Episode 1 - Goalborri & Goalsevarri NW Gully
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WzLFoyrtFY
Headed up Goalborri on the north eastern side of the peninsula (map link) for our first tour. Had some pretty flat light at times, snow was pretty crusty at the top, but nice and slushy on the lower half. Its quite a mellow route, but one part was threatened by a large overhanging cornice, so we opted to boot back up a small ridge instead. Some great lines to be had on Goalborri's North Eastern face.
Went for a dip in the sea to try and spear something for dinner. No fish in sight, but a pod of dolphins swam past which more than made up for it! This was actually on our first night in Tromso, before we headed over to Lyngen.
Next up was an evening skin up behind the house to Goalsevarri (map link). Due to its proximity to Lyngseidet, this is a super popular mountain to ski. However the summit ridge is ridiculously aesthetic to skin along in the golden light and there's some really nice pitches to ski on various aspects. The NE side was tracked to shit, but no one had headed down the NW gully and we got some crackin' compressed snow amongst some succulent beams of orange sunlight. Winner.
Episode 2 - The Godmother Couloir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgtviHE70v8
A real Lyngen classic, the aptly named 'Godmother of all Couloirs' is seriously good (map link). Including it's apron it rises 1300m straight out of the fjord and is described as having a 45 degree pitch in the guidebook. In reality, I think it's more like 40 degrees for the bottom 2/3rds of the couloir itself and 45 degrees for the top 3rd. With a North facing aspect, its a real banger in good snow. Luckily we got some flippin' great snow! Big dump the day before had us phoning up this local farmer to book a ride across the fjord in his boat (this cost 200 NOK each return with 4 of us in the boat - access is otherwise a PITA, be prepared for a long walk along seaweed covered rocks from the either the East or West). It was a real slog getting up the couloir in the deep snow. We had crampons on, but they weren't really necessary. In normal to hard snow conditions however, they probably would be. A gang of scandi pandies hot on our heels, raised the stress levels a tad in the race to get first tracks. One of them... a bearded, long legged viking chap, shot past us. The stoke meter slightly dropped at this point, but quickly raised again when we realised he was going to break trail for us the whole rest of the way! Dropping in behind viking chap, it was an insanely good decent and well summed up in classic understated English style at the end of the vid by my compatriot.
Episode 3 - Sultinden Gullies, Fish Hunting & Daltinden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAmWYnhAT88&t=7s
Heading up towards Sofiatinden with the intention of skiing it's south face, we instead found warmer than expected temperatures. Ah well, lucky for us the north side of Sultinden (map link) was looking rather inviting, with some naughty untracked gullies coming off it's top ridge. A skin n' a scramble later and we were dropping in to some velvety powder, followed by a ski back to the fjord in the evening light.
Next up was a rest day and what better to do on a rest day in Norway... than hire a boat and catch some dinner! Stoke levels were at all time high as we motored out of the harbour and fortunately continued to rise further as we reeled in 9 juicy fish in total. I also jumped in the water for a spearfish and came back with a smallish little nipper to round out our cod haul to 10.
Daltinten (map link) was the final item of the menu for this episode. A popular mountain to ski tour, you get 1500m of skiable vert, with a nice 30 to 35 degree sustained pitch to shoot down. We actually intended to ski it's North East Couloir, but the weather gods decided to roll some heavy cloud in as we got to the summit. Skiing down the normal route, we got a mix of snow, but still a fun descent.
Episode 4 - Midnight Sun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW-SF5tSUXw
Aside from the incredible quality of skiing on offer, one of the most alluring reasons for skiing in Lyngen, 350 km within the Arctic Circle, is the midnight sun. In early May, when this was shot, the sun never fully sets, bathing the landscape for hours on end in succulent swathes of orange and purple.
Tom Atkin had just arrived from the UK on an evening flight and we thought it would be a good excuse to go and ski something reasonably short and mellow, but fully immersed in sexy light and surroundings.
Heading to the very northern tip of the Lyngen peninsula, we spied a tasty looking shoulder on Litlegalten. A couple of hours skinning and rock hopping saw us ready to drop in. Snow was more sun affected than expected on our entry point and we set off a couple of slow but easily manageable wet releases. Mild porno innuendo aside, we immediately skied away from these and over to and down the crest of the shoulder on a slightly altered aspect; the snow was a lot more stable and skied pretty darn nicely.
I could earnestly wax lyrical for hours about the sensual pleasures of skiing down towards the ocean in the midnight sun. But better summed up as, bloody delightful!
Episode 5 - Tomas Couloir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsrP0eaQPN4
A classic moderate couloir in Lyngen, the Tomas is either skied as a single objective or as is often the case, used as an access and exit to various tours and lines in the Lakselvtindane area. We thought we'd have a mooch and then a butchers at some further options up there.
Snow in the couloir itself was pretty tracked (it was a Norwegian national holiday or something the day before!). But once we flopped onto the glacier, a delightful site was there for the greeting. We had a little peak a couple of hundred meters above us, enveloped in that velvety spring powder loveliness that is ohhh so alluring! ...especially for the start of May.
Views from the top were a treat and the skiing and snow more than matched. Even the couloir wasn't bad, with nice stuff at the sides.
Finishing up by some bizzare looking grass houses in the spring sun, rounded out a cracker of a day!
More episodes to come....
