44 Attachment(s)
Lyngen Alps 4/20- 5/8 Big Ole TR Tons of Photos Part 1
Making this TR because it was hard as shit to find one solid source for skiing around Lyngen. If you are planning on going, you’ll find a bunch of detailed beta at the end. Figured people want to see the trip first.
My splitboard friend Matt and I went there April 20- May 8th this spring and it did not disappoint. Lyngen is truly incredible. Forgive me if I butcher the names and locations. Norwegian is hard.
4/20-21
Attachment 207824
Isn’t this the photo people post to instagram? Throw it all into a pile and find out if it fits. Boots, skins, sunny days, Fernet..... it was like 90lbs, but with some shuffling and smoozing, the airline agents let it slide, only a little extra fee. Be sure to put yer avy shovels in your checked bags BTW. They probably disrupt the nava- communicational network if you carry them on or something.
Attachment 207825
Watched the sunset behind the plane over Canada.
Attachment 207826
Then rise in front of the plane 4 hrs later!
Slight delay in Iceland, cowboy landing in Oslo, missed our flight to Tromso. Matt lost his Debit Card somewhere along the way. Got bumped up in class to Tromso, free beer and snacks! Then got my first glimpse of the Mountains! Piggtinden out the right side of the plane. I was pretty much in this dudes lap, geeking out, and taking pictures of the shit. Watch out for the revolving door in Tromso airport BTW, I got horribly stuck in that shit towing my ski bag. They have tunnels with roundabouts between the airport and main Tromso. Watch Out! Not used to subterranean driving, let alone 2 lane roundabouts in the dark after flying 20 hrs.
Attachment 207827
Attachment 207828
Attachment 207829
Waiting for the Breivikeidet Ferry. Caught the very last one at 10:30.
4/22
Woke to 3" new snow and blue skies in Lyngseidet. Headed to the north part of the peninsula to get a sled tow back to Nordlenangsbotn and the Vaggashytta. Had some time, so we went up to ski the Southwest gullies on Storgalten, which are pretty much right above town.
Attachment 207830
Attachment 207831
Only made it 1/3 of the way up the lookers right gully- had to meet up with Bent from Lyngen Havfiske Tursenter to get the sled tow 6 flat miles back to Vaggashytta.
Attachment 207832
Dude's 18 Y.O. kid towed us back there. Had never towed anyone or met Americans before. He was a trip. Told us about the "troll" that stays at the cabin all the time- old man that thinks he owns the place and is generally a dirty diaper. Sure ‘nuff he was there when we pulled up. We tried to be friendly and offered him whisky. Guess he didn’t drink or something- he packed his shit and cross country skied the fuck outta there. We had the place to ourselves.
Attachment 207833
Attachment 207834
Attachment 207835
Chased by the sunset up a 2000ft chute with easy booting after talking to the kid for about an hour and a half. Got back to the cabin at 1030, figured out how to light the propane stove and mowed dinner. Pretty great first day.
Attachment 207836
They love this shit over there btw. Tastes pretty good for about 3 days, then it started to remind me too much of wet cat food, and couldn’t handle it anymore.
4/23
Woke up at 930 the next morning. "Fuck! were blowing it!"
Attachment 207837
Chute from the night before, just above the cabin. We skied the one just looker’s left of the main fatty.
Kinda made plans to try to ski a peak about halfway back down the valley, Tverbakktinden. With the sun shining on all the pristine slopes, we couldn’t resist hitting something a little closer. Spied this big zig zag on Hattetinden up, figured we could ski Tverbakktinden on the way out tomorrow.
Attachment 207838
Attachment 207839
Looking across at the head of the valley. The avy report called for north and east facing persistent weak layers, and we had seen a few big crowns from the last cycle driving around on our way up. We let this stuff alone. But look at those two coolies back there!!!
Attachment 207840
Attachment 207841
Booting, then skiing the dog leg. Skied great; pow to loose wind buff. Also got a good view of upper Tverbakktinden for tomorrow. Skied 2000ft down to a roller and came back up with a plan to center punch the bowl. Had some gentle downhill wind that partially covered our booter, but was buffing out the snow nicely. Matt noticed a notch to our right and wondered if it would go, we went for an inspection.
Attachment 207854
Attachment 207843
Attachment 207844
Ended up being a great winding rime walled hallway with a steep 3'x 10' long crux near the top with great snow. It connected us easily to the summit plateau. It was pretty wind sculpted snow off the top. Back in the chute, it was soft, predictable wind buff. Really a great find. So stoked it went!
Attachment 207845
Matt skiing out the bottom of the Hattetinden Hallway
4/24
Next day we rolled out of Vaggashytta and made our way out the valley, hitting Tverbakktinden on the way. Matt broke a climbing bar, so we figured we’d leave our skins in the valley and just boot the whole thing, fuck it! Put them Billy Goats to the test!
Attachment 207846
Attachment 207847
Upper Tverbakktinden, taken from the Hattetinden dogleg the day before. Pretty amazing face if you ask me.
Attachment 207848
Attachment 207849
Matt booting the shit outta the upper face
Attachment 207850
Looking up valley from da top. Storgalten is the flat top on the right.
Attachment 207851
Shitty cell phone pic skiing the top on the first lap.
The very top was a pretty narrow ridge with like 800ft of exposure on the West side. Only kind of sketched out on a rime ridge, putting our shit on. The pow was velvety smooth on the first run, booter was set, so went up for another from the tippity top. Really amazing skiing and scenery. Totally calm and the sun wasn’t affecting the upper 2000ft. Skiing down, velvet transitioned perfectly to wind buff to hero corn. Picked up our supplies, and had a nice 3 mile flat skoot back to the car for some norwegian apres!
Attachment 207853
4/25
Matt wanted to cruise back to Lyngseidet to get his debit card thing rolling so we stayed at the hotel. He spent an hour or so on the phone going through his options, and settled on getting the card sent express to the South part of Lyngen. With that all settled, we decided to head up above town to ski around Rornefjellet and stay at the Rorneshytta. We went down to the outdoor store and met up with Bente, got the cabin code and headed up. Rorneshytta would be a great place to get some afternoon shredding in, and would set us up to try and hit the “Godmother Couloir,” a few miles to the West, tomorrow.
Attachment 207855
Rornesshytta is basically a brand spankin new cabin, spacious and clean. No running streams though, had to melt snow for water and the electric stove didnt work. We had to heat water on the wood stove. Super nice place besides, they had one o dem flaming toilets (if you’ve ever seen one), and the hut Meist-ress Bente started a fire for us while we were skiing! Rornesfjellet is a really heavily used zone, pretty much Lyngseidet's town hill. It was still wicked fun, with great views.
Attachment 207856
Attachment 207857
Attachment 207858
Attachment 207859
Buffy skiing through tons of tracks, cool and calm all day. Another amazing day in the mountains.
4/26
Woke up and headed North and West out of the basin, diagonaling through thick ass willows and birch trees. It was one of those awesome plans on paper, not so much in practice.
Attachment 207860
Its not all powder and pussy in Norway I guess…
Attachment 207861
We even got to walk across a boulder field! Yay.
Attachment 207862
The Godmother is the one on the left, 3000ft of coolie shredding
The willow traversing and the boulder walking got me down. I was in my head. I didn’t really want to go ski the Godmother anyway, there was a huge creek to cross, it was gonna be wind fucked in there, I know of a better looking face up this closer valley... I had lots of excuses to say fuck it, call it, and just ski this:
Attachment 207863
Taken from couple days later. The West Face of Rornesfjellet, in your face 3000 footer as you drive into Lyngseidet.
Matt didn’t need much convincing, and soon we were headed up for a plan b
Attachment 207868
Not a bad plan B, the West face of Rornefjellet
Attachment 207869
Attachment 207866
Did a couple laps on this guy and called it another awesome day.
Calm, and sunny skiing on velvet sparkle pow. Way better than being stuck in a chalky, shady, cold coolie all day. The de-proach was alright, back over the boulders, get tangled up in more willows, combat ski to a closed road and shoot back to the car. Found the whip at 8ish, cracked a cold one, and decided to jet down to the South part of the peninsula, Nordkjosbotn, where Matt’s shiny new debit card was being sent to.
In retrospect, we probably could have skinned back to the top of Rornesfjellet from the hut, booted like 100ft, dropped onto the West face, then hit the Godmother. At the top of the bootpack on the West side, we were probably only 40ft from the tipity top. Whatever, at least we got to walk some fuckin boulders along the shoreline!
