Spending Time Up North

The last one and a half weeks I’ve been up in the north of Sweden in the mountains around Abisko for a guide exam and some ski guiding.

After almost one and a half year of guide courses and plenty of training it was now finally time to do the first aspirant exam. The aspirant exam is divided in skiing, rock climbing and alpine climbing and from Monday to Thursday last week we went through the ski test. Four days that covered classic ski guiding followed – both with lifts and on skins, navigation, avalanche safety, group management, planning, strategy and finally everything came down to if we were able to guide safely, with flow, and find the best skiing attainable at a given moment. Everyone in the class did an amazing job and at the end everyone passed. Big thumbs up to our examiners Jimmy Odén and Jonathan Hultén for good and humble leadership where their skills from this arena really shine through!

After the course I stayed put at Abisko Mountain lodge to work a few days with ski guiding maestro Stefan Palm at Heli Ski Guides Sweden. We had a couple of great days with good people and atmosphere, skilled skiers, an awesome pilot and conditions that finally came together so that we were able to have a huge powder day exploring Sweden’s world class heli ski terrain. This was a perfect way of ending my time spent in the north for this season. Now I will only go south from here until next winter!

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