Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

Season Opening – Skiing The Glacier Ronde In October

The weeks after the Patagonia adventure has been filled with lots of rest, work, family time and me and my girl friend moving in to a new apartment just outside of Chamonix. Anyone who has been into the moving-in business know how much time and energy that takes.

Our tracks on Glacier Ronde yesterday the 29th of October!

Our tracks on Glacier Ronde yesterday the 29th of October!

I have totally ignored the warm rainstorms that has plastered the mountains with perfect steep skiing conditions and instead rested my mind from most things related to skiing.

Our tracks on Glacier Ronde yesterday the 29th of October!

But after getting my year pass for the lifts in Chamonix (and Courmayeur), the winter excitement took hold of me and I felt like I had to ski something. From where I live I have a first class view of on of the Chamonix classical semi-steep skis descents: The Glacier Ronde, and with a weekend full of rain and snowfall I couldn’t stay away from the thought of go skiing one of my favorite ski runs in the world.

Autumn can serve up with some of the best steep skiing conditions of the year, but it’s usually hard work to maneuver the lower elevations on the way back, where the snow cover normally is really poor.

As a proof of the possible good autumn conditions, a few years back, I managed to ski the Mallory (direct) of the north face of Aiguille du Midi in the best conditions I have ever seen up there. The thought of a mini repeat of that feeling was hard to stay away from.

Early Monday morning I met up with Swedish (half Danish, grew up in Spain) friend Niclas Hansen to take the first bin of the day at Aiguille du Midi. Only four other skiers accompanied us up.

At the top we skied down the semi icy ridge, then a very placky south face before we traversed around to the west side of the mountain. We used the rope to check the conditions on the traverse in to the big face where we found really good skiing conditions.

The first part of the run had about 20 cm of light powder snow, then the mid sections was pretty hard and the last third had about 30 cm of fresh snow on it.

We did one rappel to get in to the exit couloir and from here and onwards the snow conditions where competing with some of the better days in the winter season. Great skiing, great weather and great company – I were really happy I was out skiing in October.

At the end of the couloir we did one steep rappel to get down to the glacier and then we did about 2,5 hours of full on glacier warfare zig-zagging, jumping, climbing, traversing and rappelling before we reached the block terrain and “firm” ground.

From here on we had a long walk down to the old lift station and then the tunnel where Niclas Ferin (Thank you Niclas!) picked us up!

In winter it’s easy to ski the Ronde five times and be back in town for après ski, but now it’s still October and it feels great just to be out skiing again on Aiguille du Midi and totally escapistic to get a 1500 vertical meter powder run!

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Monday, October 22nd, 2012

It’s Finally Here – The Third And Last Lyngen Episode!

It’s finally here – The last and final third episode from our magical trip to the Lyngen Alps in Norway last April. After lots of hard work we finally got to charge some of the most beautiful lines in our lives!

Thanks to the Salén brothers for all the hard work and remember to check out the spiritual (in an non hippie way) skiing center – The Magic Mountain Lodge if you pass by this Mecca of ski touring and need a place to stay.

Also remember to check out more of Bjarne Salén’s kick ass movies at endlessflow.posterous.com.

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Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Patagonia – The Second Half Of The Trip Plus The Patagonian Photo Album

After the ski of the Whillans Ramp and the Cerro Grande mission the weather went bad to half bad and we weren’t really invited to do out for any more big missions. We had done our main objective and we had been getting the feel for the Torre Valley as well as the Fitz Roy Massif and even though we had some smaller objectives left on our radar, we felt like we wanted to focus on smaller adventures close(er) to the roads as well as the kick ass bouldering around El Chaltén.
 
Swimming up an awesome couloir in the Cordon Del Bosque mountains together with Bjarne and team Austria
In between some bad weather cycles we got some dry days for bouldering with our local friends who were showing us some of the best blocks in the area followed by detailed beta for every move. We had a great time bouldering, and it’s great to keep at least a bit of physical shape when on a ski adventure playing the weather game.
Then we had the great luck of running in to Mathias, Chris and Marvin from Austria who were in El Chaltén on a combined Ski and Climbing trip and who happened to have a car. They invited us to join them, and together we explored the mountains north of town including a beautiful couloir in the Cordon del Bosque Mountains and normal ski touring on Cerro Vespignani and Loma del Diablo.
Now I’m back in Chamonix looking back on another beautiful adventure with Bjarne. I’m really impressed and intimidated in a positive way by the Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre mountains, their size, their steepness, the long approaches and how wild they are. It’s not an easy place to go skiing steep descents, and there are not many high quality lines, but the ones that are there will keep future generations of steep skiers busy for some time. I’m also very impressed by our new local friends who invited us to their homes, pointed us in the right directions, gave us their time and knowledge, showed us around town and the boulder sites and in short were just awesome individuals living in an amazing place enjoying life (no one mentioned, no one forgotten – but you know who you are).
Part of the plan with the trip was to gather material for two new episodes that, if everything goes as planned, will be released in December. Till then, stay posted on what I do here on this blog or on my Twitter or Facebook.
Also keep an eye out for Bjarne Salén’s great episodes at his Video Blog or Facebook.
Now it’s time for me to prepare for another winter of skiing, climbing, guide courses and writing around Chamonix and elsewhere. 
 
Below is a selected photo album from our Patagonia trip. 
 
Bjarne in Madrid
El Calafate
Without our ski bags. We got them after three days.
Poincenot and Fitz Roy in the sun rise on our first day
I quickly had to give up vegetarianism with only two restaurants open in town…
Bjarne on our first recognacance trip
The down side of ski expeditions
The tyrolian traverse gives access to the Torre Valley
Seeing mighty Cerro Torre
A poster in the climbing gym. Love it!
The El Chaltén boulder room
On our way to Laguna los Tres, and the Ramp mission
Seeing Poincenot and the ramp from up close
Bjarne skiing above camp on our first day
Sunrise on our way up to the ramp
Bjarne giving thumbs up before i start to climb. He just belayed me over the bergschrunds…
Skiing high up on the Whillans Ramp
The view from the ramp
Poincenot, the ramp and Fitz Roy from when we walked out the following day
Patagonian wildlife
A dream come true, to see a Condor
Happy boys in our Cave
Walking in to Cerro Grande
Bjarne in the early morning
The north couloir on Cerro Grande, a no go
Skiing high up on the east ridge of Cerro Grande
Bjarne skiing on our way down from the plateau
Bjarne Salén in action
Our cosy Hilleberg house
Myself at camp
Myself skiing a steepish couloir on Loma del Diablo
Bjarne, Simon and myself at Loma del Diablo
Bjarne blouldering
Natcho
Some of the great people we met in town
Macho and Simon playing
Me at local radio… Getting interviewed in Spanish..
Das Auto del Team Austria
Our mission
Bjarne, Chris, Mathias and Marvin at Lago del Desierto
A cold river crossing
The team
Marvin in the couloir
Rapping to get down the gully at the end of the day
Ski touring on Vespignani
The filmer can also deliver!
One of our last boulder sessions before we went home….
 

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Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Interview At Planetmountain.com

Here’s an interview with me from last week at Planetmountain.com. Check it out here.

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Sunday, October 7th, 2012

Lyngen Descents Episode 2

Here comes the second episode from our Lyngen trip last spring! We got blessed with unreal snow conditions and during these three weeks we definitely got to experience the best mountain time last season. Tribute to amigo Felix Hentz! For more great mountain episodes, check endlessflow.posterous.com
 
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Monday, October 1st, 2012

Value

In my line of work I have had to learn how to see things as they are, meaning I have to cut through the veil of feelings that’s coming in to existence to just be in this moment of action-reaction.

In that place things are easy and clean cut like a hospital ward. Life’s easy there because it’s a land beyond thought. I don’t have to ask myself about the risk I take, I don’t have to ask myself about the value of my life and I definitely don’t have to get in to the question of happiness. None of these concepts exist in the hard and clean-cut world of rock, flesh, ice, snow, warmth and cold.

But to get depth in to existence one has to travel in between this world of action into the world of thoughts. It’s the only way for the actions to reflect themselves, stick to something and become reflections.

8 glacier

The risk of getting stuck in the world of thought is that, if you’re there for too long, you’ll only have thought to think about – reflections reflecting upon them self in to infinity. Reality becomes blur, genuineness and clarity get lost.

Value is something complicated. In economics value is that which does not exist in big quantity and have a great demand. We usually strap this same idea on to our everyday lives in our search for value in life.

Most truly intelligent people in the western world would agree that a valuable way of life does not depend on money when the basic (western) needs are satisfied.

I define happiness as being present in this moment of action, in other words being in the first clean-cut world I was describing firstly. To keep things easier to follow I define value in life as the amount of memories and reflections of these happy moments.

Sitting in a cave like hostel room in the Argentinian countryside, the things I find most valuable in my life is not the memories of ski descents I have done, even though I stay there for a glimpse and marvel on the escapistic reality I’m blessed to live. No, I feel the value in the small moments of interaction between myself and other human beings.

I see in front of me the touch of love from my girl, or that instant when time stops when two lovers eyes meet. I dwell in the instant caress when she touches me at the kitchen table just passing the room, her finger touching my neck. I get stuck in the warm hug or in the making of love.
I see the countless facial expressions of friends in joy from powder days, sharing the mutual feeling that we are truly having a great experience. Those memories are by far greater and more valuable than the actual turns we made or the depth of the fallen snow.

I can go on and on talking about countless memories of love and joy in human interaction, and I probably will in future posts, but I leave it there for now. I’m just, in this moment, very happy to have had the chance to live my life in the way I have had and that I have been able to share it with all the great people that have crossed my path.

For me, value lies in the interactions between lovers, family and friends. I sure hope I will learn to truly live this truth out in action…

Just one more thought. If we have the world of action and the world of thought as two worlds divided (I divided them earlier to simplify the text), what, then, happens when we are thinking of an action? Isn’t that an action in itself? This is where the world starts to spin – this is where the rabbit hole begins.

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Friday, September 28th, 2012

Patagonian Adventure Part 3 – Failure And Success On Cerro Grande

We have travelled to the other side of the world to do create an adventure.
I talked earlier about the analogy of a good adventure and a high jump competition where, if you aim high, there is a big risk you walk away with nothing. On this trip we have aimed high in our goals and we have failed in most of our objectives – except, luckily, the biggest one on the Whillans ramp over at Poincenot.
Skiing on the East Ridge of Cerro Grande, Cerro Torre Massif, Argentina
On our last little excursion Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, we walked in once again to the Torre valley to try to ski the most beautiful line we have spotted there – the north face of Cerro Grande.
The walk in took us nine long hours with heavy packs. Then we pitched our tents on the glacier, ate some, slept some, ate some more and then left for the mountain at 4:30 AM.
Refrozen breakable crust awaited us in the dark on the steep slopes on the side of the highly crevassed glacier. It was impossible to walk with the skins, it was way too slippery, and instead we had to boot pack 1000 meters in the boot deep crust.
At nine something we made it up to the plateau under the north face of Cerro Grande. We got welcomed by a really beautiful face in great conditions, but after my mind game at the Whillans ramp a couple of days earlier I got a bit intimidated by the seemingly really steep face. I used to think that anything with snow is easily skiable, but after our last adventure I wasn’t that sure anymore.
When coming closer though, I could see that this face was like any other – just a steep and easily skiable ski run – and all my fears for steepness disappeared.
Another thing worried me though, and that was the warmth. It was really warm this early, and almost no wind. Warmth in the mountains when you are there to ski, is usually not a good sign, at least not when you have snow covered rock faces and ice mushrooms above you.
Bjarne followed me up the face to the bergschrund, but during our half hour climb, ice and rocks started to fall down the mountain with higher and higher intensity.
I wanted to ski this line so badly, but we had no other choice than to turn around.
In the mountains you have to have a great up-craving to get anywhere, but you also have to turn around when your gut feeling or your intellect tells you it’s a no-go.
The friction that the craving to fulfill an idea and real mountain sense creates – it´s one of the most painful feelings I know of in the mountains. When you are there it hurts, but when you come home you’re proud you didn’t “fail upwards”.
Usually it goes well even though you know you should have turned around, but inside of you, you know you were playing the game of fluke.
I have learnt that you have to nourish both sides of the coin: both the “up-craving” and the will to run away, because it’s the balanced dance these two are dancing that creates the power for accomplishment and the will to persevere.
At the bottom of the mountain we sat down and had lunch. We had walked a long way to get here and we were not able to live this beautiful experience that was waiting for us.
After this quick stop we walked around to the east side and Bjarne, once again followed me over the bergschrund and then skied over to a spot on the plateau for filming. I climbed the East Ridge as high as I found snow, about 50 vertical meters under the summit, and then skied down this line. I found some really technical passages, but nothing that raised the pulse, and in the end I had a great ski down one of the most beautiful mountains in the massif.
The next day was even warmer and we walked back to town. In the end we got 16 hours of walking there and back for about 2200 vertical meters of skiing (Bjarne about 1500m).
I’m really impressed by the mountains here. They are definitely the wildest low mountains I have ever encountered. It doesn’t feel like it’s made for steep skiing as it’s so rough and wild, but there are definitely lines here for the coming generations to enjoy!
The last two days we have just rested in town and been exploring the bouldering potential. Tomorrow is another ski day, but this time close to the road.
The lack of photos here lately is only due to extremely slow Internet. We got plenty of photos, but if would take days to upload. 🙂

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