Blog
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Chamonixinsider – Highlights on one of last years first descents…
Check out chamonixinsider.com to read their highlight of one first descent I did in Chamonix in April last year…
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
THE WAYSEER MANIFESTO
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Fjällfest
So how did it go at Sweden’s only mountain festival? Well, I came back from the 24 hour train ride yesterday afternoon and I would like to say that I had some amazing days at Storulvån mountain station. Because of stormy weather it was a challenge even to just get there. Normally you can take the buss all the way to the station, but now the road was closed and we had to take a ski cat to get in to the mountains.
Arriving at destination the storm picked up and soon not even the ski cats where able to get people in and out – closing us in from the rest of the world. The weather made big adventures quiet difficult, but everyone there seemed to do the best of the situation and enjoying the great meals at the station one could see in everyone’s faces they had been out as much as they possibly could.
Everyday was filled with outdoor clinics in the daytime and lectures by world-class adventurers in the evenings mixed with lots of socialising time in-between. I held one lecture and held steep ski clinics as well as some ski tour guiding for the Haglöfs crew.
It was an event with great atmosphere with cool people in a cosy location – I can highly recommend the event for anyone passionate for the mountains in winter.
Eventually the wind calmed down, the road opened and the gun smoke from the last night’s party dissolved and the festival was over for this year. But there will always be a next time…
A deserted train station in the middle of no where, a change in the middle of the night…
Where are the bus?
Change between the bus and the cat
Steep ski clinic
Carro working with marketing at Haglöfs and loves powder
Building T anchors
Anna, designs clothes at Haglöfs, and is making rappels down cornices in the Swedish wilderness
Helen, also working at Haglöfs, in a sunny storm…
Christian Kalmendal came for a soul tour with me one afternoon, the name of the mountain would give you a head ache, so I will keep quiet..
Christian skiing… Btw, he has just put together the best ski book Sweden has seen in years. Try to get your hands on a copy. You can get them trough www.areskidsport.se
The Baffin Babes, Emma and Vera Simonsson where there and they held one of the best slideshows i have ever seen… www.baffinbabes.com
Skier Per Jonsson (www.freeride.se/blog/perjonsson/) and Haglöfs team manager Carl Hard
I went for a coffee with good friend Jimmy Odén in Åre on the way back… Jimmy is on to something big, check it out on www.elevenate.com
And then dinner with Tobias Granath and his lovely and big family! Tobbe loves adventures, specially in the mountains. Check them out on: www.tobiasgranath.com
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Fjällfest
Fjällfest (Mountain Party)
So how did it go at Sweden’s only mountain festival? Well, I came back from the 24 hour train ride yesterday afternoon and I would like to say that I had some amazing days at Storulvån mountain station. Because of stormy weather it was a challenge even to just get there. Normally you can take the buss all the way to the station, but now the road was closed and we had to take a ski cat to get in to the mountains.
Arriving at destination the storm picked up and soon not even the ski cats where able to get people in and out – closing us in from the rest of the world. The weather made big adventures quiet difficult, but everyone there seemed to do the best of the situation and enjoying the great meals at the station one could see in everyone’s faces they had been out as much as they possibly could.
Everyday was filled with outdoor clinics in the daytime and lectures by world-class adventurers in the evenings mixed with lots of socialising time in-between. I held one lecture and held steep ski clinics as well as some ski tour guiding for the Haglöfs crew.
It was an event with great atmosphere with cool people in a cosy location – I can highly recommend the event for anyone passionate for the mountains in winter.
Eventually the wind calmed down, the road opened and the gun smoke from the last night’s party dissolved and the festival was over for this year. But there will always be a next time…
A deserted train station in the middle of no where, a change in the middle of the night…
Where are the bus?
Change between the bus and the cat
Steep ski clinic
Carro working with marketing at Haglöfs and loves powder
Building T anchors
Anna, designs clothes at Haglöfs, and is making rappels down cornices in the Swedish wilderness
Helen, also working at Haglöfs, in a sunny storm…
Christian Kalmendal came for a soul tour with me one afternoon, the name of the mountain would give you a head ache, so I will keep quiet..
Christian skiing… Btw, he has just put together the best ski book Sweden has seen in years. Try to get your hands on a copy. You can get them trough www.areskidsport.se
The Baffin Babes, Emma and Vera Simonsson where there,
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Lappvikstind – Probable first descents in the couloir city
This last Tuesday I went for the first real adventure since I came up to Björkliden. I went to the mountain Lappvikstind in Skjombotn at the end of the Skjomen fjord south west of Narvik together with Björkliden locals Magnus Stålnacke and Mattias Ström. It’s a mountain I have been having my eyes upon for years with three beautiful couloir on its east face that probably never been skied.
Lappvikstind
You can’t find the mountain in the guidebook, and the couloirs are hard to see from the road and on the top there are not even a cairn (very popular in Norway).
The goal for the day was to climb and ski the two main couloirs on the, about 400-500m high east face. The weather was not to promising setting out from Björkliden, but the further we got to the west, the better the weather became. We started the hike in overcast but as we had climbed the first couloir of the day, perfect weather awaited us on the top.
The view of the savage Swedish and Norwegian mountains awaited us, deep fjords, the ocean and the feeling of being alone in the wild that I never really get when skiing and climbing in the alps. On this mountain we did not see a trace from another human being and the only thing we came to leave behind was our tracks and one rappel anchor in the second couloir.
The skiing does not get much better than this either. Knee-deep powder snow made the boot packing fairly strenuous and on the way down we just skied top to bottom screaming like kids!
The second couloir was much steeper and narrower than the first one and had two small rock steps that treated us with some easy mixed climbing. The top part was probably the steepest I have skied in Scandinavia, and we had to do some down climbing and rappelling for about 30m over the rock steps on the way down. But after this the skiing was, once again, magic and gave us another great memory from the Scandinavian mountains as well as about 1700m of fun skiing.
Thanks Magnus and Mattias for a good day out!
Couloirs and granite walls
Magnus Stålnacke working out
The first couloir from the summit
The mother of Norwegian couloirs; The Ganges couloir on the left. To the right; Heart of Gold – i did the probable first descent of this one a few years ago.
Magnus near the top
Magnus putting the first track in
The second couloir
Me about to ski the second couloir from the top
Magnus on the rappel
Magnus Stålnacke…
… in action
Magnus doing some turns on the way home
Lappvikstind in the sunset
Monday, April 4th, 2011
Fjällfest (Mountain Party)
From Thursday to Sunday this week the mountain festival Fjällfest will be arranged in the mountain station of Storulvån. It will be a weekend full of activities in the mountains and a get together for people in love with the mountains… Lectures will be held by, among others; Fredrik Sträng, Per Jonsson, Baffin Babes, Tormod Granheim and Claes Grundsten.
I will take the 18-hour train ride down to Storulvån to take part of “the only Swedish mountain festival”. Hope to see you there.
For more info, check www.fjallfest.se
