Blog
Monday, April 4th, 2011
“I’m going home”
It has been a strange winter this year with the conditions in the mountains around Chamonix. Skiing wise, it has been a pretty good winter for powder skiing, but it’s been long in between the magical days and the snow cover we have gotten used to in the last few seasons never came.
In January we got a few rainstorms making for spring conditions in the mountains and great steep skiing but after that it’s been relatively dry.
Dry and warm winters means dangerous glaciers, bergschrunds and mountain faces. Weak bridges on the glaciers is giving you a round of Russian roulette every time you are out there putting the first tracks on the glaciers or want to get on a mountain face for a ski or a climb. And while you are on the faces there are rocks that normally is dead frozen to the mountain that trough melting starts raining from the sky.
It has been a great Chamonix season in many ways with highlights on the great alpine climbing conditions as well as some of the few, but ohh so good, powder days in Courmayeur and Helbronner. The best thing with Chamonix for me is it’s edge – the high end skiing that make up for about 50 % of its terrain but is only accessible for maybe less than 1 % of the skiers. This is what for me makes Chamonix the best ski resort in the world with no stress on powder days, no waiting in lines and still being able to ski more great snow than you can handle.
This year the more advanced skiing has not been in as good condition as the last few years and with the poor cover on the glaciers I have for some time had a gut feeling telling me its time to back of. With lots of friends dying and getting hurt and a bad foundation for the spring skiing it finally became an easy decision to leave Chamonix for my home mountains in the north of Scandinavia where we are having one of the best winters in years.
I’m sure there will be awesome skiing still in Chamonix this year, but with a few added bullets in the clip in the game of Russian roulette that the mountains always want to play with us. And gut feeling is the last thing, I have learnt, that we shall ignore in the mountains.
Evening light in the north, finally getting the first glimpse of the Swedish mountains
So I jumped in to the car and drove up north (the 3500km) to the calm little ski resort of Björkliden, far north of the arctic circle, to enjoy April before my and Max’s adventure to Alaska in May. On the wish list is to ski a few old projects in the neighbourhood, find some nice lines to climb, hang out with the great people up here, lots of running and training and of course enjoy just being in Sweden.
The first real ski tour of the season for me in Sweden on the classic Vassitjåkka. Johanna leading the way…
The view from the top, Voitasrita with its famous ski; the Triangle
Skiing down in good cream
Vassitjåkka north summit, the mountain of the sun…
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
Haglöfs trekking edit
This last summer I went up to North Sweden and Norway with filmer David Kvart and friends Emma Wahlberg, Emma Bäcklund and Sanna Boris Matsson to film a trecking film for Haglöfs. We did the classic treck, The Yo-yo route, between Nallo and Kebnekaise as well as a few day hikes on the Lofoten islands. We had an epic trip and on this edit you can see some of the material.
Check out more of Davids work at www.kvart.com and see more of the material from the trip on www.haglofs.com…
Haglöfs – Trekking Our Way from David Kvart on Vimeo.
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
La Maladière – L’arche perdue
Yesterday I went out with friend Kevin Gourges to climb at Maladière down valley past Sallanches on the way to Cluses. It’s a 250 meter crag with about 60 long routes on it overlooking the Arve valley. To access the crag you drive up on the backside and walk through the forrest and arriving on the top you do a few rappels and then walk to the route you have in mind. In this way you add a bit of nerve to the day as you know you have to finnish your route to get back to the car.
We chose a beautiful route called L’arche perdue and enjoyed some good quality climbing in great weather and perfect temperature for climbing rock!
Merci Kevin pour une belle journée!
On the first rappel
The view
Its steep
Kevin on the first pitch
Kevin Gourges
Saturday, March 26th, 2011
La Maladière – L’arche perdue
Yesterday I went out with friend Kevin Gourges to climb at Maladière down valley past Sallanches on the way to Cluses. It’s a 250 meter crag with about 60 long routes on it overlooking the Arve valley. To access the crag you drive up on the backside and walk through the forrest and arriving on the top you do a few rappels and then walk to the route you have in mind. In this way you add a bit of nerve to the day as you know you have to finnish your route to get back to the car.
We chose abeautiful route called L’arche perdue and enjoyed some good quality climbing in great weather and perfect temperature for climbing rock!
Thanks Kevin for a good day out!
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Aiguille du Chardonnet – West couloir
Today I had a little solo mission to ski one of the first routes I lay my eyes upon when I first came to Chamonix years ago – The west couloir on Aiguille du Chardonnet. Its one of those routes that one can see from Argentiere as well as the Grand Montets skiarea. But the direct version is still very rarely skied and it has a reputation of never being in good condition.
The West couloir on Aiguille du Chardonnet
As Im just back from Sweden and wanted to get a good workout and get acclimatised without to much objective dangers it felt like a good option, specially when going alone.
I was abit slow in the morning and only made it up with the third or fourth bin, but after traversing the glacier I was in front of the mornig race. I climbed the south couloir and joined the last part of the classic Forbes arête before I stood at the start of the West couloir. It was lots of snow in the south couloir and I was swimming in the snow making the track and in the end when putting my skis on I got joined on the summit by two frensh boys. I waited for them to get ready and then we skied the first half of the decent together with them before they left me alone for the direct finnish. The snow was great and about 15-20 cm deep, but with a hard layer underneath helping you to keep the concentration level up. In the last couloir I first used the rope to get over a small rockband and then skied all the way down to the finishing goulotte in one go. There I did three short sheltered rappels on the side of the couloir and then got back again finishing with a jump over the shrund. A few hundred vertical meters of good spring skiing awaited me here before I got down to the glacier and skied back down to town.
It was a good day up on the mountain with fun skiing and a worthy workout…
Aiguille du Chardonnet and Aiguille Argentiere seen from the Argentiere glacier
The south couloir
The south couloir seen from the top
Forbes arete
And again
And again
The summit
New friends
The famous traverse
At the start of the direct finish
A weird track
Another friend
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Afrique – Rock climbing in the sun
Yesterday I went up to Gietroz on the border to Switzerland to climb some rock in the sun. It was warm and we where all alone at the crag. Summer is back.
Tomas Mueller showing us how it’s supposed to be done
Jacky Delerce climbing in the upper left of the photo. The big flake at the top has given the crag its name…
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011
Happy days in north Sweden
I just got back from a week in the north of Sweden where we have one of the best winters in years. I spent the time in great company, training, walking, running, ski touring and ice climbing in the part of my country that feels most like home – the area in between Abisko and Riksgränsen.
Together with friends Patrik Strömsten and Andreas Bengtsson I went out on a ski touring day on the Norvegian side of the border for some easy skitouring. We had big plans skiing a mythic couloir, but the stormy weather made us change our plans to the classic Rombakkstötta. However, when we got over the tree line we just kept getting thrown of balance by the wind to the point where we all where just looking at each other nodding at the option of turning back down. It turned out beening a calm day in good company among friends.
Patrik Strömsten is a soulskiier, one of Swedens best wine experts as well as the man in charge of the n1 skilodge in Sweden – Meteorologen skilodge in Riksgränsen. If you want to live, eat and hang out firstclass as well as enjoying mythic skiing with or without helicopter in the most northern skiresort in the world – check out www.playground.se/meteorologen/main.asp
Andreas Bengtsson is a mountainguide and in charge of the heliski operation in Riksgränsen as well as founder of mountainguide.se, check it out if you are interested in good skiing and mountain adventures!
And for info about the ski resorts in this area, check:
A walk on the lake, Lapporten in the background
The calm village of Björkliden with the skiresort in the background
Ice climbing in the gorge
Rombakkstötta, one of the most classic peaks in the area
