As u.r.w attracts a few mountain skiers, and others interested in
Norway, I hope that the following OT report may be of interest.
I returned a week ago from an 8-day trip in the Skjomen mountains, well
north of the arctic circle. The main objective was to investigate a
small ice-cap, but in this I was beaten by the weather.
One of the attractive features of N Norway is that ascents often start
at the fjord-side. Thus, on the first day (8 March), the skis went on at
sea-level. The chosen route took one over a 900 m col, this carrying a
food load for the whole trip. There were good opportunities for a
snow-hole and a base was soon established at 865 m. But continuous heavy
snowfall the following day raised serious doubts about the prospects for
an ascent of the ice-cap (elevation 1724 m) in the next few days. At
lunchtime the conditions prompted a decision to retreat 12 Km to the
nearest hut. What should have been an easy journey proved hard, and took
over 7 hours. Fortunately there was little wind, but visibility was
poor, it was heavy going in new snow, and goggles and clothing suffered
icing. The hut was reached 3½ hrs after dark.
As it turned out the decision to retreat was justified, as it was
another three days before the weather would have allowed an attempt at
one of the higher tops, and even then it could well have been too cold
and windy.
Fine weather was a feature for the remainder of the trip. Settled
low-pressure conditions produced some brilliant weather. One does not
normally associate low-pressure with fine weather in the British Isles,
but I have come across it before in Norway. It was cold (mostly in the
range -15 deg C to -20 deg C), but not unusually so. However, there was
often enough breeze to make it testing. On the windiest day the
conditions induced one to keep going without break for 5½ hours. The
snow conditions were sometimes tricky. Cold snow is slow snow, added to
which there was a combination of deep new snow and breakable crust
(skaresnø). The crust obviously affected skiing downhill, but ski-tips
were frequently getting stuck going uphill and on the level.
Although conditions were not conducive to mountain ascents, there were
some brilliant days and the lighting and landscapes were, as is often
the case, spectacular. This is an area of great beauty.
--
Alan Law