Norway Trip Report: Lyngen Alps
I spent the week of April 30-May 7, 2022, guiding a ski mountaineering trip to the couloirs of the Lyngen Alps in northern Norway, near the arctic city of Tromso. The crew was a Jackson Hole and LA-based group of friends who had plenty of experience skiing the big mountains, but hadn’t been to Norway before. I had been skiing in Norway once in 2015, but in a different area of the country. From my previous trip, I remembered Norway to be a country full of skiers. Everywhere you look, even in the big cities, people have their touring skis leaning against their houses and ski racks loaded on their cars. The whole country is one big ski touring area, and Norwegians love to ski!
Communal ski touring is part of the culture in Norway, often performed in big mountains and without many clothes.
After arriving in Tromso, which is an easy 2-hour flight from Oslo, we picked up the rental car, checked in to our hotel, and explored. Tromso is a university city north of the arctic circle, and the town is surrounded by skiable peaks. While picking up groceries and preparing to venture out into the countryside, we drooled over the many ski lines visible from downtown.
Tromso, the “Paris of the North”, is well above the arctic circle, and mixes interesting architecture with plentiful skiing.
The weather was moody for the entire trip, but we figured out quickly that the hourly weather forecasts seemed to be reliable about 24 hours in advance. And, in early May at this latitude, the sun dips below the horizon for a few hours in the middle of the night, but there is still enough light to ski at any time of day. So, we times our days to make sure we were on top of the line during the best weather window. Often, this meant skinning and bootpacking up couloirs in whiteouts, but we had good success timing our descents with the best visibility.
The North Couloir of Sultindan, from the approach on the first afternoon of the trip.
On the first day, we left the trailhead around 4 pm (!) and approached the north couloirs of Sultindan. As we rounded the corner into the valley and stared at the couloirs in front of us, we knew we were going to have a great trip. With cold temperatures all the way down to sea level and plenty of recent snowfall without much wind, conditions were excellent in the more confined steep couloirs . After skinning up the apron, a long bootpack through deep powder welcomed our leg muscles to Norway. Around 8:30 pm, we reached the top of the couloir, and enjoyed the summit for a few minutes before skiing down.
Climbing through deep powder high in the Sultindan North Couloir
The couloir was long, narrow, and lined by huge rock walls, a quintessential steep skiing descent in deep powder. We couldn’t believe our luck as we slashed and leap-frogged down the couloir, hooting with joy the whole time. An auspicious start to what would become an epic week of skiing.
Hunter, neck deep in powder at 8:45 PM in the Sultindan North Couloir
We arrived at our rental house and settled in for the coming days. Cole, the group’s ringleader, had found a quaint country cottage rental next to a frozen lake called Laksvatn. This was our home for the next few days. Two of us stayed in the main house, while two others stayed in a smaller cabin.
The second day dawned cold and snowy, with around a foot of snow piled on our porch and more falling out of the sky. With so much fresh snow, we knew it would be suicidal to climb up anything steep, even the most confined and narrow couloirs, so we opted for some roadside tree skiing. A mellow skin to the top of a birch glade felt good on the tired legs from the day before, and the powder skiing felt like February 2nd, not May 2nd.
Storm skiing through Norway’s Birch glades felt like mid-winter, even in May.
In the evening, the snow abated slightly, so Cole and I ventured out to ski a tube right across the lake from our rental that we had been staring at since we arrived at the Airbnb. We had no idea what it was called, but we figured out how to easily skin around the backside to the top. Sean, another group member, dropped us off and we skinned to the top of the chute in about an hour.
Cole skins above the fjord to the top of the Laksvatn chute
Some whiteout navigation was required to find the entrance from the backside, and the maritime squalls rolled in and out quickly, leaving us with vertigo in a whiteout one minute and marveling over the beauty of the fjord the next. Sean was watching us through binoculars from the house, and he coached us to the top of the line over the radio. We clicked in, and as soon as the visibility improved, Cole dropped in, surfing down the halfpipe tube in front of us. The snow was surprisingly good, despite the low elevation of the chute, and we were psyched to have put tracks in the obvious line right in front of our house.
Jeff, about to drop into the Laksvatn Chute. Our rental cottage was across the lake at the bottom of this run.
Day 3 promised better weather, with good snow stability, so we loaded up for an area classic, the Tomas Couloir on Lakselvtindan. This massif holds tons of aesthetic couloirs, and from the parking lot at sea level, we spied a few lines that we’d be psyched to ski. We decided to skin up towards the Tomas Couloir, but as we got closer, we realized that the Lakselv Couloir, to the left, was steeper, tighter, and even more appealing than the wide-open and slightly gentler Tomas couloir.
The crew on the approach to Lakselvtindan, with the beautiful and narrow Lakselv Couloir center-left.
Donning crampons and ice axes, we made our way up the narrow chute, measuring a consistent slope angle of 45 degrees, with an angle of 50 degrees in the narrow choke of the upper couloir, which was also a bit icy from sluff funneling through the constriction. As we neared the top of the couloir, a short but intense snow squall blew through, dumping a couple inches of new snow within minutes.
46 degrees… that makes me smile!
The descent was dreamy. Technical, steep turns in shallow soft snow over a firm base led to a small “hop” move over the icy crux and into the deep sluff debris that had piled up below. From there, it was deep powder skiing to the apron. We had made the right call with the audible to ski the Lakselv with the good visibility forecasted for the morning.
Steep powder turns in the Lakselv Couloir
Despite the weather forecast calling for increasing cloud and snow in the afternoon, we decided to head up the Tomas Couloir and tick off that classic as well, since it would only be another 1600’ to the top. But as soon as we started climbing, another snow squall moved through, and this one persisted. Deep trail breaking and occasional natural sluffs around us convinced us to call it quits 500 feet from the top. Satisfied with our day, we skied the lower half of the wide couloir (reminiscent of the upper half of the Skillet Couloir on Mt. Moran). From there, 2500 vertical feet of freeriding, and some bushwhacking through a birch grove, brought us back to the car. It was an incredible day that I’ll remember for a long time.
Skiing powder in the apron of the Lakselv and Tomas Couloirs
Day four dawned snowy and windy. Our tired legs begged for a day off, which we were happy to provide. We packed up and moved out of our cottage home, crossed the Ullsfjord by ferry to the northern half of the Lyngen Peninsula, and settled into our new rental house in the Svensby. The weather started to clear around 4 pm, so Cole and I headed out towards Istinden by climbing up a massive avalanche runout that fell straight into the Kjosen fjord.
Cole enjoying some rest on the ferry to Svensby and the northern Lyngen Peninsula
The recent winds had created some soft wind slabs, and as we crested a small rise in the middle of the avalanche path onto a pocket glacier (again, similar to the Skillet Glacier on Mt. Moran), we noticed massive debris piles from couloirs and faces on all sides of the basin. With marginal visibility and evidence of wind slab avalanches, we decided to throw in the towel and enjoy some soft turns back down to the fjord, with impressive couloirs staring us in the face from across the water.
Cole slashes a turn above the Kjosen fjord on Istinden
That evening, the clouds dissipated and ushered in the only fine weather of the trip, a 16-hour window of perfect blue skies in between arctic storms. We walked down to the beach around 10pm and took in the breathtaking scenery as the Lyngen Alps showed of their beauty. In the arctic circle, “Golden Hour” for photography is extended for many hours due to the sun travelling across the horizon, rather than setting abruptly. Hunter, a skilled photographer, snapped photos and marvelled at his luck.
Golden Hour lasts forever north of the arctic circle. Hunter takes in the alpenglow on the Lyngen Alps around 11 pm.
In a sudden change from the late-afternoon weather windows that we had been getting used to, Day 5 promised perfect weather all morning, with another storm arriving in the early afternoon. So, we set an early alarm for 4 AM and got a few hours of sleep.
An early start and 30-minute drive took us to the northern tip of the Lyngen Peninsula, where we stared at the western couloirs of Russelvfjellet, the day’s objective. At only 2700 feet above sea level, this peak is smaller than the objectives we had been skiing all week, but the western couloirs fall directly from the summit for nearly that entire relief.
Hunter and Cole brave the early morning chill to beat an incoming storm
With evidence of wind slab avalanche instability from the day before, we opted to skin around the backside of the mountain and traverse an exposed, snowy ridgeline rather that bootpack directly up the couloir. This method of “top-down” ski mountaineering has been slowly replacing the “bottom-up” strategy long used by steep skiers, because when shallow and predictable slab or loose snow avalanche potential exists, it is generally safer to negotiate the instability on skis, where small avalanches can be triggered at the skier’s feet, and a rope can be applied to add security. However, this method introduces other difficulties, notably that technical climbing and rope work may be needed to approach the top of the line, whereas simple bootpacking is sufficient to reach the top of most ski runs from a “bottom-up” approach. For this line, we had to traverse a corniced, knife-edge snow ridgeline for about a quarter mile to reach the top of the line from above.
Traversing the exposed ridgeline on Russelvfjellet
This traverse added some technical excitement to the trip. It was also a good opportunity for the crew to gain valuable experience on a real-deal mountaineering objective. We used the rope to belay a couple tricky sections of climbing, and steered clear of the massive cornices capping the ridgeline.
The recent winds had scoured the top hundred feet of the couloir, which was actually a good thing, because it eliminated our concern for wind loading in the most dangerous part of the couloir, the wide open bowl at the top. After negotiating the entrance and finding our way into the long, narrow gut of the couloir, we leap-frogged our way down. The first skier made steep, technical turns and assessed the snow surface, which is usually my job, and the following skiers got to open up their speed a bit more with the knowledge that the snow surface was soft and predictable. we picked our way down the couloir, with each bend revealing another long, narrow, and beautiful section of skiing with the arctic landscape in the background.
Cole slashes a powder turn on the lip of the couloir, framing the quintessential arctic skiing photo
We skied down to the apron, picked our way through hidden rocks as we approached sea level, and skied across a snowy pasture to our car parked near the ocean. The technical approach and jaw-dropping scenery enhanced an already perfect ski run, and we couldn’t believe our luck. Taking it all in, from the couloirs and peaks behind us to the glacier-carved islands and fjords in the distance, we knew we had just travelled halfway around the world and completely nailed it!
Hunter and Cole, with the narrow western couloirs of Russelvfjellet behind. We skied the right-hand couloir of the two.
That afternoon, a storm rolled in, and this one was warmer and wetter than anything we had experienced all week. Sub-freezing temperatures at sea level rose into the 40s, and rain soaked the perfect snow that we had been blessed with. So, with grins on our faces, we packed up and returned to Tromso to celebrate a great trip, and I flew home the next day.
The Lyngen Alps are a special place, with truly excellent skiing for skiers of every ability level. There is wide-open powder and corn skiing right above the ocean for intermediate ski tourers, and couloirs and faces galore for the experts and radness seekers. The scenery is unmatched, and skiing all hours of the day under a midnight sun is an experience that is not to be missed. I am sure that I will return to this place again and again. And besides, I have some unfinished business, shown below.
Lyngen is paradise for steep skiers. With endless options, like the Godmother of All Couloirs, pictured here, this trip only scratched the surface. I’ll back back for this one…