Archive For June 17, 2025
It was 3am and the hut warden was tidying up after breakfast. Upending stools and placing them on the tables he was keen to get to bed. We too were about to return to bed, much to his surprise. ‘You’re not going to give the weather window a go’ he said to me with a look which said, ‘you loser’. No, we weren’t, we were going back to bed, the only group in the hut to do so. Outside, headlamps guided everyone else on their way to the summit of Mont Blanc.
Marco, Paolo and I have been doing the guiding gig for a long time now and our back to bed decision was a relatively easy one for us for four reasons. One, the summits above 3800m were in cloud and due to stay that way. Two, wind at 4000m was to be 40 to 60kmh. Three, the forecast was a deteriorating one and four, we were all on the mountain to have fun.
Rather than navigating, heavily crevassed and complex glaciated terrain at altitude in a windy whiteout we had our fun at a hastily organised garden barbeque complete with view up to the cloud covered peaks.
Later that afternoon we learnt that nobody had made it anywhere near the top. Everyone had turned back for the reasons we never went out. We got that decision right. Lucky again!
When it’s good, late season ski mountaineering can be bloody good. These eight days were about as good as good can get. We enjoyed a white velvet carpet for our turns, magical sunrises and the fun and satisfaction of reaching the summit of the 4634m Dufourspitze, Western Europe’s second highest mountain, on an absolutely perfect day. All in all a wonderful week.
Svolvær, the main town in the Lofoten archipelago, is one of the historical centres of the Norwegian fishing industry. Up to five million tons of fish, mainly cod, are landed and processed annually. For thousands of years the cod has been air dried on racks to make the famous stockfish or tørrfisk as it is in Norwegian. Up here fish is number one.
Tourism is number two and with rapidly increasing importance. Lofoten with its stunning scenery, northern lights, world-class ski touring, sports fishing, hiking and climbing has attracted increasing numbers of visitors over recent years. Social media has amplified the exposure resulting in an explosion in visitor numbers – and not everyone appreciates the change. Tourism related problems were the reason for the meeting of a large group of local politicians in the Sortland Scandic, Vesterålen, our ski base camp.
We were therefore part of the problem, but I think a small part. Despite Espen’s new guidebook to the area, we were the only ski tourers in town. We spent our money and had the mountains to ourselves.