No-Way Norway is amazing

I am still completely blown away by the accessibility and gnarliness of these mountains. Everywhere I look I can see great lines, and roads that access them. If the roads can’t access them the boats can. It’s unparalleled  in terms of access, at least from what I have seen in my travels.

Fjord Norway hooked us up with a wicked trip on a boat with Actin.no. This boat, Maud, is a 53 ft 100 year old fishing boat and  is manned by a great captain. It’s not a boat that you can sleep on, simply a boat for access.  I also think it is rare that it sails, it mostly motors around. We left Aleslund and boated for three hours till we found our first objective.

Like everything around here it looks huge but somehow at 1073m/3502 ft is not really that big a hike. So even though it was 2 pm when we started hiking it didn’t take us too long to get up the south face and stand on top of our second Norwegian summit of the trip.

A sketchy little sideslip off the first peak led to a boot pack up and over a peak and onto the summit.. It’s so amazing to stand on a summit and look way down to our boat waiting in the fjord.

We slid down to our line and waited for the others. Chris is pretty psyched on where we are, and also that there is some nice west facing powder below. 

We shredded our lines being filmed from the boat and the ridge. Midway down we had to work around a waterfall or two and then some serious bushwacking led down to the rocks. A small wait at the fjord and then our trusty captain picked us up.

Thursday we headed up and did not feel as excited as we should have been. We played in a few zones and had some fun but overall the features were not exciting. Rubens buttered a shweet turn and we headed down.  While we were there we unlocked the secret and figured out that the snow was great on east slopes and west slopes.

Friday we skinned up behind the house we were staying in and had a wicked day. Since we aren’t getting up super early we realized that the west faces are were we would nail the shots. We found some couloirs and small faces to ski. A bunch of laps got us some great footage, by evening we were boot packing up a majestic line.  Slowly changing to alpen glow with the fjord below us we couldn’t have been in a more fantastic spot.

As we climbed our way up the face, we realized that the slope had previously slid on a rain crust.  We had found this layer everywhere but it was mostly buried, even on this slope it was buried for almost all of it but  the middle was like a skating rink. This crust almost turned us around but we persevered past it and made it near the top of the feature.  The first turns were incredible, the best snow of the trip but I had to be wary as the rain crusts was waiting. Carving fast pow turns I pulled the brakes and found myself sliding a bit on the crust. It was tough to gauge were the crust was, so to be super safe I boot packed down 100m and finished the run. Andreas being the bad ass that he is, took out his ice axe and side slipped this same section. Here is Chris enjoying some evening turns.

Andreas also took a shot of me cruising down into the fjord.Saturday we had a great day filming with the fjord below us.  I spent most of the day with Anthony nailing some backlit shots and the others played in their zone. Anthony and I bagged another summit and once again were awed with the huge cliffs, spires, lines and everything around us. By evening we were heading down and the boys slashed with some back light.I was taught a new photoshop trick  so Chris looks a little super imposed but I had to try it out my new skills. Probably need to work on them to make it look more realistic.

Today we went fishing and caught some fish right off the bat. I have not caught a fish in years and it took me two minutes to catch one. It was pretty exciting.   Captain Arne boiled the ling cod, that Jeff caught, in salted water and we ate it immediately. Typically I am not a fish eater but this was so buttery and good.  Tracey is going to be super surprised to hear how much fish I have eaten on this trip!

Our stay on the boat is almost but we leave with lines like this one as  memories of things we didn’t do but can always come back for.