Date: Wednesday 21.12.2011
Activity: Backcountry Ski Trip
Place: Smørbottentind, Skorgedalen, Norway
Skiers: Nigel Halpern & Marco Mintchev
Fresh snow was falling on Tuesday night and the forecast was looking fairly good for Wednesday so Marco didn't need to twist my arm too hard when he phoned me on Tuesday night to ask if I wanted to go backcountry skiing the next day.
The plan was to try Smørbottentind in Skorgedalen. The summit lies at 1188 Metres Above Sea-Level (MASL) from a starting point at about 300 MASL. Marco was driving and agreed to collect me at 07:50 so you can imagine my surprise when Marco was knocking on the door at 06:50. He was so excited to be going backcountry skiing that he'd got his timings wrong!
We targeted the 08:00 ferry from Sølsnes to Åfarnes and arrived in good time at 07:56, only to find that the ferry was leaving without us! We waited until 08:30 for the next ferry and Marco complained to the Fjord1 staff for leaving early with the 08:00 ferry only to realise that I'd been reading the wrong timetable and that the earlier ferry was scheduled to depart at 07:55 - bloody foreigners!
The car 'stopped' in the parking area at the end on the toll road to Skorgedalen. I say 'stopped' because we didn't quite reach where we planned to park. The car simply sunk into the snow and decided that it didn't want to go any further. We decided not to let that ruin our day and to worry about it later. Besides, it is something of a tradition to crash or get the car stuck in deep snow when backcountry skiing with Marco, so it felt quite normal to set off from the car without really knowing how we would get the car out at the end of the day!
We were the first skiers on the mountain and a dusting of fresh snow during the night meant that we were laying the first tracks of the day. This made wayfinding a little difficult for us 'tourists'. However, Smørbottentind is fairly easy to navigate and Marco had been before so we found our way to the summit at 1188 MASL without any problems. We left the car park at 09:30 and reached the summit at about 11:30, taking the Smørbotnen route through the valley but approaching the eastern summit from the east with steep drops precariously close to our right-hand side for the last 50 metres or so to the summit.
The snow conditions were pretty good throughout the day. Warmer temperatures earlier in the week meant that the lower parts of the mountain were heavy going. Strong winds at the summit meant that the top section was quite rocky and wind-swept but we were able to walk up on skis the whole way from the car park to the summit. Temperatures ranged from minus 3 at the car park to minus 9 at the summit. The views from the summit were fantastic with a clear view of Skorgedalen and Romsdalsfjella. The sky was fairly overcast but breaks in the cloud meant that we had some dramatic colours in the sky.
The weather had been fairly good during the walk up but dark clouds were approaching fast and snow had started to fall. Strong winds meant that it was also mighty cold at the summit. We decided to do some skiing and stop for lunch somewhere on our way down.
We walked down the first 50 metres or so (to save our skis from being trashed on the rocks) but the next 500 metres or so of skiing were fantastic - first tracks on fresh powder snow. We stopped for lunch with huge smiles on our faces and then made our way down the rest of the mountain where the conditions were heavier going. We took the 'normal' route down from the summit and got back to the car park before 13:00 meaning that the 8km trip with 900 metres elevation had taken about 3.5 hours at a fairly gentle pace with lots of stops to take photos! We had met Norway's randonee-pro skier Ola Hovdenak on the ferry and travelled together to the car park. He and a number of guys from Molde Cycle Club were skiing the neighbouring mountain - Skarven. We knew that we had taken a leisurely pace on our trip but were still surprised to reach the car park and find that they had skied Skarven 2.5 times in the time that it had taken us to ski Smørbottentind once. Respect to those incredibly fit guys!!!!
After a quick dig around the car with our shovels, we were on our way for the 13:50 ferry from Åfarnes.
A short film from the trip can be seen below or on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqLZ3aRAOb4&feature=g-upl&context=G2d71f0eAUAAAAAAAAAA:
Great trip and great start to the season!!!!
