Pictures, pictures and pictures!

[jyw5]

This has been a great month in AK for flying due to covid.

Did a quick ski tour at the Ruth Gorge. No serious climbing. However, we just got back from Swiftsure glacier.

Skiied and climbed Sovereign Mt. (8849' ...highest in the Talkeetna range). The chute was straightforward going up, but terribly bad going down - 1300ft of breakable crust (waist deep wet snow below a 4-6inch crust).

[CwmRaider]

Amazingly, the past few weeks have seen an amazing dump of snow on central Norway. I went skiing a couple of hours in the back yard (there are better runs further away but I already switched to summer tires and the mountain roads are not always cleared). So we were skiing from 200m ASL upwards, on the 18th of May. Unbelievable.
Not a great picture (I took one at about 500m ASL where my buddy isn't recognizable) but it gives you the idea, the view is towards Trondheim, the 3rd largest city in Norway. You can see right across the city to the forest on the other side.
The snow was some breakable wet crust stuff, it was very difficult to ski down (and would have been hard even with Alpine skis).

[Woodserson]

What the heck happened to Muskie's awesome pics of northern Norway?

[Musk Ox]

What the heck happened to Muskie's awesome pics of northern Norway?

This was last Saturday. With good enough resolution you could see my house on Tromsøya in the second picture.




(Sorry, deleted the post because I foolishly moved the images from the hosting folder and was too lazy didn't have time to fix it)

[Woodserson]

Thanks to all-y'all for these great pics.

I was watching some video the other day of some young famous Norwegian XC skier and it looks like some places are still grooming for skate and K&G this late into the year... is this common? Even if we have snow many places around here just give up in late April

[jyw5]

Here in Alaska, they just wrapped up grooming last weekend as the snow gets too soft along the trails... but off piste K+G / crust skiing early morning at 3000ft+ is still fantastic for at least another week. And up high at 7000+, the skiing was the best spring skiing ever last weekend. After more snow goes away in about another 2 weeks, the chutes at 4000ft+ will be ready for "telehiro" style xcd. I did a video 3 years ago of myself skiing on July 23rd...I was embarrassingly bad. I can't wait to do it again this summer as I have improved alot after falling many many times. I will definitely post the new video when I make it this summer (I will not post the old video as it is cringingly painful to watch).

From last weekend:

[jyw5]

btw, nice photos from Norway! I would love to visit someday. I always wanted to ski there and maybe get those fancy expedition Alfa boots and do the Spitsbergen, Svalbard crossing on a long pair of Asnes skis.

[Musk Ox]

Thanks to all-y'all for these great pics.

I was watching some video the other day of some young famous Norwegian XC skier and it looks like some places are still grooming for skate and K&G this late into the year... is this common? Even if we have snow many places around here just give up in late April

Going by https://skisporet.no (aka 'the best website on the planet') there are very few tracks still being groomed. Round here, they gave up well over a week ago. I just saw someone walking up their hill with their race skis this morning, though!

This afternoon I admitted it was over for the year and put a layer of wax on all the skis in the hall and retired them to the dark. Sniff. I have no doubt there's still fun to be had in the mountains, though... it's only a little layer of wax

[jyw5]

Still skiing. conditions may improve up high in a few wks. It was snowing at 5000ft...and raining down below.

Friendship Pass, AK.

[Rainbow83]

You're still skiing? Lucky, where I am it's full blown summer.



Although, that does have the upside of letting me get out on a bike again without freezing my hands on the bars.