Skied Kerling (1538m) which is the highest mountain in the "Troll Peninsula".
Was about 1400m of ascent most of it on foot in my ski boots, managed about 300m skinning before having to switch back as the final slope to the summit was about 45 degrees. Not much snow on our route until the last 500m so only managed that much descent before walking the rest of it down. 8k round trip in total.
Fun putting skis on at a knife-edge ridge but I forgot to switch my boots from walk to ski so the descent was err... odd.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Raining to at least 1000m today which sucked but was very reminiscent of skiing in Scotland. Forecast is for more rain tomorrow, albeit colder so hopefully the freezing level should drop followed by below freezing temps and snow to sea level.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Couple of video stills from near the summit yesterday.
Taking crampons off, you can see my friends downclimbing to the right and I'm about to ski to the left. Slopes about 40 degrees right in front of me and steepens considerably in both directions into the gully proper. Yup, the light was pretty flat.
45 degrees of rocks with about 400m vert to the left of me and 45 degrees of snow with 200m of vert to the right. Less than 2m width of 'flat' to get sorted out on.
Today was skinning around in cloud/blizzard. Much more forgiving as I was on skis from 200m ASL and managed to ski back down as far via some heather pillows.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Still snowing like crazy outside so it's day pootling around on lifts.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Zero vis but awesome snow, deepest I've skied in Iceland. Which is nice because it's going to get sunny for the weekend!
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Yesterday was super cloudy and windy so we bummed off to Myvatn, sat in a geothermal fissure full of water in a cave and looked at some of the other rather mad sights in such an active area.
Today we had amazing weather in the morning so headed up to Olafsfjordur. Spent the morning skinning in beautiful sunlight only to have cloud come in and make the descent less than fun. Still skied awesome powder for 600ish meters. Also watched a bunch of people ski down after getting heli dropped at the top of a neighbouring peak via Artic Heli Skiing. Good day but the sun would have been nice!
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Blue skies and powder = very tired legs.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
im not jealous ... get back to work the psycho's are getting restless
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Sadly back in Reykjavik now. Good news is that the awesome weather on the way back let me scope out a whole bunch of skiing to do in the next few weekends.
A buttload of video and photos were taken so I'll sort out some kind of more interesting TR soonish.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Summitted Snaefellsjokull (1446m) today which is the glacier covered volcano made famous by Jules Verne in Journey To The Center Of The Earth. It's an easy going 1000m of skinning which we started in bright sunshine and finished in a white out. As has been typical for me this season. Not much crevasse risk on the main routes which was nice but very corrugated ice for the top 100m followed by some pretty hard snow for most of the descent whilst being snowed on. Lovely corn right down at the bottom though. Summit was absolutely baltic with a strong northerly wind freezing us to pieces.
Nearly went out yesterday to ski the North-East face of Skessuhorn but very glad I didn't now as it would have been super icy.
Still plenty of snow about just need it to actually thaw during the day and there will be some awesome spring skiing.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Worth a trip for touring?
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Yer if you're touring then absolutely the countries almost empty and quite a bit of it is mountainous. Quite a few of the bigger mountains and volcanoes, especially the glaciated ones have good cover on them. Not sure what the North is like but that should still be good higher up. The summit view on Snaefellsjokull would have been incredible as you are right on the end of a peninsula so have nearly 360 degree views of the ocean.
That's mostly looking back down the peninsula that Snaefellsjokull is on from about 500m ASL.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Fab. Thanks.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Couple of photos from the last trip:
http://i.imgur.com/K7U9F.jpg
Yours truly in the lead skinning up towards the summit, which is that pinnacle there. Looks close is actually quite a long way off. You can climb up and often ski down (which is a bit spicy) as its normally iced over.
http://i.imgur.com/l80Rh.jpg
About to ski down from near the summit pinnacle. Conditions can change fast, from base layer to down jacket with a freezing northerly wind and in a white out.
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Wed 18-07-12 10:05; edited 2 times in total
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
photo below: there looks like some cracking skiing of the ridgeline in the far background.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
shoogly, yup there is although the picture is a little deceptive as those descents aren't very long at all. The photo is also quite tilted as the guy taking it was tracking me using the burst mode on the camera, making the slope gradient look quite a bit less than it is. The cliffs behind me have a series of short colouirs leading on to the open slope I'm skiing down. The guys in the background are stood just off the side of a red run that comes through. Top of the slope angle is between 35 and 40 degrees depending on how far round you go on that particular section and probably nearer 45 at the top of the ridge although I've never bothered skinning round that far. The plateau is a quick skin from the top of the highest lift, although when I went up the normal route was wind stripped so it involved a scramble through some easy cliffy ground. There is also a further bowl on the other side of the cliff area which has some awesome descents that will link back into the lift infrastructure, wind loading kept it out of play though. It also extends round lookers right with a slightly less steep 30 degreeish pitch that I skied with a bunch of locals and have on video. Just need to find some time to sort through it all.
The slope I'm skiing down can be seen on the left of the two fixed camera views to the right of the chairlift exit, passed the initial cluster of four (can't find a direct link).
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
So I work for CCP Games and we make an MMO that is a little over nine years old called EVE Online which is a space based alternate reality. Since we're pretty awesome we launched all our subscribers into space and this is the end result after sticking three GoPros onto the balloon that supported our effort. Not a view of Iceland you'll see all that often:
Well I made it to the summit. My work machine is totally cocked though and blue screening so a more detailed report will have to wait.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Look forward to it
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Hekla(1490m) is an active volcano in the south of Iceland, it's currently two years overdue for eruption and could go off at any moment adding some rather unusual objective hazard to the day out. The summit even has patches clear of snow where the ground temperature is high enough! Here's a pan on the summit:
We left Reykjavik at 7am in a hired jeep with 33" tyres with the aim of skinning up and skiing down the north-west side. Access to this part of the mountain is actually pretty tricky and requires a sturdy off-road vehicle and some experience of driving over rough terrain. The more friendly route heads up the north-east side of the volcano but is less interesting to ski. As it was we still had to stop quite some distance from our target as snow blocked the track and without a supporting vehicle getting stuck was a real possibility. Even larger tyres would be a necessity earlier in the year.
So we shouldered our skis and packs and began the two hour hike to the snowline through the ash and lava strewn environment.
Once at the snowline the problems just started mounting up. There must have been some fairly recent snowfall but it was super sun affected and about as sticky as I've ever experienced before. That combined with some still icy sections made skinning an exercise in frustration and careful weight shifting. About a third of the way up the guy I was touring with decided to give up and head back to the jeep as he was too hungover from the night before! The weather was awesome still and apart from eruption there were no real dangers so I carried on alone towards the summit. In the end I gave up on skinning as a lost cause and booted up to the top of the ridgeline before finding some nice soft snow to skin through to the summit. The total vertical distance was around 1100m.
At the summit I met three Icelanders who had taken a slightly different route up as they've been able to get through the snow and closer to the mountain. They graciously offered me a lift back to the jeep and agreed to wait for me at the bottom so I could get a bit of a breather before skiing back down.
The ski descent itself was pretty good, the initial soft snow was awesome although a little flat to do more than some gentle arcing turns through. The slope I booted up was a horrendous mixture of icy sections and firm sastrugi at a relatively steep pitch and required some pretty cautious skiing. As I got lower and the snow became more spring like I opened it up and enjoyed a pretty fast ski down the final 500m. The bottom of the snowline was covered in a weird sun-crusted slush, skis underneath a thin layer of glassy ice with ski boots tinkling through it.
I jumped in my new Icelandic comrades jeep and we set off back to find my friend and our jeep. As we approached the snow filled section of track we found him completely stuck. He'd seen the others had driven through and reasoned if he got stuck they would be able to tow us out and decided to try and come to pick me up! As luck would have it the other guys did have a tow rope with them and we were dragged to safety before driving out with them.
Total round trip time from Reykjavik was around 11 hours.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Well played.
Any intel on the areas around Akureyri please?
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Sure there is an absolute ton of skiing around Akureyri. We spent ten days up there earlier in the year ski touring.
The area that gets most of the skiing is called the Tröllaskagi which translates to something like the "Troll Peninsula". The highest mountain is Kerling and there are some photos of it upthread. The entire peninsula is covered in mountains though all of which are reasonably sized with descents down to sea level if the snow is right.
There is loads of good skiing up in Svarfaðardalur, Skíðadalur and around Ólafsjörður. Really though you want to see how the snow is lying and work it out yourself from the maps or hire a guide. The local guy is Jökull Bergmann who has a farm and ski-touring/heli-skiing op in Skíðadalur (http://www.bergmenn.com/en). He's also the only UIAGM certified Icelandic Guide. The maps for the area are 100,000:1 and you'll want number 17 and 18 which can be picked up in any bookshop either in Reykjavik or from the bookshop in Akureyri. 18 is the more useful one though as that covers the main body of the peninsula from Akureryi north.
In terms of basing yourself there are lots of places that rent out cabins, Brimnes is linked from the blog pages above which is up in Ólafsjörður but you can stay in Akureyri reasonably and be a bit closer to comfort.
I'd also recommend heading up to the local ski area Hlíðarfjall (http://www.hlidarfjall.is/is/vefmyndavelar) and speaking to the ski patrol up there. Most of them ski in the backcountry regularly so can give you advice on conditions and avy hazard.
There is no public avalanche forecasting as such so you are completely on your own in that regard although it is getting slightly better and they Met Office have a report of recently observed avalanches:
http://en.vedur.is/#tab=snjoflod
I also use the Norwegian weather services forecast facilities:
http://www.yr.no
Any questions just ask and I can probably answer or find someone who can.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Give me a shout if you are coming over and we can grab a beer or ski or something.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Awesome info.
Many thanks.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Still glacier skiing and some snow on higher peaks. Had to share this rather epic photo some friends took at around 3AM on Snaefellsjokull just after the Solstice:
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
I live here so have different concerns than most people who are just visiting.
I missed out on the heyday where it was hugely expensive and since the crash it's apparently a lot cheaper for tourists than it used to be. I'd mark it at around London prices in terms of cost of most things like eating out, drinking and the like. When I went back to Scotland in March I was surprised at how expensive stuff like that had become since I was last there.
After all it is free
After all it is free
meh, can you edit the width/size of the really big pics earlier in the thread? Even with a monitor at 1920x1200 it's almost too wide to read!!
This is the main culprit and believe (and the one straight after it)
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
