claurel
New member
I'm posting about this trip that happened over six months ago because I need some positive vibes while waiting for the rubbish conditions in the Western US to improve. Hopefully this gives a boost to some of the other forum members hoping for the snow to start falling again.
I did this trip back with Sawbuck Alpine Adventures, a Canadian guiding company that runs trips in Canada, Norway, and Japan. I’d always wanted to visit the high arctic and experience 24-hours of sunlight and endless ranges of snowy peaks and glaciers. There are a few outfits offering Svalbard ski and sail trips; one of the reasons I went with Sawback is that I liked the boat: the Dutch-flagged tall ship Noorderlicht, built in 1910 with room for 12 skiers. It’s a beauty, and the perfect vessel if you want to imagine yourself sailing on one of the legendary polar explorations (albeit in much greater comfort.) I had an easy time convincing four skier friends to join me on the adventure.
The ship-based part of the trip was seven nights, with six full days of skiing. Sawback offers a 3-day pre-sail ski touring trip which we also took advantage of. For that, we stayed at a cozy hotel in the town of Longyearbyen, driving about 15 minutes out of town to start our ascents. On the third day, we actually started skinning right from the hotel to the top of a mountain overlooking town. I highly recommend it to anyone else who does the ski-and-sail — it’s more days on skis, and the town of Longyearbyen is a fascinating place to spend a bit of time.
As fun as the pre-sail tour was, there’s nothing like sailing from fjord-to-fjord, waking up each morning with new mountains to ski! While having 24 hours of sunlight means that you can technically ski whenever you want, we stuck to a pretty regular schedule of breakfast at 7:30am, into the zodiacs by 8:30am, on shore with skins on by about 9am. On an average day, we were back by 3:00pm. Our maximum vert in a day was about 1200 meters; I’m sure that there are faster groups that can bag more than that.
The guides and crew had a general plan of where they wanted to take us, but we had to be responsive to sea ice and snow conditions. While our ship could mash through some sea ice, we were limited by the zodiacs to get us onto the shore. Very cold conditions had frozen the route we’d intended to take the first day, forcing us to turn around and pick a different landing site. The guides correctly guessed that wind blow out the ice and allow us to pass through a couple days later.
When planning the trip, I was well aware that the high Arctic is not the optimal place for deep pow. I was there primarily to experience an exotic place, see incredible scenery and wildlife, and the fun of ship-based skiing. Most of Svalbard is actually quite arid, with snow piling up gradually over the winter, not in massive dumps. Visibility can be dreadful. Nevertheless, we ended up getting quite lucky, with cold temps (anywhere from -15C to -5C) and brilliant sun. We had just one day that was cut short due to crappy visibility and crusty snow. It snowed about half of the days, small amounts that added up to boot top (and higher in places) powder by trip’s end.
There were a few days of touring that I’ll remember as some of my best mountain days ever. If forced to pick a favorite, I’d say it was a traverse across the Brøgger Peninsula to the settlement of Ny-Ålesund — at 79ºN, the northernmost permanently occupied outpost. We crossed two mountain passes on the way there, had excellent snow, and a heightened sense of adventure when our guide spotted a fresh polar bear trackway (and fortunately *not* the bear itself.)
I did this trip on a split board. It adds some challenge, because there’s a fair amount of traversing on wind-scoured surfaces. Having a hard boot setup helped, but a couple other split borders with soft boots managed. Definitely not a trip for someone just getting started on a split board.
I made a video with some action shots:
Just off the zodiac on Prins Karls Forland, ready to ascend a glacier
Back to the ship after a day of touring
Glacier travel
Spectacular folded rock strata on the way to Ny Alesund
Reindeer on the plateau above Longyearbyen
Up, up, up...
A look back at our tracks
Epic scale
—Chris
I did this trip back with Sawbuck Alpine Adventures, a Canadian guiding company that runs trips in Canada, Norway, and Japan. I’d always wanted to visit the high arctic and experience 24-hours of sunlight and endless ranges of snowy peaks and glaciers. There are a few outfits offering Svalbard ski and sail trips; one of the reasons I went with Sawback is that I liked the boat: the Dutch-flagged tall ship Noorderlicht, built in 1910 with room for 12 skiers. It’s a beauty, and the perfect vessel if you want to imagine yourself sailing on one of the legendary polar explorations (albeit in much greater comfort.) I had an easy time convincing four skier friends to join me on the adventure.
The ship-based part of the trip was seven nights, with six full days of skiing. Sawback offers a 3-day pre-sail ski touring trip which we also took advantage of. For that, we stayed at a cozy hotel in the town of Longyearbyen, driving about 15 minutes out of town to start our ascents. On the third day, we actually started skinning right from the hotel to the top of a mountain overlooking town. I highly recommend it to anyone else who does the ski-and-sail — it’s more days on skis, and the town of Longyearbyen is a fascinating place to spend a bit of time.
As fun as the pre-sail tour was, there’s nothing like sailing from fjord-to-fjord, waking up each morning with new mountains to ski! While having 24 hours of sunlight means that you can technically ski whenever you want, we stuck to a pretty regular schedule of breakfast at 7:30am, into the zodiacs by 8:30am, on shore with skins on by about 9am. On an average day, we were back by 3:00pm. Our maximum vert in a day was about 1200 meters; I’m sure that there are faster groups that can bag more than that.
The guides and crew had a general plan of where they wanted to take us, but we had to be responsive to sea ice and snow conditions. While our ship could mash through some sea ice, we were limited by the zodiacs to get us onto the shore. Very cold conditions had frozen the route we’d intended to take the first day, forcing us to turn around and pick a different landing site. The guides correctly guessed that wind blow out the ice and allow us to pass through a couple days later.
When planning the trip, I was well aware that the high Arctic is not the optimal place for deep pow. I was there primarily to experience an exotic place, see incredible scenery and wildlife, and the fun of ship-based skiing. Most of Svalbard is actually quite arid, with snow piling up gradually over the winter, not in massive dumps. Visibility can be dreadful. Nevertheless, we ended up getting quite lucky, with cold temps (anywhere from -15C to -5C) and brilliant sun. We had just one day that was cut short due to crappy visibility and crusty snow. It snowed about half of the days, small amounts that added up to boot top (and higher in places) powder by trip’s end.
There were a few days of touring that I’ll remember as some of my best mountain days ever. If forced to pick a favorite, I’d say it was a traverse across the Brøgger Peninsula to the settlement of Ny-Ålesund — at 79ºN, the northernmost permanently occupied outpost. We crossed two mountain passes on the way there, had excellent snow, and a heightened sense of adventure when our guide spotted a fresh polar bear trackway (and fortunately *not* the bear itself.)
I did this trip on a split board. It adds some challenge, because there’s a fair amount of traversing on wind-scoured surfaces. Having a hard boot setup helped, but a couple other split borders with soft boots managed. Definitely not a trip for someone just getting started on a split board.
I made a video with some action shots:
Just off the zodiac on Prins Karls Forland, ready to ascend a glacier
Back to the ship after a day of touring
Glacier travel
Spectacular folded rock strata on the way to Ny Alesund
Reindeer on the plateau above Longyearbyen
Up, up, up...
A look back at our tracks
Epic scale
—Chris
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