Andreas Hofer Relives the Beauty and Perils of Ski Touring Beyond Norway’S Arctic Circle

ORTH BY ORTHWEST Andreas Hofer relives the beauty and perils of ski touring beyond Norway’s Arctic Circle rom the slender tongue of And yet some horrible force must land I was standing on, one have torn through the extended could see Norway’s Lyngen construction site overlooking the bay. FAlps twice. Their granite rock and Large chunks of reinforced concrete icescape first rising needle-sharp into lay scattered about, its construction a translucent, chintz-blue sky. And steel ripped apart, bent and twisted then again: the 80km-long peninsula into improbable shapes. The string of rugged peaks, glaciers and frozen of explosions wreaking such havoc waterfalls perfectly mirrored in the must have echoed along the walls of deep, calm waters of the fjord, a row the mountains and shaken the earth. of immaculately drawn lozenges. This was the last line of defence From the south, a lone trawler came for the Germans retreating from chug-chugging over the unperturbed Lapland, with the Fins, their erstwhile surface of the sound, the colour of allies, at their heels. All the roads barrel steel. Gulls were shrieking and bridges, the bunkers and guns faintly in the distance, and melt- defending the fjord were blown up by water dripped from wooden racks on the Wehrmacht, and Norway’s fishing the beach used long ago to dry cod villages burned down en route, in warming spring winds: a picture of to shake off their pursuers. This utter peace. happened in November 1944, but every child here can still tell the tale. 85 Around the dining table at somewhat tricky - but the skiing was towards Uloya Island, dropping Lyngen Lodge sit Norwegians, outstanding. Somewhere in the back us in Hamnes Harbour, complete Swedes, Germans, Italians, of his mind, Austick was dreaming with a wooden church, spacious Americans, English and two about a luxurious boutique hotel to warehouses smelling of stockfish, a Austrians, talking about a long day come home to after a long day of general store and a 1920s ‘Esso’ gas of skiing in pristine wilderness, skinning - soaking in a whirlpool, or pump for the farmers and fishermen rather than war. The past sweating in the sauna with vistas living all year on the island. We put is part of the landscape across endless peaks and eternal ice. our skins on where a few thousand now, not a topic of On a sunny spring day in 1997, stiff cod, tied in pairs, were left to divisive debate. Outside, taking a group of regulars down the dry on long wooden racks: bacalhau, separated only by lofty slopes of Storhagen (1147m), he saw the coast’s century-old export to floor-to-ceiling windows, the ideal spot: a wide, spacious hill, countries like Greece, Italy, Spain the ice fields and just a few metres above sea level, and Portugal. Then we followed summits are turning blue lodged between two wind-battered Stefan Kosz and Burkhard Bichler, while somewhere behind farmhouses and overlooking the our Austrian mountain guides, to the North Pole the sun is sandy beach, the fjord, the sea and Kjelvagtinden (1104m), a peak north disappearing - if only for the Lyngen Alps in all their majestic east of the harbour with views of a few hours, lighting the glory. It seemed so sky in crimson and pink. right, that he even Somewhere in the back of his mind, In a few weeks the took a photograph Austick was dreaming about a sun will not set at all of the spot, to any more, but by then show it later to luxurious boutique hotel to come the snow will be too Elisabeth Braathen, home to after a long day of skinning Austick: slushy for us to ski his Norwegian Lord of all anyway. Tourists have business partner in - soaking in a whirlpool, or sweating he surveys! been flocking to Troms St. Anton. On the in the sauna with vistas across province - some 300km north of way to the airport the Arctic Circle - for quite a few he realised to his endless peaks and eternal ice years now. They marvel at the chagrin that he’d lost the camera. It 1000 islands petering out into the Northern Lights or the Midnight Sun, would have been the end of the story Atlantic. fish, go rock climbing, or ski the if there hadn’t been an email two The mountains of Troms and Lyngen peaks and the mountains weeks later from Olderdalen - the Finnmark have a peculiar shape: on the east side of the fjord, and few scattered farmhouses near the massive ice-age glaciers have on islands further into the Arctic. small fishing town of Djupvik - where smoothed all elevations from west Graham Austick, a mountain guide Austick had taken the pictures. A to east, creating long, gentle slopes from Newcastle, who taught his farmer had found the camera in the facing the sun, the sea and the fellow Brits how to ski off-piste in snow a few days later, and started beaches below - ideal for skinning the Arlberg for more than 20 years to inquire about the owner. Looking and skiing. On the east side, alas, (“Piste to Powder”, St. Anton/Austria), through the images, he could these mountains drop off in 800m, used to come here regularly with identify the skiers’ boat, contacted 900m vertical walls - deadly cliffs ski-touring clients. They stayed on the vessel’s owner, and with his help right beyond the summits. These boats, as most skiers here do, or tracked Austick down in Austria. “It formations made it impossible even in very basic B&Bs. It was difficult was like a sign” said Graham. The for the indigenous Sami, Lapland’s to get things dry overnight, and next day he and Elisabeth were on migrating reindeer herders, to use the showers and toilets were their way to Tromso. A year later the the otherwise rich pastures here, spacious log house with its grass abundant with wild herbs and berries roofs and sundecks, with garages, - they would have risked losing their housing for the staff and a villa for entire livestock. Elisabeth’s and Graham’s families Like a nursery teacher watching was overlooking the bay. over a group of unreasonable Now the Lyngen yacht was toddlers, Stefan would draw a line speeding over dark water on each summit and, walking 86 backwards and forwards, make sure that none of us would step beyond the line. “When these massive cornices break off, their sheer size creates such a pull that skiers standing mountain nearby will be sucked to their chains, more death,” he said. We saw the rock and more of them walls and the looming mushrooms the further one could of snow jutting over the abyss, see, until they were tiny teeth, but felt more like taking pictures and finally a mere ripple on the of each other standing on these horizon, disappearing at last into the wild roofs of rock and ice, rather perpetuity. The glens showed no shipyards than being cautioned. Little did we traces of human life - in fact, no of Narvik. accept the danger as we tip-toed trace of life at all. Sometimes we Of a once proud towards the brink. saw the tracks of a wolverine in the fleet of 700 fishing boats, It was a sunny day - to our snow, claw prints of white grouse, only a few old men like Einar keep great good fortune, the entire week a few strangely shiftless jackdaws fishing - for ever more dwindling would be warm and dry - and we dropping off into the void, or a stocks. “It became difficult,” he skied to the bottom of a wide chute lone eagle circling above the fjord. says, “to catch Norwegian redfish, in fast spring snow, approximately Then again: emptiness. Somehow and even herring are rare now”. 800 vertical metres, stopping just our lurid skiing outfits seemed But cod are still plentiful, at least above a belt of dwarf birch growing strangely out of place. for the time being. Storslett’s tales almost at sea level. Porpoises, recall a past as remote as yellowing A headmaster’s memories small Nordic dolphins, frolicked monochromes you might find in in the bay, waiting for the spring His twinkling eyes and swift the attic. He remembers the fate shoals of cod to arrive. Some peaks movements made Einar Storslett of the salmon fishermen from on the Lyngen peninsula can look more youthful than he was. Hammarneset, who ventured too reach 1500m: the rocky crest of Yet when the Jiehkkevarri (1833m) is the highest. schoolteacher When these massive cornices break But the mountains on the eastern warmed his stiff, off, their sheer size creates such a shores of the fjord, where we mostly gout-ridden fingers skied, were rarely higher than 1300 in front of the open pull that skiers standing nearby metres, making hiking an easy fireplace, one could will be sucked to their death exercise. Here, untormented by the see that quite a lack of oxygen experienced at high few years must have passed since close to the cliff line of Lyngen - to altitude, we would typically climb his retirement as the head-teacher be battered to death by collapsing some 2000 metres a day without of Djupvik comprehensive. In fact, ice walls; he still sees the heavily overly exhausting ourselves. the school doesn’t even exist any laden boats of the haymakers, We skied various faces of more. In the 1960s, the fishing who always risked capsizing in Rissavarri (1325m), Sorbmegaisa village was still a striving parish of the fjord, like the last farmers of (1288m), traversing into 500 hardy souls, where men worked Lyngen, who died in just such an Engnesdalen and passing a steep as builders and their womenfolk in accident - grandfather, father and gully where a year earlier a group of the fishing industry, both earning son; he recalls the lone fisherman French skiers were tragically killed a subsistence with cod fishing and from Lyngslett, who was killed on by an avalanche; then Boazovarri small scale farming.

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