Once it was clear that I would be studying in Sweden for a semester, I quickly realized that I wanted to take a trip to the Lofoten Islands. I was able to convince two friends to join me. Beforehand, we read through a few travel reports to be inspired by the experiences of others. We quickly decided not to plan everything down to the last detail, but to let ourselves be driven by the conditions and our spontaneity on site. It's difficult to assess the snow conditions from afar anyway. Although there is snow depth data, it is not particularly accurate and the weather forecast is not all that reliable in the wild North Sea weather.
We wanted to spend the night in a tent or in self-catering huts. In winter, however, you can usually find accommodation on the Lofoten Islands at short notice without any problems, so we didn't make any reservations, just booked a rental car and took out a membership with the Norwegian Alpine Club (DNT) to be able to use the mountain huts. There is a key that you can borrow in Narvik, for example, to get into the huts. In retrospect, however, it turned out that you have to book in advance for each hut in Lofoten at the nearest tourist information office and then receive an individual key there. For Snytindenhytta in Vesterålen, you don't need a key at all.
If you find out at short notice that the snow conditions on the Lofoten Islands are too bad to go on a tour, there are some attractive alternative options. Firstly, the further you get towards the mainland, the more snow there is. On the other hand, the Lyngen Alps a little further north are usually blessed with more white. Riksgränsen has the best snow conditions. Now, at the end of April, there is still over two meters of snow in the valley.