Snow report Northern Norway, 04/11/2017

Snow condition

The snow conditions are sufficient so that you can start from sea level and ski down to there without any major problems. The summit regions are strongly affected by the wind, so you have to adjust the ascent and descent line in some places. We've now been out for two days: on one tour, there was some rain (probably from last week when the temperatures rose), so the first 400 m or so were frozen solid and crampons were useful. As the altitude progressed, there was up to 20 cm of packed powder on this crust. Today there was no rain crust at any time. All very regional!

Snow quality

We found the best snow in a north-west exposure. For the most part, we found settled powder. In some sections there is heavily wind-worked snow and a few places were frozen. The best snow tends to be found below the blown summit region up to a few meters before the end of the tour.

The wind is blowing quite strongly in some places and is transporting snow well. Some slopes are visually well loaded with drift snow. A little restraint and a choice of moderate tours certainly won't hurt! We were able to spot some snow slabs (even from the road). The LWD also warns of the old snow problem. Yesterday, the fresh snow on the rain crust made a stable impression in terrain up to 35°. No accumulating transformation under the rain crust.

Overall impression

Always nice to ride down to sea level. I particularly like the scenery in this area anyway. We have the feeling that there are significantly more people out and about at the moment than on our last visit three years ago at the same time. Let's see what else awaits us over the next few days.