What should you know when you go ski touring in Norway for the first time?
The people who report on the avalanche situation here have to cover huge areas. That's why the avalanche situation reports in Norway are coarser and less precise than in the Alps. More like in Canada. Of course, I take my hat off to our avalanche bulletins despite this, or perhaps because of it. We didn't have this quality when I was growing up. In the last four or five years, a few really good people have made the avalanche forecast for the mountains of Norway even better.
Are there any other special features?
You should know that the observers from our avalanche warning service often don't go very high. In the Lyngen Alps, for example, they generally don't go above a thousand meters - which is still very high from the sea, of course. So sometimes you have little idea what the conditions are like above a thousand meters. Unless you find out for yourself.
There were a lot of avalanche accidents in Norway in the 21/22 season.
We had a problem with weak layers for a long time, especially in Lyngen. Unfortunately, there were quite a few avalanche accidents, some of them fatal. The weak layers actually only existed below an altitude of a thousand meters. It was much better above that. Of course, you only know that once you've been there and checked it out. You also had to find a safe way up, which can be quite tricky and technical in some places. This makes it all the more important that everyone reports what they have observed. That's how we pool our knowledge. And this way, everyone has more information for better tour planning.
Do you have a kind of fixed protocol or process for risk management and assessing the avalanche situation when you go on tour?
First of all, I try to find good snow conditions that are as safe as possible. I study the avalanche report and combine this with my own assessments gained in the terrain. I constantly check this in the terrain itself - with snow profiles, by observing the weather and its effects on the snowpack. I try to develop a kind of systems thinking. I develop assumptions about the snowpack and how the wind affects it, for example. Where are there weak layers? How does the sun affect the snow? At the same time, I try to choose the terrain in such a way that the worst possible outcome is not necessarily fatal. I try to choose terrain with clean run-outs, perhaps without big rockfalls that I could fall over, without terrain traps and so on. I also try to minimize the time I spend in dangerously exposed terrain. So if I'm riding a steep face, I try to choose my route into that steep face as safely as possible.
You use FATMAP quite often, a map service that maps terrain and steepness in color and in 3D.
Many more people should be using map services like this! (See e.g. Nikolai's video on this: How I Use FATMAP - YouTube) Especially those who are relatively new to the backcountry. If you are not traveling steeper than 30 degrees, you are very safe on many days. It only gets complicated when you want to ski steeper terrain. Then, like me, you have to be very selective about the days. Then you have to be able to wait and see. For Eulogy Of A Steep Skier, we waited a month until the conditions and weather were right.
Before shooting your first Sofia film, there was a persistent weak layer problem in the snowpack for two months. So you didn't ski anything steeper than 30 degrees for two months?
That's how it was. And we had fun doing it! And we even made a video.
There's a lot of discussion in the alpine scene about error culture. And that people should talk more about mistakes. On the other hand, people who are rescued or admit mistakes on the mountain are often met with a shitstorm. What's your opinion on this?
Of course it's unpleasant to be called an idiot by others. But you probably just have to put up with it. I also don't want to portray myself as someone who never makes mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. I try to avoid it, but I do make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. The best mountaineers in Norway have been close to or actually in an avalanche, as have the best mountain guides. It's simply impossible to do everything 100 percent right all the time. This makes it all the more important that we learn from our mistakes together. This is the only way to build up knowledge and move forward. Hating or making fun of people who have made the wrong decisions is counterproductive. It only leads to people no longer daring to talk about their mistakes. And nobody can learn from them.
Sometimes you work with mountain guides on your film projects, sometimes not. What does that depend on?
It depends on my workload. When I'm skiing, directing and also producing the film, I'm sometimes happy if I don't have to constantly worry about the snow cover and the risk of avalanches. But that's the exception. For me, part of freeriding and ski touring is being independent and making your own decisions. Most of the time, I want to be the one making the decisions for myself in the terrain.
