15 people. Six days. One boat. And Lots of mountains.

The hills are lovely, white, and steep
But I have promises to keep
and far to climb before I ski
and long to ski before I sleep

- With a tip of the goggles to Robert Frost

Sailing out of Tromsø

Several hours later, we dropped anchor at the inlet of Storvella. The massif of Ullstinden rose off starboard like a giant white whale. We enjoyed our first meal of vegetarian chili prepared by Bert, our chef. After the meal, Bert disappeared up onto the deck. We heard him scampering around then he came running back in. “Guys, you’ve got to see this. The Northern Lights!”

It was the middle of April, well past the ‘season’ for watching the Lights. The days were getting longer, faster: each day was twenty minutes longer than the previous. Conversely, sunrise and sunset moved towards each other in a languid crawl that became more drawn out each day.

I dashed out onto the deck in time to see several green snakes of light dancing ephemerally across the night sky in hallucinatory repose. The magic had begun.

The next morning we awoke in staggered fashion as the smell of freshly brewed coffee made its way successively further down into our bunk rooms below decks. There was a combination of silent tension and excited expectation as we watched the sun creep over the spine of the Ullstinden and splay out against the walls to the east, slowly dripping down into the glacial cirque in front of us. Bert filled us with overnight oats, hard-boiled eggs, and various breads, which cascaded over onto an entire smörgåsbord of cheeses, meats, and fish spreads for making our picnic lunches. Chocolate Norweigien KitKats too, yum.

We gathered our gear and shuttled it by rubber dingy to a rocky beach where we affixed uphill skins to the bottoms of our skis, then crossed the road to where a few tongues of tracked snow showed the way up.

Our two guides from Catalonia, Fabio and Ferran, tested our avy transponders one by one before leading us up the first pitch through an open stand of sparse, bare trees. Within half an hour, we were up into the open snowfield and switchbacking up the ridge. A thousand feet below, the Valiente had already pulled up anchor and was heading around to the other side of the narrow peninsula dominated by Ullstinden, where we would arrive after skinning up the west side and skiing down the east face.

With two guides, our group of eleven had the flexibility of different rates of ascent as well as different choices for descent. Ullstinden presented multiple options for both. This worked well for us because of diversities of age and elevation - over forty years between youngest and oldest, and about 10,000 feet between the lowest and highest elevations of residence.

We stopped midway up the ascent and easily divided into two groups; one would head directly to a saddle while the other would head for the peak, for an extra 800 feet of vert. The descent down the other side was thousands of feet of open terrain spread across bowls, ridges, faces, and couloirs. Both had the same view: a thick layer of clouds at about the 3000 ft level and the Barents Sea and several tiny ships anchored well below, serving as targets for an otherwise untethered descent informed only by gravity. Repeatedly. With every turn.

Emil and Marti

Fabio

by Ferran

By early afternoon we were back on the Valiente, gathered around the galley table, flush from our first ski day, fortified by fresh bowls of soup and yes a diverse array of beverages ranging from Mack beer (formerly the furthest north brewery in the world) to some truly delicious aquavit that acted as the primary ingredient for Dave V’s unique “arctic martini”, to my own contribution, a bottle of Jameson, which found favor with the crew.

We then set sail for the Lyngen Fjord. Emil came down into the galley. “Michael, want to take the helm?” Having never taken any helm before in my life - in a literal sense, at least - and with my eyeglasses somewhere below decks buried amongst damp clothes strewn across my bunk, I had to admit feeling a bit uneasy about navigating a 70-foot sloop around a tight corner and into a narrow fjord. But I was three sheets to the wind (so to speak) and feeling brave. Plus crew should never disobey the captain, right? I quickly learned how easy it is to overcompensate steering a boat but also managed to gradually reduce the amplitude of my compensations by the time we pulled up to a dock for the night.

The sauna - and the Arctic - beckon. Photo by Malina.

The dock at Lyngen Fjord had one very special feature: a sauna. After dinner, most of us piled in. Foremost in my mind was ‘sauna etiquette’ or, to be more blunt, “clothes or not”. This was largely answered for me in the men’s changing room, where several of my companions changed into bathing suits and did so with towels wrapped around their waists. I had never practiced the art of changing in public and almost tripped on my face once I had my shorts off and my trunks around my ankles with my towel wrapped just a bit too tight around my waist and legs.

Bert, our chef from Belgium, joined us and got the wood-fired sauna stoked even more by pouring water over the hot rocks. He led us in a ribald cheer with each of the three pourings. In a rough and slightly sanitized translation from Spanish, they went something like ‘purity of life!’ (Splash and sizzle). ‘Free the church doors!’ (Splash again and more sizzle). ‘Sunny side up!’ At this point, with the hot air now thick with steam, and as each of us reached our maximum tolerance, one by one we ventured out into the night and down to the beach for a quick dip in the Arctic. My reaction to this was, “ok, data point: there is no real difference between numb and number.”

Such was our pattern for six days. Rise, coffee, breakfast, make lunch. Shuttle by dinghy to the beach by 10:00. Skin up for several hours. Snack and lunch up in the clouds or out in the wind. Ski down through a bevy of conditions from corn to wind-blown crust to slush to ice to light powder on pack. Reach ‘timberline’ at about 500 ft then carve our way through slalom-pole trees the rest of the way back to the beach. Shuttle back to the boat. Find places to hang wet clothes. (Following Emil’s advice, I stored my boot liners in the engine room - the warmest and driest place on the boast.) Then free après ski time in the Galley, or on deck, or catching a nap below decks. A little guitar from Kevin, a lot of Bert’s playlists. Discuss the next day’s ski plan with Fabio and Ferran. Sail to the next moorage, wind permitting. Sometimes a bit too much wind. Dinner by Bert. Cards and cribbage after dinner or up on deck marveling at the stars.

A Rogue’s Gallery in the Galley

Dave V, Kevin, Marti, Telluride Dave, Melina, Roger V, Gabby, DCB, Julia, Andy

Everyone knew someone in our group, but nobody knew everyone. Until the trip began. Then we settled in to learning some fascinating tidbits about each other. For example, our skipper Emil has a master’s degree in Chinese and spent several years at the Norwegian embassy in Beijing before throwing it all in to start SeilNorge and take people on sailing trips across the Barents Sea. And BertInTheNorth (his Instagram handle!) is a photographer who specializes in the Northern Lights, and when not on cruises, he is either a line chef in Tromsø or wandering across the Arctic in his camper van. Or Ferran, he of few words, who mentioned during the initial introduction that he had done ‘some climbing’ in the Himalayas. It wasn’t until about whisky number four on day five that he admitted to having climbed the 14 highest mountains on earth. Some tidbits I knew beforehand - for example, that Dave V had lived in Shanghai back in the early 80s because that is where I met him and introduced him to his future wife Rebekah. And I knew that his brother Roger is a NOLS instructor and just as enthusiastic - and studied - about the backcountry as he is about water; together with Dave, I had attended several delightful ‘Roger excursions’ - to a hut high up in the Colorado San Juans, as well as a sea-kayaking trip to the ‘other’ San Juans in Puget Sound. And I knew that his daughter Gabby is a town planner based in Leadville and that since the first time we met up at Opus Hut in Colorado just a few years earlier, she and husband Andy had produced two beautiful girls who go with them everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. I also knew Marti and Dave from Telluride because she and I had summited a peak in the Chinese Pamirs and ski’d back down it - many, many years ago. Marti doesn’t talk about it, but in an earlier life, before I knew her, she held the world record for speed skiing. And broke it, several times.

Emil and Meliina

BertFromNorth

Fabio

Ferran (and Melina)

Roger and French Toast

Roger V and Dave V

Roger, DCB, Andy, Dave V

Melina and Dad Kevin

Melina & Dad again

Marti and Dave

The Leadville Four

Michael and Fran

I learned that Dave’s friend Kevin - he of many talents - has in his six string repertoire a soulful rendition of “Little Martha,” the only acoustic tune ever recorded by Duane Allman. And that Kevin’s daughter Melina apparently won a family lottery to secure Kevin’s second slot on the trip. And then there is Julia and Dave, aka DCB. What a couple. DCB runs outdoor education programs for high school students in Leadville and, just for the fun of it, is a co-founder of Galena Mountain Projects, an outdoor clothing company that is focused on local designers. DCB and Julia’s idea of relaxing after a long day on the mountain was clinging by the fingertips from Andy’s hang board and doing push-ups on deck between brewskis. None of us was surprised when they got engaged at the top of a serious couloir. And now, a scant few weeks later, they are married!

We learned, to nobody’s surprise, that we share a love of self-propelled travel, particularly in the mountains. But honestly, I think this group would have had almost as much fun at a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Omaha. Almost.

Day 3: As Good As It Gets

For me the best ski day was our third, in which we ascended Kjelvågtinden as far as the skiable summit of Sæteraksla. It was our best weather day, and the entire group made the 3000 ft ascent in roughly the same amount of time. There were some challenging kick turns fairly high up, but not so steep that one could not recover from a mistake. I can attest to this, as my skis tangled mid-kick and sent me sprawling on my back. However, with a comedic grace, I rolled over and sprung back up, as though it was my original intention.

Reaching the summit, the panorama enveloped me in delightful insignificance. All of the things we humans have been doing to ourselves, to each other, and to our planet felt dwarfed in the grandeur of the world at that moment. As I pushed my skis downward, gathering speed as the slope gradually dropped away towards the ocean, I had a really strong feeling that the planet will be quite fine - with us, or without us. And then, here at this beautifully forlorn corner of the world, the earth tilting up to meet me and the Valiente glistening in the ocean waters below, my thoughts dissipated completely and were replaced by an elated tranquility - a marriage of motion and meditation, akin to experiencing yoga nidra whilst dancing with the mountains.

Last Line

Video by Ferran

Photo Gallery here.

Parting Shot

BertFromTheNorth shows how it’s done.

Flyovers

Day One, Tromsø to Storvela harbor at Ullstinden

Day Two, Climb Ullstinden west side, ski east side, pick up at Nakkesanden, sail to Lyngen Fjordcamp.

Day Three. Climb/Ski Lilegalten above Lyngen fjord, sail to Uloybukta terminal.

Day Four. Climb Kjelvagtinden on Uløya.

Day Four and Five. Sail to Skjervøy (fiskecamp), Climb Kagen, Sail to Vanvaag.

Day Six and Seven. Ski at Vanvaag, sail overnight at Lyngen Fjordscamp, return to Tromsø.

To The End of the World