Lyngen Alps
In the heart of the Norwegian fjords. Big skiing where the sun slowly falls asleep.
With Guillaume, Aude et les Euskaldunak !
After a last-minute flight to Sweden, this trip began with a long train journey from Stockholm to Narvik. A true twenty-hour nordic rail journey: the latitudes roll by bumpily over a good hot coffee, our eyes glued alternately to these endless landscapes and to the maps of the Lyngen.
The Lyngen Alps are a very rugged massif near Tromsø, beyond the Arctic Circle. As we travel north, the sun gradually tilts its course, diluting the day into a long, drawn-out evening: a feast of light!
The spring conditions that welcome us have turned the roads into real skating rinks of bare ice. Studded tyres come into their own, and to get the skis out of the boot of our car without slipping, you have to grip the grooves of the bodywork hard!
So we find spring snow on the warm slopes and packed powder on the cold ones. The first radiant day offers us a magnificent foray into the heart of the massif onto the Lakselvtindane plateau, via a big couloir and then a vast, deserted glacial plateau.
To vary from nights in a tent on the ice, we visit one of the "open huts" (appen hytte) near the coast. These huts, quickly reached on easy nordic routes, are real havens of peace at the foot of the mountains. Tastefully personalised, they are remarkably well maintained.
We spend five wonderful days at Fastdalshytta, letting the days of big storms go by, comfortably sheltered, watching the loads of powder transform the Lyngen.
During brief lulls, we go out to savour a few freshly fallen flaky treats. What a luxury to breathe in this bit of daily life at the heart of a nature whose heart is racing.
With cheeks reddened by an ever more biting cold and eyes sparkling from our day, every evening, after taking off the skins and storing the skis on the porch, we return to the comfort of our hut. The creak of the door, a log on the few embers still warm, and the evening can begin. Outside the wind blows and the northern lights illuminate every clearing in the night.
But the Lyngen are vast and new horizons are calling. On a day when the depth of fresh snow muffles every sound, we leave our cosy shelter. One last stop at Koppangen, a small fishing village at the end of the world, nestled at the end of its fjord, and we head west.
We meet up with Guillaume's Basque friends, who welcome us like kings with a gargantuan meal and... THE shower! Their last day in Norway: we share a morning of perfect weather on the Steinfjellet not far from Svensby. Eskerrik asko, guys!
For the end of our stay we find a little "Gapahuk", a makeshift shelter that perfectly complements our tent for eating in comfort. We make the most of the seaside for a few plunging evening tours: an unreal marriage of sea and skiing bathed in a phantasmagorical light.
The view from our shelter over the beautiful glaciated massif of the northern Lyngen is calling for great outings. Last day of the trip: the weather is perfect and absolutely immaculate snow sparkles in the early morning like an irresistible invitation. We put our skis on for a big, beautiful day of skiing in this unusual, deserted massif.
The immense joy of breaking trail in all this snow in such a setting. We wander towards the Store Jægervasstindane, a majestic summit of the northern Lyngen. A terrible wind catches us on the Lenangsbreen and stays with us until we cross the Lenangsskardet, a huge, untracked glacial plateau.
On the last slope of the Store we turn back about a hundred metres below the summit, as the amounts of snow border on the indecent. Even though everything seems incredibly stable, the three of us are exposed. We don't dither any longer and let ourselves go in an over-loaded descent.
The low-angled light is already turning red towards one of those endless evenings that polar regions have the secret of. We prolong the tour with it on a photogenic loop.
Last col, last map doubt: it goes. Here we are in sight of a last untouched descent above the Ullfjorden. With such conditions, you wish your thighs would never weaken and the light would never fade. Moments of euphoria!
Last evening and last dance of intense, evanescent northern lights.
Farvel Lyngen! Og takk.
Photo gallery...