Scandinavia Soul Skiing

Thursday, June 20, 2019 2:00 PM

Hemavan, Sweden. A ski community I hadn’t heard of prior to my arrival to Europe now holds some of my dearest memories of my experience studying abroad. My first visit to the ski village cozily nestled in the Swedish Scandes marked more than my first time skiing in Scandinavia. It was the first time I would get to see my brother and best friend since I left the States – a reunion I desperately welcomed coming out of the dark depths of a Nordic winter.

The small turbo prop plane lunged down to begin its decent. As I felt my stomach rise, twinkling lights at the base of a dim, moonlight mountain range caught my eye. The sight, not the seat dropping from beneath me, interrupted our conversation for the first time during the two-hour flight. Jared, my adventure buddy since he moved to Colorado when we were in the fourth grade, and I were getting caught up on each other’s lives. Over 13 years of brotherhood, our adventures have morphed from making model rockets, makeshift flame throwers and RC helicopters to backcountry outings, sailing log canoes on the Chesapeake Bay and ski mountaineering. Our lives have brought us to opposite sides of the globe with me studying sustainability science in Finland and him restoring classic wooden boats in Lake Tahoe. But here we were, reunited after an 18-month hiatus, ready to explore the Scandinavian mountains. I walked off the plane laughing as Jared’s long red beard was coated in silver with his first exhale into the mountain air.  A breath of the adventures to come. 

With a few long strides we were off the plane and in the terminal. If you could call it that, it was more of a small warming hut. Inside we were greeted by Anton. I had met Anton, along with his buddy Mårten a few months earlier in Helsinki while my dad visited from Colorado. Anton lives in Hemavan working as a wilderness guide. After exchanging greetings, we walked out to the parking lot where our ski bags were waiting. We grabbed the bags and started walking to the cabin. A few minutes later we made a stop into Trolltunet’s bar. The tall, bald bartender greeted us with a radiating smile. Anton introduced us, “This is Isak, he’s looking forward to showing you around Hemavan.” Isak continued beaming as he poured us each a local lager. As we savored our beers, Anton pulled out the map, Isak brought up the weather report and we started planning for the next morning. 

The weather called for clouds, wind and snow. High alpine skiing wasn’t a good option, but Isak’s stoke assured us there was no need to worry. There would be plenty of good tree skiing to enjoy as the high alpine collected snow, waiting to be skied when the sun came out. Once we finished our beers Anton led us to the cabin. We’d meet Isak back at Trolltunet the next morning to find some forest to ski. 

I woke the next morning hyped. I would get to ski. Ski Scandinavia. Ski with Jared, my brotha-from-anotha-motha! I peeked out the window to get my first look at the mountains that awaited. I could see hills of birch, but where were the mountains? As I craned my eyes, I could faintly distinguish rolling alpine peaks from overcast sky. Patience. Let’s go ski some trees. 

Isak was tooling with his split board, “The weather isn’t the best, but I think it’s going to be good!” Yee dawgies! We guzzled Trolltunets’ free coffee and snuck some gingerbread biscuits before loading our skis in the car next to his split board. Fifteen minutes later we were putting our skins on. Isak pointed across the lake at a small mountain, birch forest rose three quarters of the way, leaving a rounded peak above tree line, “today’s playground, about 300 height meters of fun.”  Height meters threw me off for a second as I translated to 1000 vertical feet. Forty minutes of chit-chat later we were on the summit stripping our skins in the blistery wind, the stoke meter rising. “I think there will be some snow here” Isak claimed adjusting his goggles.  I thought so too, we just broke a skin track through about 8 inches of snow, but boy was I wrong. My first turn from the ridge was wind sculpted as I built speed; I was not ready for my second. Face shot. And another. My insides screamed as I floated through the Scandinavian powder. This is way more than 8 inches! A few turns later and we were zipping through the forest hooting and hollering as we danced between the open trees. We pulled in to our skin track at the bottom and high fived. I was speechless. What just happened? That was SICK. “Welcome to Sweden my American friends!” We put the skins back on and hiked five more laps before slugging back across the lake. Day one was in the books. It was only a taste of what was to come from the rest of our time in Hemavan.

The next afternoon my brother Erikson arrived on his spring break from college in the States and the following day we woke to bluebird skies. We met Isak and his friend Karl at the lift and we all bought one up tickets for $20. A series of T-bars took us to the top of the resort at 1100 meters saving quite a bit of skinning. From there we got our first peak into the high alpine paradise that awaited us. The ridgeline continued to rise for another 500 height meters, dropping into Kobåsetvalley to our right where another series of mountains beckoned to be skied. The lines looked endless, giving us plenty to scope as we toured up the ridge. As I later found out we were on the edge of the Vindelfjällen Nature Reserve, one of the largest nature reserves in Europe. The protected lands of Vindelfjällen have been a vital ecosystem supporting the indigenous Sami people and their reindeer herds for thousands of years.

The Scandinavian winds had been ruthless in the high alpine. We were likely skiing wind sculped groomers for the day. “We call this line mini Alaska” Isak said as we were dropping in to scope our lines and check the stability. Before us was a perfectly open face at a consistent 30 degrees for about 700 height meters. No way, this could be fun, even on hard pack! My brother dropped first, pulling out half way to set up his camera. We each followed in turn. It was a perfect natural groomer as I tried my hand at my best GS turns flying down the open face into the valley below. We regrouped bumping fists at the valley floor surrounded on three sides by endless skiing. 

We put the skins back on and set up an open bowl across the valley. Once was not enough. From the summit I just looked with wonder. I tried to catch my breath from the hike, but the view made it difficult. I could spend a few winters here and still have more to discover. Two lines in particular stuck out. One, off a peak along the ridge where we started, just before the ridge turned to close out the bowl, was calling my name. From looker’s left of the peak a steep open face channeled to a mid-line traverse feeding two possible exits, a shoot skier’s right or another steep open face skier’s left. A month and a half later I would get to ski that line in perfect spring slush with Tomas taking the open face exit. The other line was in the bowl between the mini Alaska line we just skied and the line I was scoping. There were two shoots lookers right that fed into flat before an open face exit. That too I would get to ski the last day of April. At the time, these were lines for the imagination. 

After a perfect day touring the “resort side country” we had another day of good weather. Jared, Erikson and I decided it would be our best opportunity to go to Norway and realize our collective dream of a sea-to-summit tour in the revered Norwegian fjords. Hemavan truly is the perfect location for a touring trip. Being an hour away from the coast, there is access to an abundant variety of skiing all within a two-hour driving radius. 

The next morning at 7 am I had the keys to a rental car in hand and was faced with a new challenge. We rented a car with American Anti-Autotheft aka a manual transmission. Jared sat beside me as my palms started to sweat. “What are you waiting for? We gotta send it to Norway!” I was watching the salesman, making sure he was well out of sight and would not witness my first attempt at driving stick. Jared reassured me, “it’s just like a dirt bike, I think.” Yeah, me too. I turned the key. Nothing happened. Uhh.I tried again, nothing. Clutch. Right. I pushed the clutch in with the brake and the engine roared to life. Nice. Now reverse. After jiggling the gearshift around I found out I needed to push it down to get it over in reverse. Okay. Just like a dirt bike, easy on the clutch. I started to let it out as I gave it a bit of gas and began rolling backwards. Yes! But I let the clutch out too quickly and we jerked to a stop. Jared was in stiches; I was wet with sweat. I restarted the engine and tried again, this time backing up fully. I went to shift into first, at least I thought it was first. Stall. I tried again. Stall. “Are you in first?” “Yeah, I think so.” I wasn’t. I shifted from third to first and we started rolling. 

Thankfully, Hemavan is a small village and there isn’t any traffic at 7 in the morning. As I pulled out of the lot, I successfully made it into second, though I defiantly grinded some gears getting there. We were making it up the hill to the cabin when a car was coming down. I needed to wait to make my left-hand turn. The car passed. As I tried to get going the engine whined, slightly overrevving as I tried to feather out the clutch. We moved a few feet before another stall. This time in the middle of the road. Taking up both lanes. Jared could not hold in his laughter, “If only your dad could see you now, he’d be so disappointed!” I was white with panic. Please dear god don’t have a car come now. Thankfully no one came and I eventually made it into the driveway. This was going to be a long day. We loaded the gear and I changed into a dry shirt. It was about two hours of driving on icy roads to our objective. Erikson and Jared were stoked; I was petrified. By some act of god, we made it to the base of the Norwegian mountain Tortenviktind in one piece. I didn’t stall on the drive though we definitely smelled the clutch a few times. 

I was so focused on the driving that I did not fully appreciate the surrounding beautiful landscape. The mountains shot up from the sea. There were peaks of all types, some shallow and rounded, some steep and jagged. There were couloirs left and right and there was us. Three Colorado boys in Norway about 10 meters above sea level looking up 1000 meters to the summit of Tortenviktind. Up we went breaking a skin track through 20 cm of cold snow, gradually stepping our way to the top. With each step another peak along the coast came into sight. Blue to the west, white to the east. A lifetime of skiing in between, all within two hours of Hemavan. 

The wind was whipping at the top, but we fought off our dropping core temperatures to savor the view for as long as we could tolerate. I tried my best to burn the sight before me - the feeling of complete peace standing on a mountain with skis on my feet besides my two brothers looking across the Atlantic - into the deepest parts of my memory. Truly perfect. And we hadn’t even taken a turn. Below us we had 1027 meters, 3370 feet of vertical, of cold smoke back to the car. Thin clouds started creeping in from the west, casting a glowing halo around the sun. The fjord below shimmered gold. The stoke meter was floored.

The next day was a down day with high winds and poor visibility. We skinned up from the cabin into some sheltered trees and built a small pump track and jump to play around on to wait out the weather. With fresh legs, we set off the following morning to tackle Murtsertoppen, a peak above our pump track. Our hope was the western wind would fill in the eastern face. We had the right idea, but clouds socked in as we approached the summit, limiting our visibility and inducing some vertigo. After some waiting and digging pits to keep warm, we decided we needed to drop in blind. Fortunately, it’s still enjoyable to ski deep powder without seeing where you’re going. Half way down we emerged from the clouds and could navigate our line to the valley where Anton was leading a group for wilderness training. We approached the camp as a train of twenty skiers began their skin up to for some afternoon pow turns. We had a good laugh the next evening when Isak and Tomas revealed that they skinned the same face and thought for a moment they were crossing avalanche debris. They couldn’t believe the that the gentle face slid. It hadn’t. You just don’t come across more than four tracks when touring around Hemavan. 

After wishing the caravan luck with the visibility higher up, we slid down the valley back to the cabin. Mårten had just arrived from Helsinki, and we began planning our next day’s mission over some beers. He suggested we take some snowmobiles to head to Norra Storfjallet, a glacier carved canyon on the other side of Kobåset, to see a guaranteed breathtaking view and possibly scout some lines on Tärna glacier.

While the locals were out touring our old tracks, we did some sight-seeing on the sleds. We got up early to sneak a warm up, dawn-patrol skin lap before we hopped on the sleds. On the sleds we worked our way north up the valley to Norra Storfjallet. As we passed a backcountry waffle cabin, the final rest stop along the 440 kilometer Kungsleden (Kings Trail) through northern Sweden, the canyon came into sight. It was breathtaking! The clouds were lifting revealing a perfect U canyon with some gnarly exposed lines coming down on both sides with a blue-sky backdrop. As we passed through the canyon the snow started to get deeper. Jared and I began to struggle with our beasts of touring sleds. Mårten and Erikson took the deep snow as a good excuse to test their agile adventure sleds. They were ripping circles, rocketing around and having a time of it. I was leaning as hard as I could to fight the gradual double fall line and climb. The combination of snow, sled and driver led to me being waist deep in snow and the snowmobile upside down. I looked around seeing Jared also off his sled. We shrugged in mutual solidarity. Exhausted after a half an hour of struggle we made it to where Erikson and Mårten were parked. I just wanted to ski.

As we looked up Tärna glacier with binoculars, we discussed our objective. It looked sketchy, showing signs of wind loading with an extremely exposed approach. We discussed as a group assessing the risk. I was getting cold, the sweat I built up from battling the snowmobile was starting to freeze. I wanted an excuse to skin up to warm up. We studied the face some more and agreed: as amazing as skiing a wide open 40-degree face in waist deep snow would be, it would not be worth putting our lives on the line to access it. We decided to compromise and head back, grab a waffle and take another lap west of town in the trees. As painful as it is to admit, I think we made the right call. 

That evening on the skin track I was hit by a wave of emotions as I realized the trip was coming to an end. My ski season was not over, Mårten was returning to Hemavan at the end of April and needed a copilot for the drive. I was going to work my hiney off in school to be able to join him, but my brother and Jared were returning across the ocean. The total bliss of true soul skiing was coming to an end. Two thirds of my soul was leaving and I would be returning alone to Finland. The beauty of the sun setting behind the Norwegian mountains across the horizon did little to stop my flood of tears. I was in a confluence of emotions, deeply grateful yet unable to let go. That moment too, will be forever burned into my memory. Me, balling my eyes out surrounded by 360 degrees of pristine mountain wilderness (a lifetime of lines) with Jared patting my back reassuring me we would be reunited again soon, possibly next year back in Hemavan.

We celebrated what should have been our final day together with a tour to the local’s secret spot “Mini Canada” led by Dr. Pow, Mr. Isak. I won’t say more than we spent the morning lapping open gladed pillow lines in deep snow. 

Another good day! Spirits were high as we got back to Hemavan in time to catch the 6 pm bus out of town. We were going to bus it Umeå to catch a night train so my brother could make his morning flight out of Stockholm the next day. Only we had a little trouble. There was no 6 pm bus on Saturdays. Call it fate, or call it me not knowing how to read a time table, but we had an extra night in Hemavan. How else do you deal with needing to rebook an international flight and a last-minute booking of the next morning’s flight to Stockholm? You gorge out on Nannas’ pizza and empty a bottle of Motörhead rum with Jared’s infamous Dark and Stormys.

-Trexler