Sail and Summit: 6 Days of Ski Touring in the Norwegian Arctic (Part 1)

Back in the summer of 2019, a friend suggested a skiing holiday in northern Norway. This would be no ordinary ski trip though. We’d be heading to the city of Tromsø, well above the arctic circle, and chartering a boat. The plan was to spend a week sailing across the fjords and touring up a different mountain peak every almost every day.

I was apprehensive about the idea at first. Living just an hour away from the alps in southern Germany, there are plenty of excellent ski touring opportunities close to home. Furthermore, I felt I didn’t have the necessary expertise. Ski touring can be dangerous even in the relatively controlled environment of the German or Austrian alps. The Norwegian arctic is wilder and more remote than anything I’d experienced before. We’d also have to be completely self-reliant. There is only minimal infrastructure in this part of the world.

I was also unsure about my physical fitness. Would I have the stamina necessary for four or five consecutive tours, sometimes climbing over one thousand vertical meters per day? My previous tours were limited mostly to day trips. Sure, on some of these I had climbed between 1200 and 1400 meters. But I always had the comfort of home or a hotel room to look forward to after a long day outside in the cold.

Ski touring, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, is the sport hiking up a mountain with skies. This is accomplished using specialized equipment. The skis are usually lighter than typical downhill skis and have a binding that unlocks at the back. This allows the heel of the ski boot to move up and down. Touring ski boots are also lighter and more flexible than downhill boots. (Although this can vary depending on your needs or preferences.) An adhesive skin is glued to the bottom of the ski. This skins allow the skis to slide up but not down. Once you reach the top of the mountain, the skins are removed and the bindings and boots are locked in downhill mode. You can now ski down as you would with ‘normal’ skis.

After some debate we decided to just go for it. There was considerable upside to the proposal despite my misgivings. And it also sounded like a fun adventure. The trip was originally scheduled for April 2020. It was delayed twice due to the pandemic and resultant lockdowns. (Norway was completely closed to foreign tourists for an extended period.) We finally received the green light at the beginning of 2022. Our departure to Norway was scheduled for April.

We were a crew of five. All old friends of mine from growing up. The trip was organized by an outfit specializing in tours of this region of Norway. The husband-and-wife team were both experienced sailors and skiers. They would develop an itinerary for the week we’d be spending with them on the water and would also serve as our guides on the mountain.

As mentioned, ski touring can be dangerous. Avalanches can kill even on tame mountains. The week before we arrived, three members of a French crew died in the same area we were heading to. The avalanche buried all nine members of the party but six were able to dig themselves out and emerged unscathed. A week before this incident, an avalanche claimed the life of a 32-year-old German. This happened in the same area.

In these conditions, the value of a guide can’t be overstated. Given our overall level of experience, it would have been nothing short of foolish to undertake such a trip without professional support.

Arriving in Tromsø, the ‘Gateway to the North’

We flew in to Tromsø, the regional capital, the day before we were scheduled to board the boat. With a population of about 78,000, Tromsø is the most populous city within the arctic circle outside of Russia — and the 4th most populous overall. Tromsø is the capital of Troms and Finnmark, Norway’s largest and northernmost county. (The island of Svalbard, famous for its polar bears and legendary doomsday seed vault, is even higher north — but is not considered a Norwegian county.) Troms and Finnmark is sparsely populated with roughly one-third of its inhabitants calling Tromsø home.

There are several flights per day from Oslo to Tromsø, making it straightforward and reasonably cheap to reach. We flew to Oslo from Munich on Norwegian, Norway’s national airline. The flight landed in the evening. I was able to just barely glimpse the warm carmen tones of alpenglow illuminating the surrounding mountains from my airplane window. Most of our fellow passengers seemed to be skiers. This was readily discernible from the numerous ski and boot bags splayed over the floor at the luggage claim.

After collecting our bags and equipment, the five of us split up into two taxis and made our way to the hotel. Under normal circumstances we would have shared a room. However, after realizing that we’d spend the next week within the snug confines of a boat, we decided that single rooms would be the better choice on this occasion.

Stocking Up

I awoke early the next morning. Despite a mild hangover from the night before, I felt rested and energetic. Eager to get going, I headed downstairs to get some breakfast and meet the others.

At the breakfast buffet, we coincidentally met an old high school friend. Ski touring had also brought him to Norway. In fact, he was doing almost exactly the same trip we were: a week of sailing punctuated by daily ski tours. Skiing in northern Norway was clearly not as niche an activity as I had imagined it to be at first.

After breakfast, we agreed to meet to meet back in the hotel lobby in an hour. We headed to our rooms to quickly finish packing. After settling our bills, we made our way to the marina which was conveniently located just outside the hotel’s main entrance.

In some ways, Tromsø’s marina is the heart of the town. While some visitors might skip attractions such as the Polar Museum or the Arctic Cathedral (which is not to say that these aren’t worth seeing — although the cathedral was closed when we tried to visit), there is probably no way to avoid the marina — certainly not if you happen to be in Tromsø during the winter. The boats, with names like ‘Arctic Explorer’ and ‘Polaris’, seemed to be mostly tourist charters. They varied in size considerably. From small speedboats for day trips around the city to to mid-sized motor yachts up to 20 or 30 meters in length which looked like they could accommodate 10 or more guests for several weeks.

The boat we’d be spending the next week on was a 13-meter sailboat. There were seven of us on board in total: us five guests and the two crew members. The boat had four cabins: two aft and two fore. Each cabin could sleep two people (more or less) comfortably. The fore cabins had bunk beds while the aft cabins consisted of a single larger bed that could just about accommodate two men. One of the aft cabins was already reserved by the crew. That left us five guests to split up between the remaining three rooms.

Managing space on a small sailboat is a challenge. Not only were we nearly at maximum passenger capacity, but we also had an abundance of luggage. Backpacks, skis, ski boots and duffel bags all had to be stowed…somewhere. In addition, we were each issued sailing gear and life vest that had to be worn at all times when above deck. We decided to re-purpose one of the fore bunks as a makeshift luggage storage. While this didn’t solve the problem entirely, it did grant us some much-needed breathing room. We were left with exactly five remaining beds for five guests. It’s fair to say that sailboats were probably not designed with skiing in mind.

Between the aft and fore cabins was a large central room that served as a combination galley, dining and living quarters. This is where we would spend most of our time while on board — unless we were on deck. A large dining table occupied half the room. It was big enough to comfortably seat 8 people. A curved bench ran the length of one of the exterior walls. On the other side of the table there, there were a few stools bolted to the floor. The galley was built into the wall on the opposite side of the curved bench. With a combination two-burner stove and oven, cooking options for seven people seemed limited to me at first but turned out to be surprisingly adequate.

While board would be provided to us for the week, it was our responsibility to ensure that we brought anything else we might need. We were also encouraged to plan ahead. It might be several days before we’d encounter another store - if at all. Our itinerary was designed to be flexible and would largely depend on the weather.

Buying beer

Given the circumstances, our main priority was ensuring that we would have enough beer to last us for at least the first few days. The real possibility that we might have nowhere to restock gnawed at us though. The situation was further complicated by the fact that booze is expensive in Norway. The sale of alcohol here is carefully controlled by the state. (As it is in Sweden and Finland too.) For example, hard liquor can only be purchased at a certain government run chain of stores called Vinmonopolet. (The name roughly translates to ‘wine monopoly’.)

You can buy beer at supermarkets but only up to a maximum alcohol-by-volume level of 4.5%. Any stronger than this and then beer too has to be purchased from the Vinmonopolet. A 0.33l can of beer costs around three to four times what it would in Germany. (For comparison, consumer goods prices in Norway are 46% higher than the EU average. Alcohol is therefore considerably more expensive.)

At first, we were unsure about beer with only 4.5% alcohol-by-volume. Most beers in Germany are usually 5% or higher. We feared that the weaker beer wouldn’t suit our tastes. However, practical considerations ultimately won out. The supermarket was more conveniently located than the Vinmonopolet so we decided to just purchase whatever was most readily available. We picked up around 10 cases of beer — or about 120 cans. We made sure to buy local brands like Mack and Isbjorn as well as some of the big name international brews such as Tuborg and Heineken. We bought so much that we had to borrow the supermarket shopping cart to easily carry everything down to the boat.

After loading all the beer into the boat’s cargo hold, we brought the shopping cart back to the store and finally set off.