Avoiding avalanches

Today we skied 11km to Torsbu (1351m) from Pyttbua (1161m) going over a col of 1440m. The climb up to the col from Pyttbua once again exposed my difficulty with the more technical elements of skiing uphill, kick turns & sidesteps had me trailing at the back being shepherded by Kath - you try being as inflexible as me and controlling 2m+ planks attached to your feet. Anyway progress was made uphill and apart from Kath shouting at me to get my ski pole stuck in when I had a wee slip on a steep icy slope the first part was fairly controlled.

As height was gained though the snow conditions were once again proving to be tricky, deep unconsolidated snow with a high avalanche risk. We had been traversing between rock islands of safety for a while before stopping for a break. Directly in front of us barring our way was a slope that in normal conditions could have been easily climbed, but in these conditions was too high an avalanche risk, so we headed off in the other direction to attempt to find a way round.

More rock island hopping and when crossing snow slopes one would go out in front until across, the others would then follow apart from the last man who would remain until all were across, in this manner it gave us the best chance of having at least a couple not caught in any avalanche! Fortunately though we triggered no avalanches today.

Once over the col it was a nice gentle ski down onto the lake, Tordsvatnet on which Torsbu stood, all that was left was a 6km ski down the lake - in variable visibility and in poor snow it was just a 6km drag.

Arriving at Torsbu I was annoyed to find my heel had blistered - I'd had a problem last year and thought I'd protected myself better, but three days into a three week trip this wasn't good news, but at least we were all safe and sound and warm in Torsbu.