High Camp Turtagrø 2011

Nothing short of a fantastic weekend.
The largest group of Danes yet participated in this years version of High Camp at Turtagrø Hotel in the Hurrungane mountains of western Jotunheimen.

Amund en-route to Lauvnostind (Photo: Kim Johansen)

High Camp is a very relaxed and cool ski touring event hosted by Norwegian ski magazine Fri Flyt.
Around 600 ski tourers including nine Danes enjoyed the mostly nice weather and skied all the classic peaks including Dyrhaugstind, Lauvnostind, Steindalsnosi, Fannråken and Ringstind.
High Camp is also a great place to meet up with old Norwegian friends and make new ones. The ski touring community is quite small, even on a Scandinavian scale.

My good friend Kim Johansen took some beautiful pictures. Enjoy some of them here.

Klippeklatrekursus Kullen 30 april - 1 maj

Endnu et veloverstået klippeklatrekursus for Dansk Klatreforbund.
Denne gang i helt fantastisk vejr, med røde skuldre og afskallede arme til følge.
Tak til Jens Peter for godt vejr og tak til Kim for et overdådigt lækkert måltid, der burde lægge standarden for forplejning på kurserne.

Solgerd fører Diedren, K2 søndag.

Bivouac des périades: The coolest hut in the world.

It's not the largest hut in the world, it's definitely not the most luxurious is the world, it's not even the highest hut in the alps, even though is located at a pretty good altitude.
The coolest hut in the world might be a big statement, but nonetheless I think it the coolest - at the very least in the Chamonix area.

In the weekend before Easter I enjoyed a super short trip to Chamonix to visit my old fried Kim, who had spent the season in Cham. We had three days to get a ski tour in before Kim was heading back to Denmark.

Because of the crappy snow (or lack thereof) this season, we had to go somewhere high, we'd like to visit new huts and ski new glaciers. A quick plan was made: Ski down the good part of Vallée Blanche break left up the Leschaux glacier, climb to the winter room of the Leschaux hut and spend the first night there. Next day climb back down to the glacier and skin up to the foot of the Mont Mallet glacier, skin the height of the glacier to the couloir giving access to the final rock scramble to the Bivouac des Périades. 

(Rare) Dynafit Failure.

Upon disassembling my Vertical ST bindings for the first time i noticed a small crack in the side of the compensation plate. After taking the binding apart, the compensation plate was indeed in two pieces.
The bindings are from april 2009, has seen probably between 40 and 50 days of use. The use they have seen have been everything from regular back-country touring to icy in bound skiing to expedition use involving multiple plane and mule rides.
In other words, they've been banged around quite a bit.
I didn't notice anything unusual skiing the binding a couple of days ago, so I don't really know how long it's been broken.
I will of course be replacing the broken part, even though the binding seems to be skiable.
Have anybody else seen or heard of this mode of failure.
I should state that I haven't disassembled the binding before, hence I don't think over tightening the top plate screws (at least not by me) could be the reason for the failure.
Enjoy the spring.

Klippeklatrekursus Kullen 2-3 april

Jeg havde fornøjelsen af at være kursusleder på Dansk Klatreforbunds Klippeklatrekursus i weekenden, årets første kursus.
Tak til alle deltagene for et godt kursus.
Vejret var jo som lovet, der var både perioder med 15 grader, sol og let vind.

Et par billeder af et par dygtige kursister der fører deres første rute:

Adam i den skarpe ende.

Martin finder glæden ved en velplaceret 10'er kile.

Patagonia Alpine Wind Jacket.

Genialt lille stykke beklædning.

Strange ski touring bindng I saw in Morroco.

Anybody have some info on what it is? Please leave a comment.