THE FROST REPORT - Finger nippin' good
By Jim Gregson
A Ski-mountaineer's Tale by Jim Gregson
Ski touring in the mountains. Blue skies. Sunshine. Sparkling snow. No wind. That's what we all like to remember. We all park away in the deeper recesses of our minds the less attractive aspects of our mountain ventures - the fog, the flat light, the vicious wind, the ski-snagging sastrugi, the cursed breakable snow crust, in your face snowfall, and we tell ourselves and our friends that we had a great time. Mostly. And usually we did.
But every once in a while the mountains bite back.
Just a few weeks ago, I was with my wife part way through our customary winter ski mountaineering trip in Norway's Jotunheimen range. We'd done a few good tops, found some excellent telemark downhill running, toured some distance visiting three different huts, and also met some old acquaintances and friends. But the weather had now deteriorated and we had to sit out a day or two of high winds and snowstorms.
At the comfortable hut where we were staying, the power suddenly failed and the staff worked to bring the auxiliary generator system into use - as well as lighting up dozens of candles. News eventually came through that a big avalanche some distance away in another valley had not only taken out the power lines, but had even carried away some of the pylons too, so there was no quick fix.
By now we were two days behind our original schedule, so the next day as we checked out I asked the hut manager, a good friend of ours, to try to phone ahead to the next hut but one where we had a reservation, to tell the people there that we were coming albeit later than intended. Our immediate destination was an unstaffed hut, normally just a fairly easy day's skiing away, a journey we had made many times in previous tours. The weather outlook was marginally better than the last few days, and we reckoned we could follow the marked route and hopefully travel in the lee of mountains along the way. We said our goodbyes to our friend and headed off.
The norm in Norway in winter is for main hut to hut routes to be marked at close intervals with twiggy tree branches or sticks plunged into the snow every ten or fifteen metres, usually visible even in fog. It was our misfortune that this winter in Norway had been one of relatively scant snowfall and very frequent and persistent high winds. Thus on some routes many of the sticks were missing, fallen or knocked down by wind, so in a big blow of spindrift and fog it was blind travel. This system of marking has become the Norwegian norm over some years, following a tragedy involving the deaths from exposure of some schoolchildren who were caught out in atrocious weather.
As we progressed along our way the weather didn't do us any favours, but we pressed on as we felt we knew the route quite well and we were old hands at this game. We were to find that more and more of the sticks were missing and we had to make more compass checks than usual. Sadly for us, the wind did not comply with the forecast information and instead of being sheltered going into the lee of bigger mountains we enlisted ourselves into a veritable battle with the elements.
The Norwegians have a saying for mountain travellers : "Det er ingen skam aa snu" -- "There is no disgrace in turning back". By the time this was revolving through my mind we had reached well over half distance for the day, and were on the frozen surface of a big lake which the route traverses. Here, where the wind had whipped away most of the snow we finally lost contact with all of the marker sticks. Indeed, the sticks themselves had lost contact and were all blown down and invisible to us. We tried to continue but the wind rose to a shriek, full into our faces, knocking us about, and the light seemed to be failing. In Norwegian terms, the weather had gone from "Sterk kuling" to "Liten storm" (and a bit more) or as we would say from Gale Force 8 to Strong Gale Force 9. Time for a decision, based on years of experience and judgement. I stopped and pulled my wife close to convey my thoughts.
We could try to go back the way we'd come, but we would not make it to our startpoint before darkness. We could battle on into the storm, but we knew that the way forward involved more climbs and descents and into a headwind we would be slow, and again darkness would capture us. Or - we could decide to make a bivouac, while sufficient light remained for us to make ourselves secure, if not comfortable. After all, on a ski tour do we not normally carry shovels, a bivi sack, headtorches, sleepmats and even a lightweight sleeping bag each? We also had in our sacks food and two thermos flasks with hot juice in them. Sure it would be cold, but in a difficult situation needs must.
We agreed the decision. We would try to find a suitable spot to dig in and with luck find enough depth for a snowhole. Now, the middle of a frozen lake with only a few centimetres of snow on top of the ice would be a poor piece of real estate for an overnight stop. On the northern shore our prospects for finding a better location would be more favourable. Mindful of avoiding placing ourselves in the track of a potential avalanche we cast about on the lowest slopes of a big loomimg mountain. As it was a thin year for snow we had to look for a while before settling on a likely spot by some prominent boulders. Above, we judged the slope to be too steep and craggy to be loaded with too much snow, so commenced to dig with a will. We estimated that just over an hour of daylight now remained so there was urgency in our actions.
The fact of the thin snow year soon became painfully obvious. Our pit in the snow fairly soon bottomed out onto bedrock and stones before it had a really useful volume. Swearing gently, we now had no option but to build up a surrounding wall of snow to improve our meagre shelter into something which would give better protection. We shovelled furiously like a pair of demented stokers, elevating the wall until we felt we'd piled up enough snow. We also realised that our enclosure would provide only a sitting bivouac, with not enough space to lie out extended. As darknes fell we unshipped the foam mats to sit and lean on, and drew the thin red nylon of the bivi sack over our heads. Our rucksacks, with food and drink were close to hand. As we settled in for a long night we accepted that this was for real. We were on our own; nobody else would have a clue as to our whereabouts, but we knew exactly where we were - in a hole!
As the night wore on, slowly but inexorably, we tried to talk to wear down the hours. We could eat quite readily from our stock of victuals, but decided we would eke out the thermos contents at intervals through the dark hours. The interior of the bivi sack gradually grew damp from condensation of our exhaled breath and the air staled. Every once in a while we raised the hem of the sack to re-oxygenate our flimsy cell, at the expense of admitting copious amounts of very chilled air. We shivered, we shook, we rubbed, we wriggled, we jostled each other - to keep awake and to keep warm. The closed-cell sleepmats were a godsend, insulating us from the cold surface on which we sat, but after some hours we became more and more aware of lumps and bumps in the underlying icy rocks making an uncomfortable impression on our posteriors. The restricted legroom also led to some episodes of agonising cramp.
But, on the bright side, the wind eventually began to die away and the sky cleared somewhat. The temperature outside the sack took the opportunity to plummet, until we reckoned it had fallen to about minus 18 Celsius. This night was far from being a walk in the park. Drawing on reserves of psychological fortitude, stored away over many years of experience of Scottish winters, alpine climbing and expeditions to the High Arctic, plus all our previous sojourns here in Norway, we pulled ourselves towards dawn. As the light began to pick up and improve we decided that as soon as feasible we would emerge from our frosty cocoon, repack our kit and get on our way. Needing to pass water we clambered from the damp confines of the bivi sack - and were instantly frozen into suits of frigid armour. Our clothing creaked as we moved and we were clumsy in stuffing things away in our rucksacks.
With chattering teeth we looked around us, eyed up the weather, and checked our map very carefully. As the usual marked route was not in reality now marked, we decided to ignore it in favour of a contouring line into the next valley, which would lead unerringly towards the hut which was our destination of yesterday. In fact, there are two huts in close proximity, and we knew that there were supposed to be carpenters there making improvements and alterations. We reckoned that they would have the wood stove burning and water close to boiling. We clipped back into our ski bindings and a little stiffly moved off from the site of our big night out. Gradually we warmed a little, apart from our hands and fingers. We gained the next valley, where thankfully some of the marker sticks remained standing. As the sun rose, so too did our spirits and we increased our speed. Where the markers for our original route should have re-appeared there was nothing but untracked snow.
We closed on the two huts, hoping for the welcome whiff of woodsmoke but nothing met our nostrils. As we neared the buildings it was obvious that it was the upper hut which had been receiving the carpenters' attentions, but we were a little put off by a scatter of lengths of timber with long protruding nails, probably thrown about by the fierce winds. We repaired to the front of the smaller, lower hut, the one we usually used. No sign of life. We had a key for the standard padlock used on most unattended Norwegian huts, so we knew we could get in. But not just yet!
The building was very drifted up, almost to the eaves, and the door itself was invisible beneath a couple of cubic metres of wind-hardened blown snow. More shovelling - what a delight! At first it was slow going with our relatively small touring shovels, but we knew there should be a big hut shovel close by. There was - hanging on the wall next to the buried door, sharing its snowy entombment! Suddenly, a brainwave - these huts have earth closet toilets and there is often a big shit shovel. If we found it we could press it into service to uncover the door. We did and we did, but only after a full thirty minutes of digging and hefting.
At last we could enter to familiar surroundings, as we have stayed here many times over the years. Soon we had the stove lit up with crackling wood, water on the hob, albeit from melting ice, and we installed ourselves as the sole occupying party. We drank, we ate, we ate, we drank. We toasted ourselves back to life by the stove. Nobody else turned up so we could spread ourselves and luxuriate in the warmth. We fired up the drying room stove too and had all of our frosted kit hung up to dry off. Outside, the sun shone and the wind sank away, and we rested.
That night we slept deeply and comfortably, for Norwegian huts are very well set up. The clear sky allowed the temperature to fall very sharply beyond the wooden walls. The window thermometer was reading minus 21 Celsius when we checked early the next morning. But as the sun rose and flooded the valley with sparkling light, we began to become more aware of the legacy of our night out in the open. Our hands, and fingers in particular, were still quite wooden and manipulating small objects was not so easy. We had no blisters but there was clearly a good dose of severe frostnip - and this was not fully recovered even several weeks later. We'd now need to be even more careful, particularly having to avoid touching metal objects with bare hands.
Fortunately, as we packed to leave we could see that this day would be one of the ones dreamed about - glittering snow, blue sky and flat calm air, a ski mountaineer's delight. We wound our way up over a steep pass and swooped down the other side in graceful curves, surrounded by a grand array of peaks. We crossed another frozen lake and skinned up into a narrow valley with a final wind-sculpted col at its watershed before a running descent of several kilometres into and along a final valley to the mountain lodge where we were now three days overdue.
The people there were relieved to see us roll up at last. As we had been unable to contact them, they had telephoned and e-mailed round the staffed hut system to try to find out if we had been seen. We later learned that they had been asking about "the British couple", and that another hut guardian friend of ours had asked for a name-check. On learning that it was in fact us who were supposed to be missing, he had simply re-assured everyone that "Those two, they know what they are doing in the mountains, and they will be alright. There will be a good reason why they are delayed". A generous assessment, and so it proved.
Our tour was far from over, and we had more testing days over the next week. We skied glaciers new to us and topped out on summits, which we have long coveted. But the time came for us to fly home soon enough. The fingers? At the time of writing they're still not completely recovered. They've shed layers of skin, but the sense of touch is not yet perfect. We'd had an interesting if uncomfortable episode, but we had measured ourselves up to the demands of the situation and come through mostly smiling. More memories to keep on deposit in the bank of experience.
