I spent easter in the Lyngen Alps area of Norway, this alpine landscape has seemingly endless possibilities which are untapped by the masses. It is difficult to get to, in a foreign land and the peaks are relatively extreme.

Here are some tips for doing it yourself on the relative* cheap.

*It is Norway afterall.

Getting There

Take a flight to Tromsø, sas and norwegian fly there. You will most likely be flying from outside Norway, take a flight to Oslo first then there are direct flights to Tromsø from there. There is also apparently a direct flight from Riga (Norwegian sun seekers flight), so if you can get there it can be a cheap option.

Transport

Looking up Tomasrenna and Lakelvrenna

Lyngen has been made famous in the international skiing community by the lyngen lodge with stories of skiing direct to and from the boat! This looks like an excellent holiday which you should for sure do if you can afford it. They also seem to spend a bit of time in Kafjord (across the water from Lyngen) which can sometimes have better snow.

In reality, most of the big, famous peaks are best accessed by car. So hiring a car from Tromsø is likely the best plan. The regular suspects of Avis, Sixt and Hertz operate from there. Shop around.

Accomodation

MIT Fablab and Koppangen Brygger are two good places to stay. (I have stayed in both.)

Koppangen Brygger

If you are looking to go a bit cheaper there is a DNT Cabin and at least one unlocked independent hut in the area (Fastdalshytta). These are like posh bothies, and you need a special key to get into the DNT hut. It is about £11 GBP per night to stay in Jægervasshytta . There are some sweet peaks which can be accessed direct from this hut.

A free option is to go for some camping action. You need to be pretty hardy but there are some good spots in the south west side of the lyngen alps (near Lakselvbukt a bit further south near the alley entrance Ellendalen).

Maps and Guides

• Lyngen Alps Turkart 1:50000 – this is the best map to get.
• Toppturer i Norge by Friflyt – The bible for ski mountaineering (top tours) throughout Norway with quite a few in Lyngen and the surrounding area.
• Toppturer i Troms by Friflyt – A new book describing toppturer in the Troms area of Norway. Has an extensive section on Lyngen.

Video

Here is a video compilation of our recent trip to the Lyngen Alps for Easter 2011.

Have a good trip if you are going and give me a shout if you have any questions.

Koppangen at Dusk

Courtesy of whitelines

There are only four resorts left which dont allow snowboarding in America. Burton is offering $5000 cash to people or ‘crews’ that can poach these resorts.

Burton Poaching Competition

Already the submitted videos are pretty funny.

First thing to do is find the best spot. Ideally this is waaay off-piste where there is virgin snow everywhere. Make sure avalanche risk is low and you are with friends.

The spot where to build it is pretty important, it should be on a flat spot between two steep spots.

Now start stacking a lot of snow on the flat spot. It takes some time and a bit of effort. A few bifters, food and some tunes will be great. Use shovels to cut out large blocks of snow as these are great for building with.

Then use the snowboards to pack down the the kicker and smooth out the run in. It important to have a really smooth run in with a long enough wedge on the kicker. The length of the transition should be longer than a board length.

Ideally the landing should be into deep untracked powder, this will allow you to really go off and try out some new tricks which you can blast out onto the hard packed park jumps once you have mastered them.

This landing is a bit sketchy!

This landing was lush.

If you do it right you should have something as follows:

Send me some photos of kickers you have made in the past!

I recently replaced my snowboard setup. I was very happy with my previous setup but it got nicked so I have had to put together something new.

Note: I am going to describe how I setup snowboarding bindings, this is opinionated and I will not cover all snowboarding styles and corresponding setups.

All-mountain Freestyle is how Nitro describe it and I quite like the term. Basically, it involves hitting all sorts all over the mountain. Its not just a freeride setup as your not just carving or powder riding and often want a bit of the fakie fun.

You qualify for this type of riding if you:

• Spend time in the park.
• Spend glorious hours riding in glistening, deep powder bowls.
• Look of anything which you can hit on the way down. Its a playground duuuude!
• Ride fast and straight.
• Turn sometimes; normally on steeps or to stop.

Elements of snowboard stance.

• Stance width
• Binding angles
• Placement (centered / back)
• Forward Lean
• Heel and Toe Drag

Stance Width

This is down to personal preference; but I recommend going as wide as you can. This gives great control in the air, looks sweet, is stable at speed and landings are easier. Dont take the piss like the pure freestyle boys and girls. A good guide is to start at a centered stance for the board (middle of each binding rail) and then increase as you ride more. A starting point of shoulder width then going a bit wider is a good plan. But do it slowly, dont start as a beginner with a massively wide super duck stance. Tone it down a bit if you are a beginner.

Binding Angles

Its all about the duck stance really, if you want to spend some time riding / landing fakie, or any time in the air. Slightly more in the direction of travel and a difference of about 30 degrees is good. I ride +21 -9 and might go up to +21, -11 this season but you have to make sure you knees can take it.

Placement

Set the bindings back if it snows? Dont bother unless you are spending a day of riding 30cm+ of fresh. If you are riding is shallower stuff or for not that long then centered is fine for most things. Often the centered stance of a board is designed such that it is set slightly back anyway. (Unless you have a twin)

Forward Lean

Dont go crazy with this one, but its good to ‘go mean and huv a bit o lean’ as it means that you:

• Have less downtime between edge switching and feel more connected to the board.
• Your legs are more bent, initially this is a bit tiring to get used to, especially on Peak to Creek at Whistler but after your legs get used to it, you wont go back. It feels natural, stable and powerful.

Heel and Toe Drag

This should be at a minimum and the drag should be equal on both sides. It is possible to sometimes be placed wrongly by wearing bindings that are too large or too small for your boots. Make sure that you are sized correctly for both your board and binding size.

In the worse case if you have a pair of binding that are not friends with you boots you can move the bindings forward and back by rotating the base places to make sure your boots are centered on the board.

Finally

Play about with your stance. Remember its your stance not what is hot and generally thought to be hip. Get your own setup dialled and your snowboarding will be much more enjoyable. Also remember what you stance is if you change boards etc!

Hope this helps anyone wondering, leave comments please.