Nonstindtraversen med FSG (16.03.2013)
Written by hmsv1 (Hannah Vickers)
| Start point | Snarbyeidet (120m) |
|---|---|
| Endpoint | same |
| Characteristic | Randonnée/Telemark |
| Map |
|
| Ascents | Nonstinden (1,113m) |
16.03.2013  |
|---|---|---|
| Visits of other PBEs | Trollvassbu (270m) | 16.03.2013 |
After what had seemed like a long time since my last trip with the fjellsportgruppa, it was finally time for another fellestur. This time the objective was a traverse of Nonstinden. And now that I had built up a little toppturing experience with half a dozen or so ski trips since investing in a pair of randonee skis two months earlier, I was under the (perhaps false) belief that my skiing had graduated to a level of proficiency to potentially keep up with a group of Norwegian ski-masters. While the group actually turned out to be a rather international mixture of Norwegian, Swedish, Polish and British, it turned out that I had overestimated my ability to steer a pair of planks on my feet downhill. Nevertheless, my uphill skiing abilities seem not to present any problem at all, apart from causing an excess of heat which leads to the unwanted display of embarrassingly-rosy colour cheeks.
So, on a rather overcast Saturday afternoon we met up with our turleder Harald at Nansenplass before dividing into two cars to drive out to Snarby. Here there were 6 of us, two girls who I already knew (Kristin and Kamila) but the other three - Karoline, Ole-Jacob and Markus were new to me. We were supposed to be meeting up with Jan Odd and Jan Thomas at Snarby before setting off for the short ski to Trollvassbu where we would have an overnight stay. However, no sooner than we’d met Jan Thomas at the car park, we were already waving him off again. It turned out he’d forgotten his ski boots and had to drive back home to get them. The rest of us didn’t linger too long in the windy car park and soon began the journey along the ski-equivalent of a motorway towards Trollvassbu. It was an easy trip and took what seemed like no time at all, although by the time we’d reached the hut, detached ourselves from our skis and settled down inside it was fast approaching 6pm. Some people were feeling a bit hungry than others (namely Kamila and Ole-Jacob), so the job of whipping up a tasty reinsskavgryte was swiftly taken up by the aforementioned dinner enthusiasts. I volunteered to chop up the vegetables (easy and fail-free). The nine of us sat down to enjoy the results of a successfully-executed cooking session at around 7pm, which was followed by a homemade firkløver-kake courtesy of Jan Thomas. Perhaps the reason he had neglected his ski boots was because he’d devoted maximum time to the delicate production of the tasty dessert ☺ A few hours more of mye hygge and we were all pretty much ready to hit the sleeping bags by around 11pm.
Next morning I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both Karoline and Markus were already awake and making the stua cosy with hot water and a healthy fireplace before I’d got out of bed at just after 6.30am. Since we had arranged to depart from the hut by 9.30, it meant that there were 3 long and leisurely hours to enjoy (I had forgot about the time we needed for tidying and cleaning up the hut, so in reality it was only 2 long and leisurely hours). The weather seemed pretty quiet - overcast but mild since there was virtually no wind. Seemed more or less like yr.no had forecasted. Kamila, being ever-the-optimist was still hopeful of seeing the sun later in the day but me (being more of a realist) felt slightly more sceptical than hopeful. But whether we got sun or not, we at least had some not-too-bad views across to Ringvassøya to start off the day.
The route which was planned took us around 2 kilometres further up the perfectly-prepared ski tracks from Trollvassbu in a westerly direction towards the northern brim of Trollvassnova. There was very little height gained up to that point. We took a short break here before Jan Odd took up the lead for the next part of the ascent over the northwestern side of Trollvassnova. The snow here was very soft and I didn’t actually realize how much effort was needed to break a trail into it until I volunteered to go first for a little while. My contribution to leading didn’t last all that long before Markus offered to switch and go first, and I didn’t make any objection to that.... A couple of frem-and-tilbakes here and there got us efficiently up to the plateau at around 700-800m. At this point the weather seemed OK and even though there was not much hint of seeing sunshine and blue skies, it wasn’t exactly miserable. Visibility was pretty useable and we could see our intended route leading up to the ridge linking Trollvassnova to the summit of Nonstinden. An element of excitement had started to creep up on me now that we could actually see the ridge traverse.
Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and within the space of less than an hour it deteriorated rapidly. By the time we’d reached the point where we should have switched from skis to crampons it was much windier and our view of the ridge was becoming non-existent. A little bit of time was spent discussing the current snow conditions and the potential obstacles along the route. Some of us were not really convinced that the snowpack was reliable enough to make the traverse on, while others were not too concerned. In the end I think the fact that the wind had picked up so drastically and that we couldn’t even see the way behind us from where we came, lead to the decision to leave the traverse for better weather. A few of us descended by foot for a short distance to find a better place to de-skin and switch the bindings to nedkjøring mode, after which we began skiing back the way we came. We tried as best as possible to hold close to the same tracks since we could see pretty much nothing else. I was quite nervous that I couldn’t see where the edge of the ridge was. Everything was white. There was no way of distinguishing between brattere and slakere spots and I found it really challenging to make turns in the deep layers of fokksnø. I pretty much lost count of the number of times I found myself sat in the snow, but on the positive side – it was at least a soft landing for falls! But nevertheless highly embarrassing to look like the most disastrous skier ever. Well, I guess the British don’t have a reputation for being remarkably flink on skis, so maybe it didn’t come as much surprise to anyone observing.
Anyway, after surviving the somewhat traumatic ordeal of getting down from the ridge and back to the main trail between Snarby and Tromsdalen, we had a generously-long lunch break before completing the rest of the route back to Trollvassbu. It was more or less flat, but with a slight downhill here and there it wasn’t too much tedious work to cover the distance without putting on skins again. We took another short break at the cabin to retrieve and pack away our overnight kit that we’d left behind in the morning, and then we continued back along the cross-country trail to the parkeringsplassen at Snarby. There was nothing but the trail to see now, all visibility had been obscured by mist and it was snowing lightly. It didn’t seem like the worst thing to be returning without having completed our trip objective. It just means a return attempt is needed on a sunnier and drier day! All in all it had been a very fun little adventure and once again the FSG had been a great bunch of people to spend the trip with.
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