Polar Powder

Thousands of tourists visit the Norwegian Arctic town of Alta every year to get a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis. Everybody in our Swedish ski touring crew thought just staring at the sky, hoping for northern lights would be pretty boring. After a quick look at the map, we realized that there would be numerous mountains to skin up and ski down. Adding that we could be skiing under the green illuminated night sky, it all seemed like a pretty good plan. On location, we never had second thoughts: marine blue fjords, endless mountains draped in white snow. Forest skiing with snow quality just as good as the North American name fellow, but here there were no other skiers. Ok, maybe a dozen others.

And we did bump into the most legendary local of them all – Tore, the off-piste farmer. With a red backpack and a wide smile, Tore walked across the small parking lot towards us. "Let me give you some advice," he said. In this fjord and mountain landscape draped in a beautiful white winter dress, we were eager to gain information from a local ski hero. Our research for this trip had been a failure. Keywords "Alta + skiing" on Google mostly pointed us in the direction of the famous U.S. resort, but we also got a few hits on the Italian ski resort of Alta Badia in the Dolomites. The Norwegian Alta remained hidden.

A Google search without the keyword "skiing" resulted in more hits: Northern lights, dog sled tours of Finnmark, salmon fishing, and articles about environmental conflict surrounding hydroelectric power in the 1970s. Even the local tourist office wondered why we were going to Alta for skiing: "Lofoten, Lyngen and the Tamok valley close to Tromsø are the northern Norwegian destinations for ski touring, not Alta. You may be very disappointed if you come here!" But we would go to Alta for skiing anyways. We knew we were about to find a well-kept secret. The maps and images were the two things giving us hope for high-quality ski touring.

A quick look at the topography northwest of Alta, at the peninsula and municipality of Loppa, put skiers in dream mode. And add these beautiful images of snow-capped mountains jutting up from the navy blue squiggly fjords with a shimmering green aurora sky above. The only thing that was missing in these pictures were skiers, but that was something for us to add. And here we were, a little over an hour's drive northwest of Alta, in a parking lot in the village of Langfjordbotn, on a beautiful wintry February morning. The man who gave us "some advice" is a living encyclopedia regarding this area.

Tore Karlström, also called "the off-piste farmer" due to his actual job as a farmer and owner of the thirty-five dairy cows, is a trained avalanche instructor. In winter, he both guides and offers avalanche courses. He spends as much time as possible on his skis, and he loves to show his home mountains for the few outsiders who find their way here. He told us about his favorite runs: Koppartindsmassivet for the always excellent snow and good skiing, Nedre Tverrelvstindsrenna when urging for some adrenaline, and Vassnestind in the northwest when looking for huge fjords and sea views. Many opportunities, but also a lot of danger. We were talking about the current avalanche risk. Tore explained what mountains we should give some extra respect to.

Then he pointed straight behind us: "The snow is waiting for you over there, it is the so-called 'Hokkaido forest'. In there, the snow is pretty much always good because it is protected from the wind by trees. Just as in Japan." I started to hike up towards Storelvtinden. We crossed a flat meadow before entering the forest. There was a wide opening where we put our track like a long snake up the mountain. We then saw the "Hokkaido forest" below us and above the tree line, we felt, for the first time, some wind. We skipped to go all the way up to the top of Storelvtinden – the snow was too affected by the wind. After a short break with warm chocolate and a sandwich, it was finally time to ski. Ahead of us was a fun run.

With excitement, I turned the ski tips down toward the forest. After a few turns I picked up more speed – the trees were perfectly spaced and acted as super nice slalom gates. The light snow whirled behind me. When the run was over, it was just a five-minute walk to the small parking area. We headed into the coffee hut, also acting as the local tourist information office. A smell of freshly brewed espresso met us in the doorway and in front of the counter waited some irresistible homemade carrot cake. Four days full of ski tours come and go. One day we found great snow in Koppartindsmassivet, the other day our pulses reached high levels in the steep chute at Lower Tverrlevstind. We drove to the end of the road to make the ski tour up to Vassnestind.

The mountain is notorious, Tore had told us. It is very exposed to the weather, and generally, the skiing is done on nothing but crust. But it is also famous for the view of the fjords, the sea and the dramatic Trolltindstopparna. The further up we got on Vassnestind, the more spectacular the views became. And that day, we had time to enjoy. We skinned up, skied down, skinned up, skied down. Ate lunch. Drank warm coffee from the thermos. And then some more skiing. Everything at a leisurely pace. The plan was to spend the night on the mountain hoping to find Alta's famous Aurora Borealis. The sun slowly set behind the Trolltindane.

The light became soft and turned the already magical landscape of white mountains and dark blue fjords into something supernatural. When the last rays of light disappeared, we put on our headlamps but extinguished them as some of the "clouds" hanging in the sky began to glow faintly green. The clouds were no clouds. While the darkness captured the sky, the Aurora Borealis started to glow above us. It bent like a giant green rainbow. On the open white snowfields below the summit of Vassnestind, we began our descent under the northern lights.