Arctic Summits around Tromso

The magical combination of sea, snow, Northern Lights and mountains is captured nowhere better than the Lyngen Alps and Kvaløya which sit either side of the gorgeous city of Tromso. I have been visiting the area for several years now on holidays with friends, exploring the beautifully wild mountains, gazing in awe at the Northern Lights and enjoying the thrill of snow from summit to sea. Having got to know the area I thought it was about time I shared it and hence this winter walking trip that allows everyone to access one of my favourite places in the world.

Location: Troms, Arctic Norway
Price: £850 per person
Ratio: 1:4
Length: 5 days

Who is the trip suitable for?

You need to be happy operating in the winter environment on snowshoes or crampons. If you have been out in the winter mountains before then that’s great – if not then one of our Scottish winter skills weekends would be a good way of obtaining the skills. We will be walking mountains that are Scottish in size and scale but with shorter daylight hours so you need a good level of fitness and an understanding of how to manage yourself in this environment. On an average day we will cover 10-15km with 1000m of height gain in snow.

There will be no technical climbing and no glaciers. We have a wide range of mountains to explore and will tailor the week to suit the weather and the snow conditions.

Tromso – Kvaløya & The Lyngen Alps

Mountaineers have been visiting the Lyngen Alps for decades and the region was made famous in the outdoor world for its ski touring potential in the 1990’s. The majority of the mountains in the Lyngen Alps are too steep for us to explore on snowshoes but they make a stunning backdrop to our journeys and we tend to spend our time on Kvaløya, to the West of Tromso. The island consists of several mountain ranges with the highest summit (Store Blamann) sitting at 1044m. Easily accessible from Tromso (20-30 minutes drive) the island offers some lovely snow shoe journeys with spectacular fjord views and summits.

What does the course cover?

The main aim of the trip is to explore the beautiful summits of the region. Along the way we can also refresh the following skills:

– Choice and use of equipment for the winter environment
– How to fit and use snowshoes – when to choose them over crampons
– Mountain journeys
– Avalanche avoidance & snow analysis
– Cold weather injury avoidance
– One rest day where you can choose an activity with a local provider – options include snow mobiles, cross country skiing and dog sledding.

The Programme:

The program will be flexible to allow for the conditions that we find on the ground, but we will aim to explore the area, tick off some summits, enjoy some mountain journeys and get some amazing photos along the way. We are visiting during prime Northern Lights season and so we would expect to get some great shots assuming we get the clear skies! We will have a day off in the middle of the week to allow people to go Dog Sledding or Snowmobiling.

What is included in the course cost?

The course fee includes leadership and logistical organisation.
You will need to pay for your own flights, accommodation and insurance, I will book hire cars and ask you to pay the costs. I have set out a budget below:

Course Cost: £850 per person
Hire Car: £100 each
Dog Sledding Day: £185 per person approx.
or Snowmobiling Day: £175 per person approx.
Accommodation – you organise your own to suit your budget or if there is interest we can share a house between us.

A quick note on why we set the costs out this way: We are not set up as Tour Operators and so cannot charge an all in price. If we were to do this we would need to take out Tour Operator Insurance to hold clients money for third party bookings – this would increase the cost of this trip.

Meeting Time & Place

We meet each day at 9:00am in Tromso city centre. We will use shared hire cars to access the mountains and return to the city centre for about 5:00pm each day.

Arctic Summits around Tromso