The first winter expedition. 28th of December 2010. Top motivated, after watching YouTube videos of climbers like Ueli Steck and Reinhold Messner show off in winter environments, our plan was to winter climb Store Skagastølstind, also known as Storen.
Stage 1 from Turtagrø to camp at Bandet, was supposed to be done in full light, but due to a late departure from Oslo, this was not possible. But of course – nothing could stop two top motivated Joikas on the way to the summit of their lifes.
We were using the latest technology: From a video stream it was possible to follow us live; All the way from the bus station in Sogndal, where we packed and prepeared ourselves for the climb, until the final beer upon departure from a warm car at Turtagrø.
At Turtagrø, we were the only ones. The outside thermometer showed -16 degrees Celsius (3,2F).
Carrying all the available kit we could find back home, in large backpacks, we started to ski in to camp at around midnight. The weather forecast reported heavy winds and great avalanche danger, but due to motivation on top, weather nor weight of backpacks, was not an issue.
I turned on my halogen headlamp. All I could see was my partner 5 meters in front of me. Everything else was totally black.
After 500 meters the silence was broken:
-Wooooom!
A sudden sound of collapsing snowlayers surrounded us. A long crack was visible in the snow right beside me, streching further up and beyond my partner. The fear caught up with us. We both knew the forcasted avalanche hazard was way too high for this kind of climb, but back home our motivation for this winter expedition was even higher. As we moved on, the conditions worsened. There were no other safe option. We had to turn around.
Back at Turtagrø we went to sleep in our bags without talking to each other. Our very first winter expedition was to be a total failure.