In between the tunnels from Olafsfjördur to Siglufjördur there is a small section of road in the valley of Hédinfjardara, were the tunnel emerges from the hillsides. There is space to park here and plenty of objectives to head for. We headed up the gentle angled river valley of Mödtuvallaskál towards the peak of Bangsahnjükur. We had made a reasonably early start for a few reasons. Firstly, the weather was due to be perfect - no wind, clear skies and about 20cm of fresh snow from the night before. Secondly, it's always nicer to feel like you have the place to yourself.
The skies began to clear as we gained height and we were all excited with the knowledge that we would be skiing back down through dry and fluffy powder snow - the kind of snow that you just float silently through.
The terrain was simply fantastic.
The route and associated decisions kept changing as new views presented themselves, which kept the route finding interesting. In the end, we opted to climb one of the peaks on the ridge, directly above the tunnels.
The final section was too steep for skis, so we put on our crampons, made an O'Connor 'ski cache' and set off on foot for the summit push. (about a 'one dot boot' Barney) It was only a small section, but made for a good finale.
The views out to sea and inland to more and more peaks were totally awe-inspiring.
It felt like we were the only people in Iceland.
And below us lay long, gentle angled slopes of joy...
I did have one little tumble when the coastal views caused me to loose concentration on the task in hand! Luckily I had a soft landing!
Turn after turn kept coming, until we were, all too soon, back down at the road.
As luck would have it, the local ski area at Siglufjördur, was just opening up for the afternoon and although it looked deserted, it was actually open. To our utter amazement, this meant that we had the entire resort to ourselves and more off piste slopes than we'd ever be able to ski! (and a cheap ski pass!). We couldn't get our boots back on fast enough. We then spent the afternoon until about 5:30, doing laps and laps of amazing powder skiing.
During the afternoon, a few other local skiers turned up, but they only skied on the pistes. Every run we did was though untracked powder. It was simply unbelievable.
And as soon as we reached the bottom, we'd head straight back up for more!
Eventually, the light started to fade and the powder started to change to heavier snow. We had had our time. Just in that afternoon session, we had skied around 5000m vertical descent of perfect snow - a lifetime of skiing and had covered over 30km in distance! And that's after a very good morning of ski touring. A day that will go down in history - and of being in the right place at the right time....
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