Expedition undertaken in April 2025 by Callum Hargrove, Liam Baglole, George Alexander and Solly Kurzman.
Across 11 ski days in remote Finnmark, we covered 103.5 km and climbed over 9,000 m of elevation. These numbers only hint at the breadth of the expedition, which demanded constant adaptation, tested our skillsets, and delivered some of the most memorable touring we’ve ever experienced.
Several days stood out — particularly the 15th, where we likely skied undocumented terrain during a fjord-to-fjord traverse, and the 22nd, where we self-navigated to a summit under challenging conditions. Later in the trip, operating without guides, the core team confidently planned and executed safe, rewarding days — a major step forward in our development.
A major turning point came mid-expedition, when warm maritime weather forced a full reroute. Rapid snowmelt, rain, and rising avalanche risk made original plans for Stjernøya and Seiland unviable. The decision to sail north toward Sandland and Bergsfjord involved real-time risk assessment, trust in the crew, and dynamic replanning. Far from a setback, this became a valuable learning experience in expedition flexibility and judgement.
Timeline and Trip Diary
Activities undertaken and a general diary of the trip, from accounts of Callum and Solly.
13 April 2025
After some mixed amounts of sleep prior to our trip (no need to name names!…), we embarked from Heathrow around lunchtime, stopping off in Tromsø airport for a pint and burger, before landing late in the evening in Alta. From here, we walked across to the harbour, catching our first glimpse of the Moondance sailing vessel, meeting the team, and getting some well needed sleep prior to our first sail and ski day!
14 April 2025
Sailed from Alta to the first fjord today (Indre Lokkarfjorden). After a 5 hour journey we arrived and headed ashore to complete a comprehensive test of our avalanche gear, make sure we knew how to use it and how to act as a team in the event of an avalanche. This was followed by a warm-up tour that covered 5 k of terrain and 314 m of vertical ascent, allowing us to make sure all our gear was working as planned before longer trips. Conditions were good and allowed us to scope out a longer route for the following day. We then headed back to the boat and got planning for the next day.
Our first day touring with the whole crew, and what a beautiful landscape to be greeted with. A huge shout-out to guides Chris and Jack for their thorough and detailed explanation of all necessary avalanche protocols, ensuring the team was well prepared before embarking on tougher tours. A couple crew members joined us as the weather was good, with Sanne and Roy joining me [Callum] splitboarding – awesome to have some more experienced and keen people to learn from!
15 April 2025
Our bluebird day! A longer tour today took us out and over the westerly crest of the valley into Ytre Lokkarfjorden where the vessel picked us up. The conditions were unbelievable and allowed us to find some incredible snow, after a long tour and ski we headed back up a shorter distance to make the most of the snow and weather and in total covered 13.7 km of terrain and 1082 m of ascent.
For just the second ski day on the trip, we were blessed with some incredible weather and unbelievable views, with even better snow. Some of the most pleasant terrain in ascent, and the turns of our lives on the descent.
Crossing fjords from one to another, summiting a plateau and introducing lake crossings, this was a day to remember. With limited documentation for the area, this tour likely included pitches which had never skied before (and vice versa).
Once we were back in the boat we sailed an hour to our next fjord (Tverrfjorden).
16 April 2025
We headed out early and toured up into the valley, the route initially took us past a lake before looping around the peak to cover a total of 10.7 km travelled and 962 m ascent. Conditions were harsher today but the team endured and finished on a natural plateau that gave us panoramic sea and mountain views over Tverrfjorden, here we were pretty exposed and really felt the harsher weather coming in. As we got below the harsher weather we skied a great tree line and finished right on the beach.
It was at this point, however, that the upcoming weather charts were showing a drastic shift in weather, to warm above-zero temperatures with rain. This, unfortunately, put a huge spanner in the works – with the avalanche risk rising to a 2 and even 3 (out of 5) in most aspects. It was at this point that the team, guides and crew decided to divert the course of the expedition to accommodate this weather shift, to maximise touring and minimise long-distance sailing in low-wind warm weather, hence ruling out Stjernøya and Seiland, and travelling instead north towards Bergsfjord and Sandland.
Still managed to keep morale up with some freezing cold arctic swimming!
17 April 2025
Despite sleeping with our toes crossed, we unfortunately we were limited by the avalanche risk meaning we weren’t able to safely ski whatsoever. With some quick thinking from skipper Hugo and guide Jack, we headed to Sandland and pitched up for a sauna to take our mind off skiing for a day! The remote sauna (an upturned converted fisherman’s boat) was well welcomed, with multiple hiatus’ of arctic dips to cool off, on the sandy picturesque beaches of Sandland.
On the way, we pulled out the fishing rods and were lucky enough to catch our dinner for that evening – a dozen cod or skrei. Liam’s Canadian lumberjack fisherman spirit was channelled as himself, Jack, James and George caught fish, albeit with George having to throw his fish back into the sea as it was microscopic… Made for good entertainment nonetheless, a well-needed distraction from the rain and concurrent record-breaking snow-dump in the Alps.
18 April 2025
Again we were limited by the avalanche risk but sailed from Sandland to a remote fjord halfway to Øksfjord in preparation for a better forecast on Saturday. Cards (i.e. competitive Monopoly deal!) and less successful fishing got us through the day although some of us fared better than others did due to the rough sea (poor Solly…).
We tried to make use of the day, by talking between guides and core team members and crew on transfer of skills, detailing how to proactively (night before, and earlier in season) get better at detecting avalanche risk before it happens, reading forecast night before and learning about aspects, wind slabs, gullys and chutes, wind loading, etc. We also got the chance to hear about the guides’ journey to their expertise in their profession, and what best steps to take as young budding ski tourers keen to get more experience!
19 April 2025
After a good call by our crew the night before, we were blessed to be able to ski today. Ullsfjorden’s remoteness and poor visibility left us route finding exclusively with contour maps at first, but soon the weather cleared and we were treated to great visibility on the way down. Skiing into the beach of the fjord, we then transitioned again and headed back up twice, hitting different routes each time to maximise the good snow in the bottom half of the mountain (due to less sun exposure), with a total of 1551 m vertical meters for the day.
Throughout the tours, there was a growing emphasis on ’on-the-fly’ avalanche mitigation, constantly testing snow types, assessing [compass] aspects, terrain traps and incoming weather, to ensure the correct choices were being made. This created an open conversation between team members – improving our skills.
We then headed back to Øksfjord for our last evening on the boat.
20 April 2025
Woke up for the last time on the boat and started moving our gear to our hut in Vassdalen near Øksfjord. We then scoped out the terrain available to us in the area and headed out the back of Oksfjord over the lake. The snow conditions and visibility were poor which meant we had to cut the tour short. Whilst the avalanche forecast was low clear signs that avalanche risk was high in areas meant that we were limited to an elevation gain of 304 m but still covered 6.76 km.
We did, however, find ourselves with very limited food as the one supermarket within a 50 km radius was shut for the next couple days due to Easter Sunday and Monday… We were lucky enough to have the Moondance crew donate us some of their canned goods, and the hut’s host gifted us a fresh cod in a shopping bag!
Conscious that James, Chris and Jack were to leave the next morning (due to poor weather, alternative travel arrangements, and the uncertainty of food…), we made the most of their expertise – laying out our plans for the next few days. Despite the relatively poor projected avalanche and weather conditions, we pre-planned some tours based on the singular aspect we could safely ski on.
21 April 2025
With just the core team left (myself, Liam, George and Solly) we headed up north out the back of Oksfjord, touring up left before the lake on the only safe aspect. We headed over a crest and down into a bowl containing another frozen lake and skied its west facing aspect. The snow was great and we skied through some well spaced trees. We lapped this again before heading back out the bowl. This left us having covered 784 m of elevation over a distance of 8.96 km.
We had a lot of fun having more autonomy and sharing the decision making, applying the skills we’d learnt over the past week from Jack and Chris! We rounded off the day by building a kicker, utilising the deep snow, before heading home.
22 April 2025
An earlier start allowed for a longer day covering 10.88 km, with a reduced avalanche risk allowing us to ski a different area. We headed up a natural valley that stretched out beyond the Vassdalsvatnet lake and up the back side of the mountain. We travelled through the valley which lead us to 2 bowls, touring up the north west face of the first bowl we summited that peak and skied back down into the second bowl. Amazing skiing meant we chose to lap a short section of the bowl before heading back out and through the valley home for a total elevation of 798 m.
We were finally able to put our skills together on a longer tour, and achieving a summit we were all extremely proud of! I might have teared up a little, in a moment where all of the dreaming, training and hard work to get us there, all paid off. Speechless.
23 April 2025
For our final ski day we travelled to a bowl that we had scoped out the day before to the East of the Vassdalsvatnet lake. Again travelling over the lake, we headed off to the right about halfway across. We travelled up to a summit point but due to poor visibility could hardly see anything. We then travelled back down the faces we had toured up and found a great patch of snow that lead down to the lake which we lapped a few times. Vis and snow through these varied but on the whole we got to ski some amazing hero snow through this section. Lapping allowed us to cover a total elevation of 1174 m and a distance of 11.12 km.
Bittersweet to finish up our trip, with all our fitness levels increased and adjusted to the daily altitude training, we felt better than ever. We left Finnmark with some of our nicest tree dense turns, making the most of the amazing snow and scenery, before getting an early night in!
24 April 2025
Woke up at 4am and, supported by the kindness of local Norwegians, grabbed a lift from our host to a bus stop by a petrol station in Burfjord, Norway, before grabbing a 5 hour bus to Tromsø (via the Lofoten Islands, small ferries and some beautiful arctic fjord landscapes across the north coast of the mainland!), arriving in Tromsø. After checking out the world’s northernmost McDonald’s amongst the most populated city in the arctic circle (and taking in the breathless views surrounding the city), we departed back to London Heathrow (after a struggle getting our ice axes and skis to fit within the maximum weight!).
