Summit
# 232. I climbed to the top of Hvannadalshnúkur for the 232nd time on 3rd of
May 2008. Again it was with the great Italian mountain guide, Hermann Tauber,
and very strong group of 12 clients from the South Tirol. We had rain in the
beginning, then spindrift and not much visibility, so my GPS navigation came
handy. We left the skis at the base of the steepest peak, and climbed to the top
in ropes, on crampons. We had good weather on the top, blue skie but no view
down (see photo on the right where we are starting down from the top). On the
way down the wind increased and it was quite bad in Sandfell when we came down
the last slopes.
Summit # 231.
On the 24th of April I went to the top of Hvannadalshnúkur with the Italian
mountain guide Hermann Tauber and our second group that we take ski
mountaineering around Iceland this spring. We were 14 in total. We started
rather late in the morning because of the weather forecast. At my house it was
windy from east and rainy in the morning but in Sandfell it was dry. We left the
car at 7:45 and it took us a little bit over 7 hours to reach the top. We were
back down to the car at 17:15.
We saw big group of amateurs that were on their way down the
mountain, after turning back in 1700 meters because of cold conditions. When we
reached 900 meters it started to rain on us and from 1050 meters to the top we
walked via GPS and in about 1400 meters the rain had changed to snow so things
were more dry for us. At the top of Hvannadalshnúkur we had almost no wind any
more, and it was not cold at all.
The snow was great for skiing down. We skied all the way from
the top, and we could ski down to about 150 meter altitude, so we only had to
carry the skis for about 5-10 minutes to the car.
The crevasses on Hvannadalshnúkur are worse than the last few
years at this time of year. But the steep part of the route on the east side of
Hvannadalshnúkur is less steep than usually. Also the crevasse in 1760 meters on
Sandfellsleið route is already a little bad. We had plenty of new snow, so it
was good to walk on skis.
Summit # 230.
Summit # 229.
