Have you heard the story of how all months are children?” a Norwegian man asks our crew. Sweat pours into his royal blue Speedo. We’re all squeezed into a floating sauna on the ocean in Tromsø, Norway. I wonder where this story is going, noticing a lower-back tattoo of the Joker’s face rising out of his swampy backside.

“Well,” he begins, as he tosses three more ladles of water onto the hot coals, sending up smothering steam, “April was the naughtiest of all the children, always throwing tantrums and having unpredictable fits. So, to try and make April happy, all the other months gifted April a bit of their weather characteristics. Snow, sun, rain, wind, heat, sleet, etc.” We chuckled as big, fat flakes fell onto the ocean’s teal surface outside. Our last two weeks in Norway had made it seem as though April was throwing one hell of a tantrum.

Our crew of six had arrived in Tromso two weeks prior, bleary eyed and with splitboards, ice axes, crampons and speed shades in tow. Harry Kearney, Matt Bruhns, Timmy Taussig, Cedric Landry, Justin Lamoureux, and I’ve been working on a splitboard web series called “Out For A Rip,” so this seemed like a great opportunity to travel and ride some new lines together. The idea was to spend two weeks crushing couloirs in the Lyngen Alps, which rise 6,000 vertical feet directly from the 50-mile-long Lyngen Fjord at 69 degrees north. Inspired by footage Justin had from a previous trip to the area, we were aiming to rebate such sporting lines as the God Mother Couloir…

Buy issue

Subscribe to start your collection of The Snowboarder’s Journal.