Where we go
Six ranges. We have turned down far more than six.
A range gets into this list when somebody here has spent enough seasons on it to be useful when it goes wrong — not when it photographs well. Two of the six took four years of reconnaissance before we sold a departure.
Range 01 · since 2009
The Lyngen Alps
Sixty kilometres of alpine peninsula with the Arctic Ocean on both sides, so a climb starts at zero metres and means it. It is forty minutes from the yard, which is why we know it better than anywhere else and why every guide here has skied it in every condition it has.
- The way in
- Ferry from Breivikeidet, then feet. No road crosses the range.
- Who leads it
- Sindre Aune, forty-one departures
- What we refuse here
- We will not book the summit helicopter. It is excellent and it is not what we do.
2 routes in this range
Range 02 · since 2016
West Greenland
The Nuussuaq peninsula is a hundred and eighteen kilometres of unbroken ice with a settlement at each end and nothing in between. It is the only ground in the catalogue where a party is genuinely beyond outside help for a week, and the plateau days are the reason people come back.
- The way in
- Ilulissat by air, Saqqaq by Pele's boat, or by helicopter when the ice says no.
- Who leads it
- Sindre Aune with Pele Kristiansen on the coast
- What we refuse here
- No resupply drop, no shortened crossing, no substitute for the hauling.
One route in this range
Range 03 · since 2019
The Torngat Mountains
The highest ground in mainland Canada east of the Rockies, with no trails, no huts and roughly two hundred visitors a year — most of them for an afternoon off a ship. We walk north through the middle of it for eleven days and have never met another party on the ground.
- The way in
- Charter to Nain, then boat to Saglek. The boat then leaves.
- Who leads it
- Marit Haugen with Joanna Merkuratsuk and the Nain bear guards
- What we refuse here
- We will not fly the party past the Palmer valley to save three days.
One route in this range
Range 04 · since 2017
Svalbard
The southernmost of the big fjords and the one with the most ice in it: four glacier fronts in a single basin at Brepollen, raised beaches to camp on, and a bear watch every night of the trip. It is the only route we run from a boat you sit in rather than walk on.
- The way in
- Longyearbyen by air, then twelve hours south on the MS Havfrue.
- Who leads it
- Ada Johnsen, nine departures
- What we refuse here
- No approach within a kilometre of a calving face, in any conditions, for any photograph.
One route in this range
Range 05 · since 2018
The Central Tien Shan
A hundred-kilometre block of ice between Issyk-Kul and the Chinese border, surveyed far more thoroughly than it has been climbed. There are peaks above eighty years of glaciological measurement with no recorded ascent, and we log ice margins for the institute while we are there.
- The way in
- Bishkek, two days of road that is a riverbed, then horses to base camp.
- Who leads it
- Sindre Aune with Aibek Sadyrov of Karakol
- What we refuse here
- No helicopter to base camp. Those four days are the acclimatisation.
One route in this range
Range 06 · since 2013
The Icelandic Highlands
Two million people a year come to Iceland and nearly all of them stay within two hours of Reykjavík. Askja to Kverkfjöll is a day's driving from any of it — black sand, ice sitting on a geothermal field, and four huts as the only structures in a week.
- The way in
- Akureyri, then Hrafn's truck and two river fords on the first afternoon.
- Who leads it
- Ada Johnsen, twenty-two departures
- What we refuse here
- No snowmobile onto the icecap and no entry into the Kverkfjöll ice caves.
One route in this range
And the ones we do not
Four ranges we are regularly asked for
These come up in enquiries most weeks. The answer has been the same for a decade and it is not scarcity marketing — in every case somebody else is simply better placed.
- 01
The Khumbu
Well guided by people who live there, and nothing we would add except another party on the same ground. Go with a Nepali outfit.
- 02
Antarctica
We have quoted it twice and withdrawn both times. The logistics chain is four operators deep and we would be selling you somebody else's expedition with our name on the invoice.
- 03
Denali
A permit system that rewards the outfits already in it, and we would be the seventh-best option on the mountain. There is no version of that worth your money.
- 04
Anywhere with a fixed-rope queue
If the constraint on the day is how many people are on the rope in front of you, it is not an expedition, whatever the altitude says.
One of the six