The boat, the mountain, the lines you ski down to the sea

Ski touring · Spitsbergen, Svalbard · An expedition journal

The Zodiac dropped us at the foot of the face a little after lunch, engine idling on black water so flat it looked solid. Nobody said much. We clicked in right there, on a strip of hard snow running down into the fjord, a metre from the edge. Behind us the schooner Noorderlicht lay at anchor in the cove, her two bare masts against a sky that, at this latitude, wasn't going to dim for weeks. Ahead, the slope climbed towards a slim, clean ridgeline with not a single track on it. That moment is the one I reach for whenever someone asks what you actually ski in Spitsbergen. Not a postcard view. That — the skins biting, the sea at my back, the untouched line waiting above.

Clicking in at the fjord's edge — the snow begins where the sea ends.

An island with no roads, and mountains that touch the sea

Run a finger up the map past mainland Norway and it comes to rest above the 78th parallel north, on an archipelago called Svalbard — Spitsbergen, the big island, sits at its heart and holds the skiing. The first thing to grasp, before we even talk about snow, is that you don't drive here. Beyond the handful of settlements there are no roads, no chairlifts, no car park at the bottom of the runs. Nothing. To reach the mountains you go by sea — and that plain fact changes absolutely everything about how you ski.

What it means is that a run never ends at a car park. It ends at the sea. You climb from the shoreline, you ski back down to the shoreline, and the boat or the tender picks you up at the bottom, exactly where the snow meets the fjord. I've skied for more than twenty years in places I love, and I can count on one hand the places where that holds true: a full run, summit to sea, without ever crossing a road.

The archipelago is largely buried under glaciers — the Norwegian Polar Institute keeps the reference mapping — and those glaciers are the terrain itself. You put your skins on at the shore, follow one up to its upper basin, cross towards a col, then ski the far side back down to the tide line, where the tender is already nosing in.

Kongsfjorden — no road anywhere, no track anywhere; you reach it by sea.

The boat picks the way, not the map

Every morning the route is decided by the sea. The Noorderlicht, our steel-hulled schooner from 1910, works as a mobile base camp: she moves where ice, weather and terrain allow, from Isfjorden out towards Ny-Ålesund. You don't tick boxes off a plan drawn up three months earlier. You look at what the archipelago is offering that day, read the pack ice, choose a cove, and drop anchor beneath the face with the best snow.

No resort can do that. The programme follows the good skiing, not the other way round. I've written elsewhere about what a full week aboard looks like, with the rhythm of the days and life on deck; here I'm staying down at slope level.

Skinning up, between 800 and nearly 1,000 metres

Here's the heart of the day. Skins on, you click in at the fjord's edge and start climbing. Depending on the face, you take on between 800 and nearly 1,000 metres of vertical, over outings of four to six hours on skins. Skinning up is where the silence lives — the steady rasp of the skins on snow, your own breathing, and nothing else. No engine, no crowd, often not another party in sight anywhere.

The terrain shifts from day to day. One morning it's a slim ridge winding towards a summit, fjord falling away on both sides. The next it's a broad open face, wide enough to lay down enormous turns. Then a rumpled glacier to cross on the way to a hidden bowl. The phrase we use among ourselves sums it up well: all snow, all terrain. You take what the day gives you.

This isn't skiing to be taken lightly. It's demanding Arctic backcountry, guided from first step to last — never you alone against the Arctic. If you want to know exactly what needs to be in your legs, I've written a straight piece on the level this kind of expedition asks for.

Skinning up above the frozen fjord — the only sound is the skins finding their grip.

The sun never sets, so aspect takes over

Late May, under the midnight sun, there's no night — which raises a terrain question you rarely meet elsewhere. With no night to reset it, the hour tells you very little about the snow. What matters is the aspect of the slope and how long the sun has been working on it. A north face holds its cold grain for hours; a south slope transforms and turns heavy sooner. You ski a slope when it's good, not when the watch says so.

This is where real time on the ground earns its keep. You read the snow, you read the sky, you watch the stability of the snowpack. For Norway — Svalbard included — the bulletins from Varsom, the Norwegian avalanche warning service, are part of the daily reading, alongside our own observations on site. Safety here is never a slogan: it's how you choose the slope, the aspect and the hour. (As for the bears — very much real — I've given them a piece of their own.)

And the run carries all the way to the fjord

This is what everyone comes for. At the top you strip the skins, stow them, take one last look at the line. Then you let go.

The slope unrolls under your skis, nobody ahead, the track yours alone, and below you the fjord growing with every turn. You don't stop halfway to reach a road: the run goes to the sea. You finish where you clicked in that morning, on that strip of snow at the fjord's edge, the tender coming out from the boat to collect you. A full run, summit to sea, on snow no one has touched, with the black sea at the tips of your skis — that's exactly why you spend twelve hours travelling to the 78th parallel.

Our schooner carries twelve skiers at most, guided by four mountain professionals. Not a crowd. A small party sharing out the faces, with room for everyone. You can see the dates and the full itinerary on the page for the ski-and-sail expedition to Spitsbergen.

The line runs straight for the sea — no car park, no road, just the fjord at the end.

In the evening, the great silence

When the tender brings you back aboard, the cook already has something on the stove. You dry your kit, run the day's lines over again, and a few of us give in to the ritual plunge into the ice-cold water — thirty seconds that reset the whole system. All around, the polar silence, thick, unbroken by anything. From the deck, over the days, you catch a walrus stretched out on the ice, a bear far off, sometimes the blow of a whale in the cove. You watch them from a distance, with the respect they command.

End of day on deck — the light doesn't fade; the silence does the rest.

The short version

• Where · Spitsbergen island, Svalbard archipelago, above the 78th parallel north

• When · Late May, under the midnight sun

• Reaching the slopes · By sea — landing at the foot of the faces, clicking in at the fjord's edge

• The day · 4 to 6 hours skinning, 800 to nearly 1,000 m of vertical

• The terrain · Slim ridges, big open faces, glaciers — all snow, all terrain

• The descent · Often full, summit to fjord

• The group · 12 skiers maximum, 4 mountain professionals, a floating base camp

The questions people ask me

So what do you actually ski in Spitsbergen?

Arctic ski touring: you skin up faces that range from narrow ridge to wide open slope, with glaciers to cross, and you often descend all the way to the sea. Vertical of 800 to nearly 1,000 metres per outing.

And it carries all the way down to the sea?

Yes. With no road and no lift, the run doesn't stop at a car park — it carries on to the fjord, and the tender collects you at the fjord's edge, where the snow ends.

I'm comfortable off-piste — is that enough?

Solid backcountry ability: at ease on all snow across varied terrain, with the stamina for four to six hours of climbing. It's demanding, but guided from first step to last. The detail is in our piece on the level.

Do you need to know how to sail?

No. The schooner and her handling are the crew's business. You're there to ski; the boat picks the way.

What kit should I bring?

A standard touring setup (skis, skins, ski crampons) and the safety quartet: transceiver, shovel, probe, airbag. We fine-tune the list with each participant before departure.

Boris Malesset, founder of PowderWeGo and a professional off-piste skier since 2001, led this expedition to Spitsbergen. To build your own bespoke week, write to us — we start from what you want and the level you're at.

Fancy skiing from the summit down to the fjord? Discover the ski-and-sail expedition to Spitsbergen or tell us about your plan.

Read next

• Skiing Spitsbergen, when the sun no longer sets — the big-picture view of the expedition

• Ski and sail: a week aboard, from the deck to the summit — the rhythm of the days

• Ways to reach untracked snow: the backcountry modes — every way into the backcountry