Ski and sail: from the deck to the summit, and back down to the sea

Ski and sail is a ski trip where a boat is your moving base camp. You sleep aboard, sail overnight to a fjord with no road in, step ashore at first light, skin up a ridge no one has tracked and ski it back down to the water — where the same boat is waiting. PowderWeGo runs four of them: an expedition in Svalbard, another in Greenland, the big one across the Antarctic Peninsula, and a trip through the Lyngen Alps of Arctic Norway. Different oceans, same idea.

Below is how a week actually runs, hour by hour, from the deck to the summit and back — written by the people who do it, not the brochure.

The boat goes to the snow

Most ski trips fix you to a place. You book a chalet, you ski whatever the weather gives that one valley, and if the wind loads the wrong aspect you make do. A boat undoes that. It carries your bed, your kitchen and your base camp to the snow, and it moves overnight while you sleep — so the mountain you climb in the morning is the one the forecast picked, not the one you happen to be parked under.

From the shore you cross back to the boat: the floating base camp waits at anchor, ready to move to the next fjord.

That is the whole trick, and it is a bigger one than it sounds. The weather doesn't just decide whether you ski; on a boat it decides where you anchor. Wind out of the north loads the southern slopes overnight — so you weigh anchor and sail an hour round the headland to a face that has stayed cold and quiet. You reach coastline no road will ever touch, ski lines that end at the tideline, and go days without seeing another party, because there is no lift to gather one. On our Greenland expedition the boat is an ice-strengthened trawler pushed deep into the Eternity Fjord; in Svalbard it is a hundred-year-old schooner working the ice north of Isfjorden. The vessel changes. The logic never does: the base camp floats, and it follows the snow.

A day, from first coffee to the last line down

The alarm goes before it is properly light. Coffee first, in the saloon, with the stove ticking over and last night's skins dried stiff by the bulkhead. Then the day gets read off the deck — the sky, the sea state, and the avalanche picture, which in Arctic Norway you cross-check against the regional forecast from Varsom / NVE. The mountain professional running the day lays out the plan. Some mornings the plan is the reason you're not going where you meant to.

You climb down into the tender — the small motor boat, a zodiac in most cases — and motor across to a beach or a shelf of shore ice. You step onto land where the only tracks are the ones you're about to make. Skins on, and then the long, rhythmic business of going up: skin to the ridge, read the snow as you climb, four to six hours of it, eight hundred to a thousand metres of ascent on a good day. Where the wind has scoured it hard, where it has loaded soft on the lee, whether the pack underfoot is holding — you gather all of that on the way up, because you'll spend it on the way down.

At the top you strip the skins, lock the heels, and drop in. The descent runs unbroken from the summit to the shoreline — narrow ground up high opening into wide faces, the boat a white speck in the ice below that grows slowly larger under your skis. Then the tender comes back for you, and the state of the shore ice decides exactly where it can safely pick you up. By evening the boat is already sailing to the next anchorage while you eat. That is the part that never gets old: you ski, and the base camp quietly moves itself closer to tomorrow's mountain.

Life aboard, between the climbs

The climbing is half the trip. The other half is a small wooden world that smells of coffee, wax and salt.

The daily zodiac shuttle between the schooner and the foot of the climb — skis and packs on your lap.

There are usually twelve of you, in cabins with a bunk and, on the Lyngen boat, a shower of your own. There's a saloon with a stove, a chef who cooks proper food for people who've earned it, and a table everyone fits round at once. That last detail matters more than the fittings: twelve is few enough that the whole trip happens at one table. Coffee at six is a group decision. The day's plan gets drawn on the chart with a finger. Wet kit dries in a tangle by the stove, and the evening runs long — a glass, the day's stories, and in the far north a light that will not quite give up until midnight.

You'll spend hours on deck doing nothing much, which turns out to be part of the point of it. A seal on a floe. The glacier letting go a slab across the water with a crack you feel before you hear. In Lyngen, on a clear night, the northern lights over the mast. It is a small group in a big, quiet place, and after a few days the boat stops being transport and starts being home.

Who it's for, and the level it takes

Plainly: this is for a confident off-piste skier who is comfortable spending four to six hours on skins and can ski a whole mountain, top to bottom, in variable snow. You don't need to be an alpinist. You do need the legs for the climb and the control for the descent, because the descent often ends at cold water with no run-out but the sea — which, honestly, concentrates the mind.

The skinning itself you can learn, and we'll teach it. What you can't fake is fitness and off-piste mileage. If you're weighing whether you're ready, read our honest take on what level a ski-adventure trip really asks of you, or just tell us where you ski now and we'll tell you straight.

On the mountain you're with a mountain professional — a qualified off-piste ski instructor, or an IFMGA/UIAGM mountain guide where the terrain calls for one. Every morning starts with the forecast and the day's plan, everyone carries a transceiver, shovel and probe, and the party moves one at a time on anything committing. Nobody sells you a sure thing. Some days you turn back, and that is the right call long before it is anyone's disappointment. It is never "zero risk" — it is risk read, managed, and sometimes declined.

Where we sail

Svalbard — the sharpest of them. A steel schooner works the ice above the 78th parallel under the midnight sun; glaciers drop into the sea and the skiing is committing and grand. The high Arctic's operators sign up to the AECO guidelines, which is the responsible-travel baseline for Svalbard and Greenland alike.

Greenland — the Eternity Fjord, north from Maniitsoq, on an ice-strengthened trawler. Lived-in Inuit coast, walls that fall straight to black water, and descents that finish in the drift ice. For the full week, see the Greenland expedition, from summit to sea.

Antarctica — the long one. Fifteen days, the Drake Passage under sail, ski lines on the White Continent itself. Every serious Antarctic operator works to the IAATO framework. The whole trip is laid out in our Antarctic ski expedition, reached by sea.

The Lyngen Alps — the most accessible, out of Tromsø. Summits of a thousand to eighteen hundred metres between fjords and glaciers, spring snow to the shoreline, a privatised topsail schooner with six cabins.

A boat, a lodge or a helicopter: choosing your access

All three get you to good snow. They just get you there differently.

Ski and sail · Your base moves with the weather; you reach roadless coastline and ski from the water's edge. Best where the mountains meet the sea and the good snow shifts anchorage to anchorage.

A lodge or chalet · A fixed, comfortable base in one area; you tour the valleys within reach each day and come back to the same bed. Best when a single region holds plenty and you'd rather not pack a boat around.

Heli-assisted access · A helicopter lifts you to the snow line on a chosen day, then you earn the rest on skins — a key to open terrain that distance or a face would otherwise put out of reach. It's an occasional access tool, not the daily habit; the touring is still the trip.

None is "better". A boat wins when the coast is the terrain and the weather is fickle — which is exactly the case in the four places above.

In brief

Trip type · Adventure ski from a boat — ski touring, summit to sea

Lodging · Aboard the vessel, your floating base camp

Level · Confident off-piste skier, comfortable on skins for 4–6 hours

Season · March to May in the Arctic; November to December for Antarctica

Group size · Small — around twelve aboard, fewer on Lyngen

Guiding · A mountain professional (qualified off-piste ski instructor or IFMGA/UIAGM guide, per the terrain)

PWG destinations · Svalbard, Greenland, Antarctica, the Lyngen Alps

A few honest questions

Do you need sea legs?

Most crossings inside the fjords are calm, and you're at anchor every night. The exception is Antarctica's Drake Passage, which earns its reputation — that one's for people who fancy the ocean as much as the skiing. Bring tablets, pick a mid-ship cabin, and you'll be fine on the rest.

How good a skier do you have to be?

Good enough to ski a full mountain in mixed snow — wind-affected up high, softening below — and fit enough to climb for four to six hours. Not an expert, but well past your first off-piste season. Tell us your recent skiing and we'll give you a straight answer.

When's the season?

Spring in the north: April and May in Svalbard, Greenland and Lyngen, when the light is long and the snowpack has settled. Antarctica runs in the austral spring, November into December. Cold, dry Arctic snow keeps best in that spring window.

How many people are on the boat?

Around twelve, and fewer on the Lyngen schooner. Small on purpose — it's what lets the boat move to the snow, and it's why the whole week happens round one table.

The founder's note

I've spent winters on these boats since long before it was fashionable, and the thing I never tire of is a small, dumb one: the ice knocking against the hull at night. You lie in your bunk in the dark, the plating an inch from your ear, and you hear the fjord move past. In the morning you're somewhere new, under a mountain nobody skied yesterday. That's ski and sail. Come and hear it for yourself.

Boris Malesset, founder of PowderWeGo — off-piste ski professional since 2001.

Plan your week → Start with Svalbard, our sharpest ski-and-sail expedition, or tell us where you ski and we'll match you a boat.