Dawn of the Savage Twin

You’ve already done a multi-day ski touring trip and feel ready to take it up a notch? Our Level 2 is five days of winter camping in unknown terrain. Researched of course, but unknown. As new to our guides as it is to you. We do just one every year – a new location each time. A true expedition in every sense of the word!

This a stepping stone to independent expeditions in the snow! We’re heading into proper wilderness – no trails, no huts, nothing man-made at all. You’ll participate in the planning, learn to navigate a completely new terrain and assess safety. You and your tent buddy are a team within the team. Each duo gets the chance to "lead" the expedition for one day, with helpful advice of course.

We’re heading to Femundsmarka National Park in Norway. Otter slides along rapids and narrows. A sunrise trek on Stor-Svuku’s ridges for fresh wolverine tracks. Frozen basins and narrow lake corridors stitched together in an endless maze. Femundsmarka is indeed stark country – harsher, richer in wildlife, and more Arctic in feel than its Swedish twin, Rogen, across the border. Last year we skied Rogen. This year, we meet its fiercer twin!

The Femundsmarka–Rogen borderland is home to one of Scandinavia’s densest wolverine populations, and Stor-Svuku’s ridges are prime territory. At dawn we ditch the sleds and ski toward the 1,000 m shoulder – their tracks are sharpest then, before drifting snow covers them. From there the panorama unfolds – the frozen basins of Roasten to the east, the Røa lakes winding west, and the white dome of Sølen to the south.

The Roasten lake system is expansive and open – a frozen highway where we ski straight across broad basins with the Stor-Svuku massif always in view. Røa is the opposite. A thin chain of lakes strung together by rapids, like a natural hallway through otherwise tangled terrain. Even in deep winter, the current leaves pockets of open water. Otters thrive here, belly-sliding down banks and diving where the surface stays free. Reindeer herds also cross the corridor …and with them come predators – wolverine, lynx, and ravens circling above.