Author: Tyneside Loipers

Tim and Penny cannot keep away from Arctic Norway! This year's trip took them on a guided trip to the Lofoten Islands and Norway's mainland coast around Narvik. Whilst we were bemoaning the shortage of snow in the Jotunheim and elsewhere, northern Norway had tons of the stuff (just in time - as you will see from Tim's article). Plenty of fresh snow but maybe not enough sunshine (you cannot have everything)! It sounds like a fun week. Read Tim's article here.

Eight hardy Loipers were in Norway in late March, all set for two weeks of high mountain touring. Neil, Jon, Keith, Ros and Alan were on Telemark skis and Peter and Alison and Paramjeet on Alpine Touring gear. It was a well planned trip. Guide books and maps were studied. We stayed for our first week in Hemsedal, picking off various summits at 1500 or so metres and then moving on to Glitterheim (in the northern Jotunheim) to tackle the nearby accessible peaks including Glittertind (Norway's 2nd highest), We hoped and expected to have lots of good skiable snow! But sadly that was not the case - this was Norway's least snowy year for at least 50 years. We picked our routes carefully and had plenty of good skiing. We…

Just back from a fantastic week in the Dolomites! Alan, Neil, Jon, Ros, and Tim and Penny (plus 'honorary Loiper' Mark) were the only telemark skiers seen all week. The snow was in perfect condition and we had great weather for 5 out of 6 days. The Dolomites scenery was stunning! There were plenty of mountain restaurants and we always had a choice of places to stop for coffee and lunch. We stayed in a nice hotel in the town of Ortisei (not far from Selva). Local skiing was accessed by fast gondolas ascending from either side of the town. In both cases, the lifts whisked us up from 1200m to over 2000m altitude, with easily a full day's skiing to be had on the upper slopes. We did 3…

Tyneside Loipers hosted another great day of roller skiing on the Summerhill Track at Hartlepool. The 3rd in this year's Northern Roll Series with the other events hosted by the Yorkshire Dales and Manchester and Lakeland Clubs. We had a good turnout with 18 competitors (including 6 of us from Loipers) with everyone enjoying the superb track which is a twisty 750 metre circuit, great for participants and spectators alike. There was some excellent racing and we had great weather. The main race was a one-hour endurance event with everyone skiing as many laps as possible within the hour, using classic technique only (double poling or diagonal stride, or double-pole kick). The overall winner, Ros Brown Grant from Manchester, got to the finish just ahead of Mike Smith of the…

Ten Loiper members had a wonderful trip to Sweden. Nearly a year in the planning, some of us had fond memories of our last northern-Norway Lyngen Alps trip in 2017. This time we went with Mountain Spirit and stayed for a week on the NW side of the Lyngen peninsular doing day trips with Wolfgang and his assistant guide Pere. Neil, Jon, Keith, David, Alan, Tim and Penny, and Peter and Alison (9 of us) managed a warm-up week in northern Sweden, staying at the hotel in Riksgransen, close to the Norwegian border. That gave us the option of skiing on piste at Riksgransen, or day touring from there, or from nearby Bjorkliden which was just a 40 minute drive away. No excuse for not being fit for our following…

Loiper members Steve, Martin, and Greg had two weeks of hotel-based track skiing a week later than the trip previously described by Dave Legg. They stayed first at Venabu and then had a week at Hovringen coinciding with John Mordue and Stefan Janik. They also teamed up with ex-Loiper Barbara Gibbons and another colleague who some of us know from various trips to Canada. This is the report from Steve... "Martin and I met up with Sue Fuller and Greg Buick at Oslo airport and travelled on by train to Venabu. Sue and Greg had been at Mosstrond the week before, so they were in good shape for the “ski safari” days, offered at Venabu hotel. "Our week’s skiing at Venabu was pretty good, although both Martin and I had…

Norway has had another great year with plenty of snow. More than 30 Loipers (over half the membership) will have been to Norway, making up for the dismal lack of snow here in the northeast. Venabu, Dalseter and Hovringen have been the most popular destinations (as ever). Dave Legg has written this nice article about the Loipers holiday in Hovringen in early March - see this link. Another 10 Loipers are heading off to arctic Norway and Sweden in early April, culminating in 6 days of guided skiing in the Lyngen peninsula, northeast of Tromso. It is a fabulous area with high mountains and amazing views into the fjords, with usually snow down to sea level. Snow conditions this year look really good.

Tyneside Loipers joined forces with Tyne Valley Mountaineers for a long weekend in Braemar at the end of February. We stayed at the lovely Rucksacks Hostel and Bunkhouse. We had superb weather but there was little snow, so it was a weekend of walking and mountain biking. Driving north past the Glenshee ski area, we saw only one patch of artificial snow and one short Poma running, so it was clearly the right decision taking mountain bikes rather than skis. On a frosty sunny Saturday morning, we weighed up the possible summit options (An Socach, Carn Bhan, etc). Paramjeet and Richard went with colleagues from TVM and biked up to a high bothy. Dave Legg and Howard and I chose a tough mountain bike route up through the Mar Lodge…

In September this year Tyneside Loipers hosted the final event in this year's 'Northern Roll' Race Series. The northern clubs in Snowsport England (Manchester, Yorkshire Dales, Lakeland and ourselves) came together to create four events through the summer at venues throughout the north. This was the driving force for us to identify a better track than Hetton Country Park (which we had been using for many year). The super new track at Summerhill Country Park in Hartlepool has a much better surface and also we were able to have exclusive use and not have to contend with dog walkers and other local users like at Hetton. The track is also great for spectators, being a very compact circuit with lots of twists and turns. Each race in the 'Northern Roll'…