Backcountry Skiing
Ski Touring Iceland: From Cozy Lodge to Last Wilderness | After Hours Ep. #3
Backcountry skiing in Iceland isn’t new — the first ski race in the country was held in 1905 on the Troll Peninsula, now called the cradle of Icelandic skiing.
What’s new is the guiding: Iceland has produced only five certified ski guides through its own mountain-guide program, and four of them work out of one lodge in Tröllaskagi.
Viktor sits down with Ólöf, who left a decade running Icelandic Tourism to convert an old schoolhouse into a ski lodge on her family’s land, and Smári, one of the country’s first IFMGA-track ski guides. They cover why April beats January for Icelandic powder, what it’s like skiing sea-to-summit from a converted 1975 fishing boat in the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve — Iceland’s last stretch with no roads at all — and why the geothermal pool waiting at the end of the day is a UNESCO-recognized tradition, not just a nice-to-have.
If backcountry skiing conjures crowds and lift lines for you, this resets it — lodge or boat, you end up skiing straight into the Arctic Ocean either way.
