With a great weather forecast combined with cold air temperatures David and I planned a big day out in Rjukan’s Upper Gorge today. Initially we had planned to do Sabotørfossen and then Nye Vemorkfoss which are both multi pitch WI5s. On the walk in it became clear that it wasn’t as cold as it was forecast to be, but that didn’t seem to be too much of a problem as nothing seemed to be dripping too much. The walk up through the upper gorge was fantastic as it is such an atmospheric place with the steep sided walls, covering of snow and steep lines of ice towering out of the gorge. We headed to Sabotørfossen first as it was the classic and looked like a stunning route, I elected to take the middle pitch which left David with the easy first pitch and crux final pitch. The first pitch is an easy angled slab up the start of a hidden chimney with a number of steep icy steps, which leads up to the final crux headwall. David had to clear a lot of snow off the first pitch as it was. Read the full article…

With the forecast set for 3 degrees and rain we decided that today was going to be a rest day, so that we could make the most of the cold, clear conditions forecast for Wednesday and Thursday. After a lie in we woke up to discover that the air temperature was around zero and the promised rain had not materialised. Due to our late start we decided to head up the road and climb Svingfoss which is about as roadside as you can get. It is graded WI4, but looked pretty steep from the bottom with two obvious lines, the left hand line followed a leftward trending ramp and the steeper & more obvious right hand line followed a groove all the way to the top. I set off up the route and followed the right hand line as it seemed more natural, it was great to be back on some steeper ice and enjoy the gradual build up of arm pump again. After this we had planned to go down into the lower gorge and climb Tracy’s Eyes, but unfortunately we remembered that we had to go down to Rjukan to get some. Read the full article…

The weather forecast for today wasn’t great, snow and about zero degrees air temperature. Due to this we decided to head to Ozzimosis so that everyone could get some more milage in. Unfortunately we didn’t make it up the mountain road due to ice so aborted that plan and decided to head to the Lower Gorge. After a slightly exciting descent, we were soon in the base of the gorge. It was a very atmospheric place and I was glad to find that the river was mostly frozen which meant it was easy to move around the base. Hjemreisen, the classic WI4, was looking fantastic but unfortunately due to the warm conditions it was dripping a bit too much to be able to enjoy the climbing. We headed around the corner to the classic WI3, LP-plata. I lead up the steepest line and after much faffing fixed two top ropes for the others to climb the route. It was just about possible to top rope from the top of the main fall with a 60m rope. The route was great, with generally sustained climbing with one steeper step in the middle.. Read the full article…

After a long day travelling yesterday we had a bit of a slow start this morning. So that we could make the most of the day, and get used to being on ice again we headed to the friendly single pitch venue of the Krokan. I spent the day climbing with David, while 4 others had a days tuition at the same crag. We had a good day with lots of fat ice, although some of it was a bit drippy. We started the day climbing the classic route Bullen, as there were already a few other teams on it we just went up the last free line which was one of the steeper finishes. This provided interesting climb and was an excellent way to get back into ice climbing. After this finding route which were not busy was a bit challenging, so we walked down the crag and ended up climbing ice which looked good around the WI5 Unkown route. With the current fat ice conditions none of these route were WI5 but one of the routes started to feel a bit more tough and pumpy which was great.. Read the full article…