Winter count up!

Uh, been a while since last update on my blog, but adventures have been keeping me busy.

Fun facts: I did the count up of number of guiding / climbing days this winter and it turns out it was a new personal record. 94 days of guiding and 22+ days of personal climbing, between beginning of October to mid April.

The funny thing about guiding this much, is that I'm still not sure if it makes me a better climber or not. Placing your tools thousands of times every winter is always  a good thing, because it makes you a safe climber. For me, guiding means climbing at my level of comfort, without exceptions. I can honestly say that I can solo everything I guide (not that I necessarily would) and I think a lot of guides agree on this. It's like driving my Volvo vs. a F1 race car, without a seat belt (not really...). On the other hand, if you climb within your comfort zone a lot, it's damn hard to get into "game on mode", like sending 500 meter routes in Eidfjord.

The truth is probably that the more you climb, the better you climb, but the psychological switch between easy stuff and really hard climbing, can be a tough one. For me, this is even worse with paragliding, I'm always nervous before season's first take-off. But I always fly.

Skrikjofossen - the story

Monday was our last day in Eidfjord and we did what I believe is a FA of Skrikjofossen. I wrote in my earlier post about Skykkjedalsfossen, that it was on top of my list of the longest and most sustained ice routes I had climbed (seen, read about, heard of etc.). Well, the list has been updated and on top I now have Skrikjofossen, a 500 meter, insanely steep, death pillar hell, monster of an ice route. Full details below.


We spotted this route on Sunday (it can actually be seen from the main road) and spent the morning hiking up the hill and making some nice approach tracks for the following day. I still felt battered from the big day we had a few days before, so Pondella and Will did the first couple of pitches before it got dark. This is something we did on Skykkjedalsfossen too, climbing the first pitches on the scout day, and I have to say I like that approach a lot. This way you at least have an idea of what is waiting, which will save time and efforts on the ascent day.

The next day we got up at 5:00 and were out of the hotel by 6'ish. We had left some of the climbing gear at the base of the route, and with light packs and tracks from the day before, we saved a lot on the approach. Pondella hiked up the valley west of the route to get shots from a higher angle (he too had an epic day, but I'll let him tell about it).

In the conditions we found the route, it was possible to do the first pitch on the right side of the base cone, but even the first pitch offered steep ice with overhanging mushrooms, real fun climbing. Second pitch is probably the steepest and most technical ice pitch I have done (followed it, Will did an amazing job leading this). It didn't look that bad from below, but when I traversed out of the belay cave behind the main pillar, all I saw was an overhanging frozen, cauliflower hell, and I had to flip my head backwards as much as I could to see the rope disappear above me, where the pillar "kicked back" (a note for the rest of this story; the term "kick back" means transition from insanely steep to vertical). I left for Eidfjord with very little steep ice training (a result of a lot of guiding and very little personal climbing) and after having battled with huge mushrooms, beer can sized ice pillars and generally shitty ice for 30 meters, I literally had problems swinging my tools. GOOD WORK Will, leading that pitch!


We did another three pitches to get up on the shelf below the icefall's top section, a 200 meter ice wall that I lack English vocabulary to be able to describe, so just check the photo and make up your own thougths. First pitches offered ice climbing at its best, technical and steep, but fun, three-dimensional, world class ice climbing. This ice wall had some of the best belay caves I have ever seen. On routes with massive waterflow and overhanging rock you almost always find good ledges behind big pillars and this route was no exception. Sometimes these ice caves went from one side to the other of this beast and this was a nice break from the tension and hard climbing.


We came to the last ice cave when had to turn on our headlamps. I was unbelievably tired, mentally and physically, and I could tell that Will was too. At this point, what kept us climbing was Will's amazing determination and ability to lead dangerous ice under the worst possible conditions. So far, this route had pretty much served us only hard climbing and bad conditions and we both hoped that this last pitch would let us cruise to the top and start rapping off as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the last 50 meters turned out to be one of the worst pitches on the whole route, with dead vertical climbing on ice that is not supposed to be climbed. Millions of little icicles covered the massive pillar and from my nice belay cave I could hear Will battle with them while he was leading the last pitch. When I heard Will call "off" on the radio, I left the pack in the cave and cleaned the pitch. Heavy spindrift from the top made it very difficult to see and it kept filling up my jacket, that wasn't properly zipped up around my neck. It was windy as hell at the top of so Will had set up the belay a few meters below, where we had more shelter from the wind and snow. We were both very relieved to be at the top at this point but we still had 8 rappels to get to the ground. It is so easy to relax when the climbing is done, but this can be the last mistake you ever make, and rapping off a big ice route in the dark, is serious business.

It took us about one hour to get off this rig safely and we met up with Pondella at the snow slope where we had left our packs. One rope got stuck when we tried to pull it down after the last rappel, and after a few half ass attempts to get it down, we left it there. A few hours after, we were having a sandwich and coffee at a gas station in Odda, on our way back to Rjukan. Contrasts; such an important part of the ice climbing experience.

Details for Skriksjofossen aka "Freaky fossen":

• 500 m, WI something
• FA Gadd / Spak (Pondella first three pitches), February 15, 2010
• Coordinates to start of approach: N 60°18.855' E 006°40.840'

Check out Will's blog and Pondella's blog for more info.

Skykkjefossen - the story

Yesterday was an epic day for our small crew, Will Gadd, Christian Pondella and myself. We did the FA of Skykkjefossen, a 400+ meter rig in Simadalen, Eidfjord. This is one of the routes that you cannot spot from the car in winter, because the road is closed. However, the hike from car to base of the climb was only about 1,5 hours, which is less than some of the other big routes in this area. Me and Will were climbing while Pondella shot photos and video.

This route, which is on the list of the highest waterfalls in the world, is the longest and most sustained ice route I have ever climbed. It starts off with a 100 meter, more or less vertical, head wall. Third pitch was 60 meter battle with huge mushrooms, up to a nice belay ledge, at the base of the pillar on the fourth pitch. And this is where the action started. Will climbed to the top of the 30 meter pillar and was clearing the ice curtain to get out and above the rock overhang where he had his last screw, when he, by mistake, chopped off a huge chunk of the curtain, wich landed on the rope between us. The piece of rope between me and the belay was a few meters too long (a mistake I'm not going to do again) and when the chunk hit the rope I got slammed in the ground, half way down a hole in the ledge between me and the pillar. I was obviously wearing a helmet but I hit my head and my shoulder pretty hard in the ice wall beside me. At first I thought I had damaged my shoulder badly because I had problems lifting my arm, which would mean the end of the day for us. However, after a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself, we got back to business.


I followed on the pillar, with a pack and a 70 meter tag line at the back of my harness, but it was surprisingly easy I thought. This was the pitch I had thought was going to be the hardest on the route, but even though it was dead vertical and I am seriously out of "steep ice shape", I didn't find it hard at all. I got to the top of the pillar and took out the last ice screw underneath the roof and just as I did a few moves to get out of the cave, a razor sharp icicle fell right on my face and left a deep cut in my lip. It didn't feel that bad until I saw the amount of blood on the ice and on my jacket. I decided I had my share of whining allowed on a big ice route so I spit out the blood in my mouth and continued to the top.


We did a total number of 6 pitches, pretty much stretched out 70 meter, on this route and it never kicked back or offered an easy pitch. The top pitch was interesting, a 60 meter traverse through overhanging mushrooms and shitty ice. We topped out before dark, and since we had already prepared our descent with V-threads we got down to Pondella shortly after dark.

We were all pretty beaten up, Will had injured his knee and I had to go and get my lip stitched up. After a nice dinner we kicked back with whiskey for the rest of the evening. Great day out!

Climbing by the fjords

Today we did the FA of a 200+ meter ice route close to Eidfjord, on the opposite side of the fjord. To get to the base of the climb we got a ride across the fjord with a local guy, Halvar, in his boat. There is a 1,5 hours approach up to the main ice wall and after the boat dropped us off at the bottom of the creek, we started to hike up towards the start of the route.
The route is located about 1 km south of Skor (don't remember the name of the river, but will post all names and details at the end of this trip) and it can easily be seen from the main road between Odda and Eidfjord. It's a WI3+ (WI4 by Norwegian standards) route with potential of being a true classic. There is tons of ice that hasn't been climbed in the area, but this route is just too good not to get a FA asap, and we liked the idea of climbing a big route by the fjord. Christian, Will and myself sent the whole thing in a few hours and had some time for a short photo shoot on one of the top pitches. A good, chill day out!

Tomorrow we're back into the good ol' WI6+ game again, doing a FA of a 300+ meter piece of ice that we spotted a few days ago.

Monster routes revisited!

I'm on a trip with my good friends Will Gadd and Christian Pondella. Some cool places and amazing climbing pretty much summons up this first day.. and plans have been made for the next days. We started this morning with scouting the area and taking care of logistics, but we did get to climb some real cool stuff this afternoon. Conditions were harder than expected but a great day out, that's for sure. Will is in top shape as usual and I'm sure Pondella already has some great shots on his memory card. Game on!