Climbing in Lofoten

Our days climbing in Lofoten were characterized by long days with beautiful sunsets. Gone was the midnight sun, we were a few weeks too late, but it was more than made up for by the magnificent sunsets.



A local who helped us to jump start Myrtle, our van, told us that last year they had only had one and half weeks of “summer” last year, but we got lucky this year. While the south of Norway had unusually high amounts of rain (even by Norweigen standards) we were enjoying great weather that made us want to jump in the cold lakes to cool off.

The climbing was fun, mostly 3-5 pitches long, and all trad climbing. It was nearly all crack climbing. In the beginning I was a bit of a crack virgin, not comfortable with painfully twisting my feet into the cracks, but by the time we left I was much more comfortable with it. On the plus side, the friction was brilliant on every single route we climbed, and that made climbing a pleasure.

Two of my favourite climbs were bare blueberries – This superb climb takes you up a huge slab split by a crack that changes from a hand crack in the beginning to a finger crack. It’s the sort of route that screams out from the valley “climb me”. And when you get there it doesn’t disappoint, as it is fun and varied climbing.

Another very long day saw attempting a sea to summit ascent of The North Ridge of Vågakallen. This was an alpine climb with all the best stuff, a long walk in, blue berries to eat on the way, a few loose rocks and a couple of huge chimneys one of which finished in a tunnel!. While it was rated just 4+, I felt that the harder pitches were much harder than many 5’s we’d climbed. (Maybe it was just my short legs in the very wide chimney!)

When we were tired and though we’d finished the worst we came to our crux. It was a huge cleft in the rock that spanned the whole ledge and which was too wide to step across. To get across this cleft would definitely require a committed jump. Having declined to jump the horns of the goat (Greig said “We’re climbers not jumpers, but I knew we were just wimps) we searched for another way, but there really isn’t one. We didn’t fancy abseiling down, so in the end we steadied our nerves and prepared to jump. Greig went first and then I followed. It was a moment of careful relaxed concentration and then pure exhilaration! I loved it.

The rest of the trip went pretty well, except for spending half an hour finding the descent route down. And then it was a long way down, so it was getting dark and starting to rain when we finally made it back to Myrtle only to find that the lights were on and our battery was flat! Thankfully we found a friendly local to help us out. Needless to say it was a great day out, but a very long one!

However, all good things must end eventually, and so after about three weeks we decided it was time to move on. We were a little sad to be leaving with so much rock rock left to be explored. The place had become nearly like home, and we loved camping at the place called Paradise. But as always there were more adventures to be had and one final, spectacular, route in the North of Norway was beckoning us further.


More information about the climbing
Lofoten is 100% trad climbing, although there are bolts on some abseils. I recommend that to get the most out of Lofoten, someone in the group should be able to lead 5+ crack climbs on trad gear though there is plenty of opportunity for leading up to 4+ pitches on many of the routes. For complete beginners there is plenty of leading practice on the rocks around Paradise where I loved climbing. I simply found a line that appealed to me and started climbing! We used the book, “Climbing in the magic Islands” to get around.

The routes we climbed:
Piano Handler Lunds Rute (Pianokrakken) A nice warm up.
Bare Blåbaer (Pillaren) Unmissable!.
Apa(Paradiset) Hard and committing.
1910 Ruta (Svolvaergeita) Classic or simply classical? – A polished, squirming up the chimney, and a very committing move without great protection!
Apple Cake Arret (Pianokrakken) If you go up the arete at the start the first pitch will seem much harder.
The Swedish Corner (Paradise) Challenging and easily top roped.
Gollum (Gandalfveggen) Lovely!
Gandalf (Gandalfveggen) Varied and challenging
RapellRuta (Svolvaergeita)
Forsida (Svolvaergeita) Nice but loose in places. The easy first pitch seemed very commiting in places to me.
Guns n’ Roses (Gandalfveggen) Nice.
Skiloperen (Store FestVågvegg) Watch out for the very last move!
NordRyggen (The North Ridge) Vågakallen - Long but fun.

Fun and games in the dolomites

The Dolomites. The name brings sweaty palms to all those have ever dabbled in rock climbing. As we drove through Milan a blessed relief. After a couple of weeks of epic paddling it also felt like it would be nice to do something else for a change.

Driving though the Dolomites is probably the closest to the mountains a couch potato can get just sitting in the car. The roads are very slow going as they wind up their way up and down the mountains and the views are terrific. You find yourself straight across the to the imposing rock wall on the other side and it feels so close you can almost touch it.

I guess this is why so many people choose to come here cycling. Because despite the incredibly steep roads, where ever you go in the dolomites there are people cycling . One day we got caught up in a road cycle race. It included a 5km climb up to a path, for which our van didn’t get out of second gear the whole way. Impressive!

Of course, for us it wasn’t enough to just look from a distance. We needed to walk up the mountains, to touch the rock and to climb. After trawling through the volumes of the guide book we found our climb, the East Face Direct Route, on Catinaccio Central
Summit 2981m. It was a bit longer than we had planned to do, and a bit harder too but once we saw it, it was too late – we decided to give it a go anyway.

The next night after a long day we were still on the mountain, sheltering under a blanket of packaging foam listening to the lightening war above us. We had simply climbed too slowly and had lost the route mid way. After a week of bolted climbing in France we had been surprised how poorly marked the route was, and found our description was quite minimalist. In Summer, we would have been surrounded by many other teams on such a classic as this, but in late May we were very much alone as the thunder boomed around us.

The morning slowly dawned and after a time unfroze our bodies. Then when we started to look at the line of pitons we were following, we realised we were still off route. Dehydrated, and tired and lost, we decided to head down.

Five abseils of rock bulges, twenty abseils off pitons and two abseils off particularly bendy pitons later we finally made it to the solid ground again. We had spent 36 hours in our harnesses, survived two thunderstorms, been pelted by hail stones, lost several slings, one carabiner and one ATC, but we had made it down again.

There’s nothing like that feel alive feeling…

Bouldering in Åland

Last weekend, I wanted to get out of Stockholm. So when I heard that of a plan to go bouldering in Åland, I thought that sounded perfect.

Åland is just hop and a jump from from Sweden, but technically it’s part of Finland. No one has told the locals this and they wouldn’t care if you did. They speak Swedish, and live by there distinctly local customs, which unfortunately means they don’t like free-camping mainland climbers!

The island is quite flat, but somewhere in the middle of it is a line of small over-hanging cliffs of red rock. It is also a really beautiful spot with a treat for those who make it to the top. Up there you get a wonderful over the forest and out to nearby sea.

The rock steep and like sand paper. After a couple of days at Åland if you’re hands are bleeding you haven’t climbed hard enough! The problems are mainly overhanging, but if you hunt around you can find some slabby stuff. There’s also a couple of more obscure problems such a lie down start and a hilarious mounting problem.

The trip to Åland was really fun because it was a relaxed fill up the car with people and go trip. We all spoke English and just had so many laughs together. The weather was kind, and the sunset on the red rocks magical. We even had a campfire and a birthday cake with candles.

Also I got to sleep in my tent and I really love sleeping in my tent. There’s not much better than waking up in a tent in a beautiful place, on a sunny morning!

To top it off I was climbing really quite well. I am starting to feel strong enough to enjoy the challenge of over hangs. On the last day just before we left I did a climb over a big over hanging shelf. It’s the sort of climb that I used to not even try, but this time despite being tired I managed to get up it. I was stoked!

On the way home we did what all people living in Sweden must do on the ferry to Åland – we brought duty free alcohol. Lots of it. I even texted my friends for their requests! Technically you shouldn’t be able to by duty free alcohol between EU countries, but they make a special exception for Åland.

This is perfect because next week I am away for 9 days of paddling right in the North of Sweden. According to local legend, this is where the best Swedish white water is. So I’m off to see how good it gets.

I’m really excited about the trip. We’ll be visiting Lappland, (a magical place since being in a theatre production on the life of Carl von Lineaus) and because we’ll be north of the polar circle we’ll get to see the midnight sun– I just hope I can sleep!