Climbing Extreme

While I’ve been waiting to get the schedule of our this year’s “expedition” nailed down, I thought that it would be good time to refresh some of the good memories from the last years ice climbing “expedition”. Luckily it seems that this type of ”expedition” with Jari is turning in to a yearly tradition. 

During the trip we climbed three ice falls at Tamok valley, Norway. It was surprising how easily the first two climbs went. We did both of those in a single day, each required three pitches with 60 meter rope. As we found few old Ablakov threads and attached prusik ropes while climbing it was kind of evident that these three were pretty popular falls for ice climbing. Only difficulty with the first fall was the top, where the stream had carved out most of the ice especially under the snow.

On the second day we had the longer and more difficult climb. It required four pitches and included some seriously thin ice plus a bit of planning while creating decent Abalakovs. After first pitch there was also a long snow section, where it was impossible to place any ice protection. This led us in to running belay situation. To avoid such next time, we will carry some pitons and hexes in future. I have to say that I was well above my comfort range there.

I was really enjoying the climbs. Those were our first climbs, which really required multiple pitches. In addition to those three real climbs, we did a probing climb, which almost turned in to accident, at the ice fall called “Hourglass”, which is located in the Skibotn valley.

Picture above: The third climb, this was four pitches.

During the trip weather was surprisingly nice. The sky was clear (in Norway that’s not that common) and temperature was between -5 (day time) and -15 (night time) in Celsius. Simply put, it was perfect from climbing stand point. We were able to find a camping location right by the road directly in front of three nice falls with easy and fairly short approach. Though we had to dig a small pocket for our car there was a small widening at the road, which made safe parking a bit easier. The location also had a good access to clear water from the small river between our camp and ice falls.

Picture above: Our camping ground and Jari.

Lessons learned and few tricks you should try, in case you already haven’t:

• If you don’t know all the details about the fall you’re climbing, you should cary some rock protection as well. There are situations where one might need to place piton or two to avoid running belay situation. Since pitons are fairly cheap, they come handy also while rappelling in places where you can’t create an Abalakov thread.
• We burned small candles inside the tent, which greatly reduced the amount of condensation (and resulting snow). Though we used improvised lantern hooked to the loop at the highest point of tent, there are some commercial alternatives as well. For instance you could try UCO Candle Lanterns.
• You can store your food by digging them in to snow in a plastic bag. Being below the snow prevents the food and drink from freezing quite effectively.
• If you’re having expedition-type climbing boots, you can wear the inner boot inside sleeping bag. This dries the boot and you can climb the next day with warm and dry feet.

In regards of camping the only problem was the Jari’s HUGE Exped Downmat 9DLX, which filled our Haglöfs Genius tent almost entirely. I didn’t have a chance while competing over sleeping space with my tiny Therm-a-Rest Prolite. I’ve prepared for this year’s expedition with my own Downmat (though smaller version), so that I’ve got an equal chance in the competition.

Location details:

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Few images from the trip below:

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