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This year our annual Norway ice climbing trip with Jari directed to Spansdalen and was carried out during the first week of March. According to some accounts Spansdalen is an ice climbing heaven. Claim is not far from truth. There are dozens of multi-pitch routes along the valley. The climbs are generally higher and steeper on the south side, whereas the north side offers shorter and easier routes. In short there’s something for everybody and the approaches, though I’ve seen easier ones, are reasonable.
Picture above: Henrikafossen, it’s steep and it’s long.
We climbed in three different spots in the valley. First one was the famous Henrikafossen. Henrikafossen is probably the largest, both in terms of height and amount of ice. The difficulty seemed to be between WI4 and WI5. Route was roughly 5-6 pitches long, though due to weather and time constraints we didn’t go all the way up. We climbed roughly four pitches and according to friend of mine, who were climbing there next day and saw our abalakovs, we were one pitch away from the top. He also said that there was less ice than usual this year. First pitch at the Henrikafossen was pretty steep. After the first pitch there’s fairly short snow section and some easier ice, which gradually gets steeper and more difficult. When we climbed there it was formed of packs of small icicles. After this first snow section the profile of the fall stays pretty steep at least to the point we climbed to.
The good thing with Henrika is the fact that it offers plenty of choices. In case you’d like to climb something a bit difficult and steeper just choose the line accordingly. The falls both sides of Henrika offer even wider selection; On the right there’s a one which seems, and is said, to be pretty steep and difficult mixed climbing, on the left there’s a one that’s slightly shorter and perhaps easier but with similar profile than Henrika.
Picture above: It’s snowing and it’s getting dark, there’s still one pitch to go.
Next day we chose an easy route right across the valley. As we were able to climb the entire fall without belay it proved to be almost too easy. Well, I insisted on having a belay on one section first, but going down I got the ropes stuck and as a result I climbed the section without belay as well. It really wasn’t a big deal. I think that snow conditions might have affected to it somewhat, there might be conditions when there’s more visible ice and in it might get steeper depending on the conditions.
We spent the third day on a cluster of two pitch falls with easy approach on the north side of the valley. There were at least three to four different routes, from which we climbed two. Each of them was two pitches. All of the climbs were fairly straight forward, though the rain (water) affected to the climbing attitude a bit. It also turned the snow into a lot heavier stuff; slush. Jari actually got hit by a small slide of slush. Fortunately it wasn’t serious and did no real harm; it merely boosted the excitement. 
Anyways, after the day we were wet like sunken rats. It was a good time to head up to Branvoll, have some pizza and head home.
Location details:
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Few images from Spansdalen climbing trip:
