Picture above: Greven and Grevinnan.

First of all I have to say that Stora Sjöfallet is a good place for both ice climbing as well as ski touring. For ice climbing there are several fairly easily accessible ice falls, up to 300-350 meters high and difficulties to fit all the tastes. In addition to these frequently visited falls there are several others less frequently climbed ones, as well as certain sweet spots with very high concentrations of high quality ice. In regards one of these sweet spots a fellow climber, Tapio Alhonsuo, has even claimed that the “barrel valley” is perhaps the best place he has climbed. As Tapio was kind enough to share the location details we went there as well. Furthermore a mountain that has the highest height difference in Sweden, Akka, is also located there. In addition to Akka there are several other great mountains for ski touring.

During the first day we climbed on Grevinnan, which is about 250m high grade WI IV fall. In the beginning, it was pretty easy, with a few snow sections in between. The actual steep part starts fairly high, almost at the end of the fall. The second day was dedicated for ski touring and naturally we went to wrong side of the mountain. While within treeline there was decent amount of snow (+trees and stones) the wind had blown away every bit of snow above it. Newer the less, it was good to be on skis.

Picture above: The barrel valley, lots to climb.

The third day was dedicated to “barrel valley” mentioned above. As Tapio told, it’s magnificent place. The hike took about an hour, perhaps hour and half on skis. In the valley there are 6-7 ice falls within radius of 500 meters or so. On the left side they’re mostly low 1-1.5 pitches, whereas on right side high, perhaps up to 250 meters. While it might be a bit difficult to cross the valley through bottom, it can be done using the snow around the valley perimeter. The amount of snow in the valley is also one of its dangers. It really looks like worst kind of terrain trap and an avalanche magnet. So check the snow conditions before approaching and take avalanche gear with you.

Picture above: A view from the sun valley ski touring trip.

Our final day was again dedicated for ski touring. We did a trip through famous “Sun Valley”, which truly is one. It wasn’t just the fact that this was our only sunny day, but also the direction and location of the valley. It opens to south and is a bit higher up and while mid winter sun isn’t very frequent guest that high up north, we actually had several hours of sun set type of sun shine. In short the location was spot on, furthermore the snow was great as was the skiing. Sun Valley route is easily accessible from the road and one can also ski almost all the way down back to road too. Recommended.

Location details:

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Few images from the trip below:

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Picture above: The ropes I’m currently using.

Basic principles

Ideally you would like to select a rope that’s light, long, has low impact force, as well as excellent handling and is durable. Unfortunately these characteristics are, mildly put, somewhat opposing. So lets put these in order.

1. Weight is an issue, approaches are usually long and heavier ropes also adds up while climbing. The weight difference between light and heavy ropes might be several kilos. So in my opinion that’s the number one.
2. Low impact force makes the climbing safer and anchors less likely to fail. Again something that’s really, really important, that’s my number two criteria.
3. Handling is again something that makes a difference. However on ice it’s not that much about the friction or ease of paying out the rope in simple sense. Most ice climbers are already experienced and confident belayers. Dry treatment has lot bigger impact here, as icy ropes are really, really difficult to handle – you should get the best dry treatment available. In trips that last multiple days, you can’t dry the ropes and the ice adds up. It also adds up in terms of weight. In short dry treatment is well worth all the money put into it.
4. Far after these three criteria comes the durability. Yes, it’s important, but not nearly as much as in rock climbing. In winter conditions ropes tend to wear a lot less than on rock because there’s less dirt and mud as well as friction. In ice climbing lead falls are also very, very rare, at least they should be. They’re such a dangerous affair that people should avoid them at all cost; if you fall, the rope that needs to be discarded is least of your worries. I’ve taken one lead fall and I’m not planning to take another one. Furthermore if ice axe or crampon nicks the rope, even thicker sheath is unlikely to protect the rope. Besides you can always cut the meter or two (the area where ice axe / crampon is likely ti nick) off from the rope without serious losses. So the durability is the least important factor, at least for me.

So after these rope characteristics you’re down to two choices; The length and type, i.e. single vs. half ropes. While type question is somewhat complicated issue and I’ll dive into the topic shortly, the length is much more straight forward. For multi-pitch ice climbs that typically have several snow sections, 60 or 70 meters is in my opinion a good length. Longer rope makes the rappelling faster.

Single vs. half ropes

Generally speaking half ropes offer several advantages over single ropes. While climbing they allow lower rope drag because one can alternate clipping according to route so that ropes go straighter line. Half ropes also offer “naturally” longer rappelling distances due to two strands. In single rope system one needs to compensate that with a tag line. Further more half ropes offer redundancy in case of a fall or when rope gets damaged for some reason. Yet despite the two strands these two rope systems, i.e. half ropes vs. single with tag line, weigh about the same (single + tag = 75-100g/m vs. 2*half = 76-84g/m). In terms of weigh the only positive side with the single ropes is the fact that leader doesn’t have to carry the tag line. However in my opinion this advantage is diminished by higher rope drag, even on steep ice where you usually get to climb relatively straight lines. So based on above the only matter left to discuss is the impact force.

There’s been plenty of discussion about the impact forces. While on the surface half ropes seem to have lover impact forces, they’re actually measured with different standards. Tests with singles are being done by using 80kg weight, whereas half ropes are measured only with 55kg. For this reason some people claim that half ropes actually generate higher impact forces to the protection than single ropes. As there’s no comprehensive data on how half ropes perform as single ropes, one way to look into topic is to take a look at the ropes that conform both standards and then compare the results to ones that conform just one standard. Lets take a look at the specifications of multiple standards ropes first (the data is from www.tribevine.com, a climbing gear database that among other things has the specifications of several hundred ropes).

Table above: Multipe standards ropes that conform both UIAA single and half specifications

So while this is manufacturer’s advertized specifications and definitely involve some creative rounding etc. there’s at least a one conclusion that can be made. Lower single impact force leads to lower half impact force and other way around. Based on above one could expect that a half rope that has lower impact force than the ones above, would also have lower impact force when measured as a single. Also the impact force ratio of single to half seems to be somewhere between 0.7-0.8. So lets take a look at some light half ropes, low impact force single ropes and compare them to the above multiple standards ropes then. For half ropes, I’ve calculated the single impact force values using the ratio above and shown in parenthesis.

Table above: Light half ropes, low impact force single ropes and ropes that conform the both UIAA standard compared against each other.

So following the line of reasoning of the first table, it would seem that at least quite a few half ropes should offer comparable impact forces when tested as a single. Furthermore while most of the multiple standards ropes are light, their impact forces are left behind most light half ropes.

The final thing to consider is how the lead fall differs from each other between the two systems. While a fall with a single rope is rather straight forward process, i.e. you always fall to the single strand, the issue is at least in theory somewhat complicated with the half ropes. With half ropes the number of strands that actively work while stopping the fall depends on distance to last piece of protection and rope stretch. In most cases half ropes act just like single ropes, i.e. one strand takes the wast majority of the force. In case of half ropes the rope stretch typically falls between 25% and 40%. If the average screw distance is about 6 meters, this means that you have to have at least two screws and 15 meters of rope out until second strand can even theoretically come into play. In other words you’re already well above the UIAA test case fall factors, i.e. the impact forces are a lot smaller. For this reason the way two strands interact doesn’t have relevance in normal climbing. However when leaving from the stance, where both strands are actually clipped through the anchor the issue is a bit different. There both strands work together and impact forces are a lot higher, worse still the fall factor is the worst possible. It seems that half ropes demonstrate impact forces in the range of 8-10kN in twin configuration.

Based on this, together with the other half ropes related benefits, at least my opinion is clear, half ropes is the way to go. However with half ropes it’s even more important to make sure you don’t fall against your stance. There’s a serious worst case scenario involved. This leaves also a difficult choice, weather to go with the lowest impact force half (Beal Ice Line) or the lightest one (Tendon Master 7.8 / Metolius Monster Ropes 7.8, basically a same rope manufactured by Lanex)? While 1kN difference in impact forces doesn’t feel dramatic it is probably larger in worst case twin configuration. On the other hand 500g / 10% difference (two strands, 70m long, 38g/m vs. 42g/m) doesn’t feel huge, but still considerable. Also the Tendon’s nano dry treatment is said to be great (though I don’t have much first hand experience, climbed just once with such rope)… …Right now Beal Ice Line feels a better bet. Funny enough I’ve been contemplating between these two ropes for some time now.

Oh, one final note; famous Will Gadd has an interesting article about the impact forces and comparing single ropes against halfs. They also actually did some real world tests, so a bit more scientific than my approximation approach. I have noted the ropes in the table that Will talked about with asterisk (*), with one exception for which I couldn’t find the specifications. From Will’s article it comes loud and clear that there’s plenty of variation as some difference compared to published figures. Despite these uncertainties, I’m still for half ropes for multi-pitch waterfall ice climbing.

My current ropes

Finally a few words of my current ropes and their uses.

Picture above: Rope endings with markings, I had to cut Joker due some nicks.

1. Edelweiss Sharp 8.5 – They’ve served me well for quite a few years. They’re still the ones I use when climbing multiple pitches. They’re a bit heavy and bulky, but the quality, especially from the durability perspective has been great. They provide fairly good handling characteristics, and dry treatment worked well; There’s still some left.
2. Beal Joker – It was originally my “soft landing” plan to half ropes. I haven’t used Joker too much, mostly while top roping either indoors or while ice climbing on short falls. Still Joker is a good quality rope and even though some people consider it slipery, especially when new, I like the “slippery feeling” of it – it’s easy to feed and rappel with. Also the dry treatment is good.
3. Beal Rando – My short and light twin rope for glacier travels and mountaineering routes that do not require serious climbing with belay. It again a good quality, but most importantly in a very light, only 36g/m package.

The web-stores that sell these things:

1. Metolius Monster Ropes 9.2 - Backcountry, Moosejaw
2. Beal Ice Line - Backcountry, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees
3. Tendon Master 9.4 – Justropes.com
4. DMM Climbing Prodigy -  ?
5. DMM Climbing Statement – Needle Sports
6. Petzl Dragonfly - Backcountry, Moosejaw
7. Tendon Ambition 10.0 – Justropes.com
8. Petzl Zephyr - US Outdoor Store
9. Beal Booster III - Backcountry, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Moosejaw
10. Beal Tiger - Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Moosejaw
11. Roca Migú 8 – ?
12. Edelweiss Oxygen - Backcountry
13. C.A.M.P. Plekton -  ?
14. Tendon Ambition 7.9 – Justropes.com
15. Sterling Rope Fusion Photon – Moosejaw
16. Tendon Master 7.8 – Justropes.com
17. Metolius Monster Ropes 7.8 - Moosejaw
18. Singing Rock Gemini – Barrabes
19. Millet Alpin Lite - Backcountry, Telemark-Pyrenees
20. Millet Absolute Pro- Backcountry, Telemark-Pyrenees
21. Mammut Phoenix – Backcountry, Needle Sports, Varuste.net, Moosejaw
22. Beal Joker – Backcountry, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Moosejaw
23. Edelweiss Performance – Varuste.net
24. Bluewater Ropes Dominator – Justropes.com
25. Bluewater Ropes Hyalite - ?
26. Edelrid Ropes Apus - Shelby
27. Edelrid Ropes Swift - Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees
28. Mammut Serenity – REI, Needle Sports, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, US Outdoor Store
29. Beal Rando - Backcountry, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Shelby

A few more images of my ropes:

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Picture above: A view from the route to Weissmies.

Overall the accent was pretty straight forward. It was an easy PD-rated route and took about 7h from Allmagellerhütte to Weissmiess hütte. A bit of snow, one steeper scramble and then the glacier. Out of these the most interesting parts were the scramble, glacier and perhaps the ridge just before the top. I started a lot later than about 40 other groups that were heading up. Thise, despite the weather concerns, proved to be a good choice. Good mainly because weather stayed OK (weather worried me the most) and I was able to do the whole route in solitude. Throughout the trip there was visible trail established by the earlier parties. However as there were some signs of fairly recent avalanches and spots where I had to jump over crevasses, the glacier part was still pretty exciting for a solo climber.

Overall it’s really pleasant to climb in Switzerland. The huts are well equipped and good quality, you don’t have to carry all the food and there’s plenty of options. If you’re looking for first solo accent Weissmies seems also be pretty good choice. While being exciting enough, it’s fairly visited and the route is fairly straight forward. I’m sure though that there are plenty of other good options as well, but Weissmies worked for me just fine.

Location details:

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Few images from the trip below:

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Picture above: There they are, my standard rack carabiners and quickdraws.

What’s important:

• Clearclip nose – It makes it just that much easier to grab it from your harness, as well as clip off whether it’s screw, rope or webbing. Right now there’s a wide selection of light clearclip carabiners available. There’s just no reason to get anything else.
• Weight – Weight reflects directly to everything you do. In carabiners, especially what comes to carabiners used in quickdraws, it adds up fast. It’s not perhaps a reason to replace your old carabiners, but when ever you buy new ones, you should get light ones.
• No auto-locking mechanisms – Auto-locking mechanisms tend to freeze up and generate a great deal of difficulties. I’ve been in a situation where my Petzl william ball lock froze up to the point that I had to spend about 30 minutes to get it open. I’m not planning to get to such situation again.
• Smooth and acurate gate operation – It’s important while clipping, also note that if it’s locking carabiner, the screw operation should be smooth. Often the “smoothness” translates to quality and quality affects overall durability and safety of your gear.

People, especially ones that do plenty of rock climbing, talk about durability too. In my opinion it’s not as much of an issue on ice, as there’s lot less dirt – thus carabiners do not wear down as much. I actually have different set of carabiners for ice, indoor and rock climbing exactly for this reason. Well, as ice climbing is my primary sport, my rock and gym carabiners are mostly ones I’ve purchased for ice climbing… even the auto-lockers which I purchased before I knew their freezing problems.

Quickdraws and carabiners on my standard ice rack

• 3x Black Diamond Positron Screw Gate (weight 56g) – I use these for building anchors. While a bit old already, they’re pretty light and proven to be reliable good quality pieces of equipment.
• 3x Petzl Attache 3D (weight 55g) – My newer set of anchor building carabiners. Slightly larger but still lighter than Positrons. Good grip on locking screw.
• 1x Mammut Bionic Mytholito (weight 58g) – My belay carabiner. Slightly hevier than Attache, but I like having different kinds of carabiners for different purposes. As anchor building carabiners get in touch with protection and tend to develop sharp edges it’s good idea to keep them away from belay loop. The locking screw is slightly slippery, but other vice good quality.
• 1x Mammut Bionic HMS (weight 72g) – My large anchor building carabiner; the one I tie clove hitches and use for organizing stuff. Attache is kind of large enough, but this one is larger.The locking screw is slightly slippery, but other vice good quality.
• 2x Petzl Ange S (weight 28g) – Couple of extra carabiners for general purpose clipping, can use them for extendable draw or clipping things like bottles and cameras where ever I need to. Some people consider these too small, but I haven’t had any problems with them. They’re really light and clipping feel is excellent.
• 1x Austrialpin Easy Classic (weight 48g) – I use it in the fixed cow’s tail I have in my harness, which I occasionally clip to my ice tool. While not the lightest, it provides good grip and clip on and off are surprisingly easy.
• 5x Modified Wild Country Helium Quickdraw (weight 70-74g) – Newer half of my quickdraws. I replaced the original dogbone with Edelrid 8mm dogbone, because the rubber carabiner holder in original ones just couldn’t take low temperatures. Besides Edelrid dogbones are slightly lighter. Besides the dogbone problem Heliums are excellent quick draws.
• 5x Black Diamond Positron Quickdraw (weight 105g) – My old set of quickdraws. While a bit heavy, they’ve served me well. Clipping is okay and the rubber thingy that keeps the carabiner in place is durable.
• 2x Custom made Quickdraw, Mammut Bionic Wiresafe Gate (rope end), Edelrid 8mm dogbone, Petzl Ange S (protection end) (weight 65g) – I eneded up doing couple of these funky looking light quickdraws after I had a few extra carabiners, which I had acquired while in search and testing the best clear clip carabiner. While I like the shape of the Bionic Wire Safe gates, they’re a bit heavier than Wildcountry Heliums. Other vice Mammut Wiresafe Gate carabiners are equally good as other good quality light clear clip carabiners. And yes, that’s lighter than any in-stock quickdraw with full sized carabiner on rope end.
• 1x Custom made shock absorbing Quickdraw, DMM Shield Carabiners, E-Climb Dissip shock absorbing sling (weight 116g) – Pretty much the same story as above, just that I ended up using the DMM shields on shock absorber. DMM Shield works and feels pretty much like Mammut Wiresafe Gates, which according to some sources are actually manufactured by DMM.

Right now I’m relaying almost always to “ready made” quickdraws. This being said, many of my friends have recommended that I should replace a few of my quickdraws with extendable slings. Second odd thing is that I have many quickdraws. Part of the explanation is the fact that we climb using long 70m ropes, but other part is the fact that I like having a few extra quickdraws just in case. Which of course mitigates, in certain extent, the weight savings from light stuff. Well, depending on route quite often I’ll leave a few Positron Quickdaws to the ground.

Other carabiners I currently have

• 3x Kong HMS Classic (weight 86g) – My old anchor building carabiner set. While these are quite heavy compared to the lightest modern carabiners they offer clear clip nose and good build quality.
• 3x Petzl William Ball Lock (weight 94g) – Carabiners that I use mainly in indoor climbing and ocassionally in rock. They’re large and easy to handle, but pretty heavy. The quality is good though and the locking mechanism is excellent for indoor climbing.
• 2x Petzl William Screw Gate (weight 90g) – My backup belay carabiners. Quite often they still get carried to the bottom of the fall, but used mostly on indoor walls and on rock. Good quality, but heavy. The size makes it easy for organizing things.
• 1x Old Austrialpin – I used to have more of these, but they’ve gotten lost during the years. Due to the fact that it has the nose, I hardly ever use them anymore. On some top roping anchors, when putting up several of them and running out of other type of carabiners perhaps. I would definitely instruct people to stay away of nosed carabiners with the exception of very light carabiners cliped to the rope.
• 1x Grivel Gamma K2W – Came with Speedy ice screw. It’s good quality and it’s not unreasonably heavy, but has a nose. It’s not a huge issue as it’s rope end carabiner, but still prefer clear clips also as rope end carabiners.

Carabiners I consider best of the class right now

• Small non-locker – Petzl Ange S; it’s the lightest clear clip nosed carabiner, overall a good quality and pretty easy clipping.
• Full sized non-locker – Wildcountry Helium; it’s the lightest full sized clear clip nosed carabiner, besides the clipping feel is great and gate opening good.
• Small locker - DMM Phantom Screwgate; it’s either lightest or one of the lightest screw gate carabiners out there. DMM is known for its quality, so a good choice. My next anchor building carabiners are probably going to be these.

I kind of thought to list also best of class full sized and large sized carabiners, but then decided that I haven’t researched them enough to make up a well founded opinion.

Carabiner comparisons

• Light non-lockin clear clip carabiners and the ones mentioned in this article
• Light locking carabiners and the ones mentioned in this article
• Light clear clip quickdraws and the ones mentioned in this article

The web-stores that sell these things:

1. Austrialpin Easy Classic – Mountainshop, Outdoor-Ranger
2. Black Diamond Positron Screw Gate – REI, Backcountry, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Camu, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, GearX
3. Black Diamond Positron Quickdraw – REI, Backcountry, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Camu, Moosejaw, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, GearX
4. DMM Phantom Screwgate – Needle Sports, Barrabes, US Outdoor Store
5. DMM Shield - Needle Sports, Eastern Mountain Sports
6. E-climb Dissip - E-climb
7. Edelrid Dyneema Dogbone – Shelby
8. Grivel Gamma K2W – ?
9. Kong HMS Classic -Barrabes
10. Mammut Bionic HMS – Telemark-Pyrenees, Eastern Mountain Sports
11. Mammut Bionic Myhtolito - Backcountry, Telemark-Pyrenees, Moosejaw, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, GearX
12. Mammut Bionic Wire Safe Gate – Varuste.net
13. Petzl Ange S – REI, Backcountry, Needle Sports, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, GearX, Shelby
14. Petzl Attache 3D – REI, Backcountry, Needle Sports, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Moosejaw, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, Shelby
15. Petzl William – REI, Backcountry,Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Moosejaw, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, GearX
16. Wild Country Helium – Backcountry, Needle Sports, Telemark-Pyrenees, US Outdoor Store, GearX
17. Wild Country Helium Quickdraw – REI, Backcountry, Needle Sports, Telemark-Pyrenees, US Outdoor Store, GearX

Few closeup shots of the screws:

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Method one (+slightly faster, +slightly easier to undo, +can be used on short slings, -takes more carabiner space, -leaves the sling “twisted”, -needs carabiner to stay in order, -harder to unclip from carabiner if the sling is very long):

1. Fold up the sling so that it’s not too long.
2. Twist the sling a few times
3. Clip the twisted sling from both ends to the carabiner

Method two (+takes less carabiner space, +does not need a carabiner to stay in order, +leaves the sling more “straight”, +easier to unclip from carabiner if the sling is long, -slightly slower to do, -cannot be used on short slings):

1. Grab sewn end of the sling, leave a few centimeters of it above your hand
2. Roll the sling over your hand, until there’s 20-30 cm left
3. Wrap the remaining sling around the sling ball and stick the sling end through it
4. Clip both ends of sling to the carabiner

Very simple, very neat. It keeps the slings in order, they don’t tangle and they’re easy to unfold (no knots or anything like that). A few images about the procedure below, note the carabiner, it’s a new Stubai Atomy , that’s lightest 26kN rated carabiner. I’m not quite sure if one needs the extra strength, but the carabiner is still nice, the brass screw operation is exceptionally smooth.

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Picture above: All the three different screws.

Black Diamond Express – On a stance, due to its two carabiner holes Express is obvious choice. I’m grabbing it also on cold hard ice in a difficult situation where I need a fast placement, especially if the placement location is suboptimal, i.e. I need to reach out further than I’d like (or thought due hollow spot).

• Easiest to get started, harder the ice, bigger the difference
• Has two carabiner holes (handy at stance)
• Though the knob in the new model is larger, is still kind of small
• High quality finishing
• Racks well with other “standard” shaped screws
• Set of these with appropriate amount of quickdraws weights about 200g more than the lightest alternative (provided that you use light quick draws, i.e. 70g each)

Picture above: Black Diamond Express screw.

E-climb klau – It’s fastest placing screw on soft ice; it’s obvious; I’ll grab it in difficult situation when the weather is warm and ice is soft.

• Easiest to drive once started
• By far the lightest screw on a rack
• Has replaceable tip
• Furthest reaching folding handle
• Carabiner hole can accommodate two carabiners
• Tip seems to rust easier than competition
• Racks well with other “standard” shaped screws

Picture above: E-climb klau screw.

Grivel Speedy – Great combination of features, excels in all conditions, I’ll use it when everything is flowing well and I want to save the extra move (and thus time) that it takes to find and clip a quick draw.

• While not the lightest as such, you’ll save the weight of a one carabiner
• Very easy to drive, bites reasonably well in all conditions
• Tip protector that doubles up as handle
• Has integrated quickdraw, that saves you from searching and clipping a quick draw from your rack (it’s surprising how big the difference is)
• Large diameter carabiner hole, can take several carabiners
• Very high quality finishing
• Not perhaps as straight forward to rack as “standard”-shaped screws (though I haven’t had any problems with racking).

Picture above: Grivel Speedy screw.

So based on these experiences it seems that I’m going to build a core of my rack around Grivel’s Speedys, though before final decision, I need more experience of them on very hard ice. In addition there will be couple of short, one medium and one long Black Diamond Expresses; unless of course I’ll find Speedys better on hard ice as well. The long and medium Expresses are for building stances and abalakovs. Then there will be a few E-climb klaus, just for those warm days in case I need something longer than the longest standard integrated quickdraw of Speedy (over 30cm).

Then the web-stores that sell these things:

1. Black Diamond Express – REI, Backcountry, Needle Sports, Barrabes, Telemark-Pyrenees, Varuste.net, Camu, Moosejaw, US Outdoor Store, Eastern Mountain Sports, GearX
2. E-climb klau – E-climb
3. Grivel Speedy - Backcountry, Needle Sports, Telemark-Pyrenees, Moosejaw

Few closeup shots of the screws:

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Meanwhile you might read what the people at arcticstartup.com said about us and take a look at the original press release. Here are also a few examples of what kind of information and into what extent the service is going to be able to offer. All of these can be compared side by side as well: Half Ropes (53 different), Single Ropes (125 different), Climbing Harnesses (132 different), Mountaineering Boots (58 different), Technical Axes (55 different), Belay Devices (67 different) and Avalanche Transceivers (15 different).

Update 30.3.2011: You might also like to see what mountainenthusiast.com said about the launch. .

Picture above: Maija reaches the South Peak.

Picture above: Getting ready to ski down slope called Hydrologen to the Tarfala valley with Kebnekaise crew.

Picture above: First half of the 270m of ice climbed.

Location details:

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Few images from the trip below:

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Picture above: Shot from the last year’s trip, we’re on our way to south peak.

Last year we climbed the south peak, now we’re planning for the north peak. Furthermore I think that I’ve spotted a nice and possibly unclimbed multi-pitch ice climbing route from the nearby mountain as well. I’m heading to Kebnekaise a bit earlier than the others, so I’ll have plenty of time to scout the area. Like last year, the good folks at Tribevine.com are also involved (see event invitation at facebook. In short it seems that I’m going to post plenty of ski touring and ice climbing images from the trip soon. Meanwhile you might want to check the report from the 2010 trip.

Location details:

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