"A word on the spot is worth a cartload of recollections"
James Maggs, Southwold diarist 1797-1890

Wednesday 2 March 2011

More ice than you can shake a stick at

The forecast was for rain all day, but it was snowing quite heavily as we drove round the head of the fjord then north along the west side of Storfjorden towards Lyngseidet. We stopped for a coffee at Lyngenalp Lodge, then drove back south looking for ice to climb.

By the time we reached Kvalvik the cloud had cleared somewhat, and we spotted what looked like quite a short and easy icefall. A small road took us toward the base of the climb then it was on with the snowshoes for the short approach.


It turned out to be a 65m WI5, much longer and harder than it had looked. [Update: on consideration the climb is probably WI4+]. Here's Nick on the final pitch.


By the time we had reached the top the cloud had lifted giving us great views across the fjord. On the way back we saw several other promising-looking (and a couple of terrifying) icefalls along the escarpment we had climbed and the next one further north.

So we have found upwards of a week's worth of climbing, yippee. And Nick's a happy man now that we've found some harder stuff.

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