Day 3: searching for ice

We hired a very small car.

This morning we set off south-east from Skibotn towards the Finnish border. Kjetil had mentioned climbs in a gorge not far from the E8. After parking the car we first tried to descend to the gorge in just our climbing boots, but sank to our waists in the snow so we went back to the car for the snowshoes.

Once down we walked the length of the gorge along a frozen river. The ice climbs we saw were short and very easy, so we just enjoyed the atmosphere and the scenery. Kjetil had mentioned there are wolverine and lynx in the area. We saw some tracks but had no way of knowing what animal had made them.

Here's Nick crossing the river.

The climb back out of the gorge was a battle: even in showshoes we sank deep in snow and struggled to make headway.

It was lunchtime by the time we arrived back at the car, so we decided to have a look at some roadside ice about 20km north of Skibotn. It turned out to offer good climbing, 25m of off-vertical ice made plastic by the warmer temperatures.