Tamokdalen dagger

This morning we scouted north for a WI5 we'd heard about on the internet. We found it about 25km north but the ice looked a good 2 hours walk from the road and we were by then too late for such a long day. We plan to go back tomorrow with an early start.

Instead we drove south to Tamokdalen valley south of Skibotn, where we found some ice crags to the left of the road:

After a short trudge uphill Nick led up to an ice dagger (click on the above photo to enlarge), which he then climbed as I watched agog. A very impressive lead.

When I joined Nick at the top he pointed out I had blood on the bridge of my nose. I must have been hit by ice he'd dislodged on the lead, without noticing.

Here's Nick at the top setting up an abolokov (a V cut into the ice then looped with cord, from which you abseil). We've been doing a lot of abolokov abseils this trip - the trees are small here!