Norway 2014 day 1: Arrived in Aurlandsvegan

The cabin is great: well built , clean and warm. It has underfloor heating! Unfortunately the temperatures outside are also very warm: +8 degrees at sea level, and all the ice at lower levels is in terminal melt. But that's what we expected, based on forecasts on our obsessive monitoring of www.yr.no, on reports on UKC and from emails from Ari Paulin. There is ice in the upper dalen though, so let's hope heavy snow doesn't prevent us getting to it.

Unfortunately the Aurland -Hol road is now closed (stengt) due to "bad weather". That will shrink options local to Aurlandsdalen at least in the short term.
It's been a long day, bed soon.
5° Mostly Cloudy
Vangsgaarden, Aurland, Norway

Aftermath

Here are a few more photos from the trip:

Descending after the Finnkona fiasco. Back in the UK everything is suddenly Spring-like. While we were away the birds in London seem to have rented megaphones for their dawn chorus. It's a real contrast from the silence of The Frozen North. It's a good thought that Spring's finally coming but part of me misses the hard, cold beauty of Arctic Norway. Nick has done a summary blog.

North Norway Ice

Nick has updated his North Norway Ice Guideblog, a distillation of 6 weeks' ice climbing adventures in Arctic Norway in 2011 and 2012.

Home!

It was a bit of a trek.

Bailing

It's stopped snowing but there's 12"+ on the ground and the forecast is for +5 degrees tomorrow. So we've taken the financial hit and rebooked our flight for tomorrow.

It would have been fine if we'd brought the complete series set of The Wire to watch, but otherwise we'd go barking mad stuck in the cabin for the next 4 days.

Oh well, these things happen.

Still snowing hard

We couldn't even drive up onto to the road at the moment. It's due to ease off soon. Let's hope Tor Erik gets the snow plough out soon.

Fisk

Tor Erik told us that recreational fjord fishing attracts a good proportion of the people who stay in his cabins. The cabins all have barbecues, fish griddles and wall-charts of local salt water fish.

From looking at the wall chart in our cabin, a lot of British names are similar to the Norwegian:

Fisk
Ål (eel)
Skjell (shell/mollusc)
Østers
Krabbe
Makrell
Sild
Brisling
Hvitting

The plan disintegrates

It was snowing heavily by the time we reached the E6 so we ditched the idea of driving to Sweden and drove to Grov instead. The ice there was either short and uninspiring or very thin so here we are, back at the cabin. 

The photo above was taken on the drive back down Spansdalen. 

Rich and David have bailed out and gone back to Senja. We thought about decamping to Lyngen but we completed all major objectives we could find there last year, and the forecast for Lyngen is no better anyway. 

Springing into action

Not just yet. More tea first.

The plan is to drive to Sweden. If the road is closed we'll have a look at an icefall to the south near Grov.

The last big objective for the trip, Søylafossen, a 4 pitch WI5/6 next to Henrikafossen in Lavangen, may go tomorrow, weather and ice permitting.

A bit busy in the sauna yesterday

Nice.

Blowing a hoolie

Snow is now flying horizontally with a driving gale. I wouldn't want to be on the hill right now. Lots more snow forecast over the next 24 hours.

The sauna stove is lit.

How the Guide sneered

We seem to suffer from a perennial shortage of cord for use as abseil anchors. Last trip Toby saved the day by kindly giving us his old climbing rope for us to cut up and use. This year we brought 30m of 6mm cord with us for abseils, but after the series of epic retreats we found we were running out by the end of week 2.

Tor Erik had told us there was a gear shop at Sjøvegan so we went to have a look. No joy. So we tried the hardware shop next door, and found this rope.

"Very strong" the store owner said.

Rich, a Mountain Guide, said it reminds him of curtain rope.

We tried...

We headed towards Sweden in search of better weather, but the rain turned to snow as we moved inland, and towards the border we found the road closed because of heavy snow.

So back we came. As we got back to Lavangendalen the weather was improving, but by then we were ready for nothing more than sleep.

Champing at the bit

Wind is driving rain up the fjord. We are somewhat at a loss for a plan. We may drive inland and over the Swedish border to Abisco.

Feeling slightly sorry for Rich Cross and David, who drove down from Senja last night to escape the weather there.

This photo shows the state of the ice at the lakeside climb near Sjøvegan yesterday.

Fuel for climbing

We have settled on cheese and salami as the perfect sandwich filler. They remain tasty in the cold, don't freeze easily, and restore energy like nothing else I know.

We have been averaging 2 each a day, plus a couple of Norwegian High Energy chocolate bars. That means that in this photo Nick is eating his 20th+ cheese and salami sandwich of the trip so far. He doesn't seem to be losing his appetite for them.