Lofoten Rocks!

The rock course was held end of May in Lofoten in the far north of Norway, also called the magic islands.The Lofoten island offer some world class climbing on perfect granite, natuarally protected with no bolts in sight.

It was pretty stressfull before the course week. Several exams on the university had to be done, fulltime work with rope acces and an exam to become a rock climbing instructor. Luckily everything went well and passing all exams i could fly to the north as an fully qualified rock instructor according to the Swedish UIAA rules.

The course consisted of 5 days and in those days the main aim was to learn and understand a good way to guide clients on multipitch rock routes. With good instructors and a great weather forecast we had a good week to expect. The first day we started of with a test of basic rescue scenario´s and discussed different ways of building anchors to learn new tricks and just to be sure that everyone has the same idea about a good anchor. The rest of the days we planned and climbed multipitch routes often in teams of three. It seems that it´s not so hard to climb and guide a party. I guess that everyone who has climbed multipitch routes knows the setting, the rope is a mess, the traverse badly protected because you found it easy and the belay in an uncomfortable place just because you tried to run out the pitch to the max, but you don´t really care because you just cleared the crux and your partner solves the mess for you. In guiding this is a big no go. When you climb with clients it´s al about planning and being several steps ahead. This not only to make it nice for your client but in the end also to make it safer and nicer for yourself. During the days we trained in how to manage the rope, putting in protection for yourself but also for your clients, making the rope run smoother and route finding. Al in al guiding is much more than being able to climb and put up a rope, there´s more to is and that´s trickier then you would think. In the 5 days we actually had one day were some rain was expected so we used that to learn the first steps in a guides technique called short roping. This technique is used in easier but exposed terrain, the rope and a lot of coaching is used to keep the whole party save. As you can guess this is a skill and a craft that is extremely important to learn and the introduction day we had was only a glimps of what to come on the rest of the courses. 

Henningsvear and it´s klatrekafeen as a base for the week.

Rescue scenario with a view

waiting for perfection

is this gonna work good for the client?

Tatu a short roping master?

Råna, an adventurous and amazing climb, 5c/6a in big boots

Lofoten scenery

Plesure climbing after the course, Frederik cruising

Cruising Presten, Vestpilaren

Lofoten, where the sun always shines !? (10 p.m.)

Czech route and SBO

Already a couple of weeks have already passed by since returning from the Alps. The last week of my stay in Chamonix was pretty exciting! The weather forecast had predicted some good weather so Gabriel Mazur, Gustav Mellgren and me decided to go and have a look at the Droites NE face. We had heard that the Czech route had been in condition a month earlier so we we´re keen on trying that route out.

Party at Grand Montets

No stove needed for melting water

We headed up the Grand Montets with the last bin. It was the last day of the season before closing the lifts so there was a big party going on at mid and top station. We enjoyed the party for a while until the ski patrollers started to send down the party people.  In the end we were the only ones left and made ourselves ready for a night in the toilets. Luckily for us the staff of the Grand Montets had left the heating on especially for us. 

Early morning packing

At 2 a.m. we got up and after a ´´breakfast we started to make or way down onto the Argentiere glacier and up towards the Droites face.
It was already light when we arrived at the start of the route. Looking up conditions looked doable but it temperatures were already quite high. The first part of the route is all easy snow climbing so we made pretty good progress moving together. After a while we came to the first proper ice pitches. Gustav took the lead. By now there was quite a bit of ice coming down because of the warmth but nothing big so we continued.  For the hardest ice pitch it was my turn to lead. Al three of us were pretty skeptical because it was very warm and the ice was just dripping. I climbed up to take a look, it was obvious… time to turn around. 

first easy snow slopes

Gustav taking the lead

Bergschurnd crossing

We abseiled down and had a great ski out, we all agreed on the fact that summer was officially here.

The Days after the climb it was testing time.  Already a year ago I got accepted to the Swedish mountain guide course SBO. Unfortunately back then there we only three of us that got in so they decided to postpone the course with a year.
We had 3 days on which we got tested on rock climbing, Ice climbing and skiing. It all went well for me and coming winter me and 7 others will start the course. I am already excited!