Winter mountaineers and ice climbers often debate the merits of leashed or unleashed axes. As I hung from my Grivel elasticated leash below my DMM Apex about a metre above my last fairly dodgy ice screw, I felt the debate had a firm victor in my mind. I am certain that Grivel test their kit well, but a dynamic fall onto a piece of elastic thinner than that holding up my Y fronts probably wasn’t in their testing regime. How did I get there?
Rjuken is a fast developing ice climbing venue in Norway. Sitting roughly 3 hours drive North West of Oslo it is easy to get to via economy flights to airports near Oslo and a hire car. The Rjuken area mainly comprises a long East-West valley that receives a great deal of water run-off from the surrounding high-ground and little sunlight; result, fantastic ice-falls and lots of them.
Six members of the club, Sarah, Ben, Tom, Guy, JP and myself, traveled to Norway to take advantage of the ice and hone those winter/ice climbing skills. Day one and we were out at an area called Osmosis. Parking in a lay-by we kitted up and walked the full 5 minutes (oh yes this isn’t Scotland) to the base of a sloping valley with a range of falls from WI2 to WI5, mainly single pitch and the possibility of top-roping if we felt the need. I would love to list everything we did here but significant moments are that this was Tom’s first outing with ice axes and on ice and JP’s first on ice. Paired up with Sarah and Ben respectively they soon got to grips with the fundamentals and JP lead his first ice route, a WI2. Sarah managed to find an enormous ice-slab with a 60m lead whilst Guy and I alternated on a couple of WI2/WI3 until I decided that the route that the area took its name from needed dealing with. Osmosis WI4 is a steep vertical column with a slightly overhanging final move to an ice ledge and an ice scramble to a stance by a tree belay. The lower half was straight-forward enough, but, after a bit of ice screw faff assisted by poor technique, by the time I got to the top of the column my left arm flayed its axe with as much power as a child waving a stick of celery. The ice turned to slippy clear ice-crete and with poor foot placements…back to the first paragraph. I managed to place my left axe, locked off and put in my last ice screw, carefully. Pushing on my one axe and this time using my feet I managed to reach the axe that had saved me from utter failure and pulled over onto the shelf in the style commonly known as “beached whale”. With the shouting over Guy followed me and I was pleased to see that he weighted the rope once which made me feel better. He had his own adventure to come, later! Sarah and Ben now had Osmosis in their sites. Sarah, flew up it whilst barely breaking sweat! Her ice screw technique impeccable, her rack neat and organized and her mental game solid, the chaps stood at the bottom and knew we had to raise our game. Ben was next up and made a better job of it than I did but, sorry to take pleasure here but we are all the same, he came off at exactly the same point that I did. Better ice screw placement saved him and he finished without a problem.
Day two’s ambition was to raise the game in skills and get into multipitch so we headed for the Upper Gorge area. Descending into the Gorge itself was a challenge until trapper Noble spotted the well used track. The ice filled river was beautiful, but frankly we had no idea exactly where we were according to the guide book. Moving down the valley to find ice falls to have a go at required careful negotiation between snow-covered boulders and river ice. Trapper Noble, bringing up the rear, decided to demonstrate the Royal Marines ice acclimatization technique of falling through the ice into the river. Calmly we all panicked and ran back…onto the ice…to rescue the Damp ex RM and offer him words of encouragement like….ha ha ha ha . I have to say that if it had been me I would have headed home there and then to dry out and read a book. Ben manned up, squeezed himself out and into a bit of dry kit and cracked on with the day, with wet feet. Frankly I have no idea what we climbed but they were a couple of fantastic WI2/WI3 two-pitch ice falls the last of which saw Tom lead his first pitch. Guy and I walked off the top of the last climb to go and recce the route we planned for day three. The rest stayed and managed another climb each, Sarah and Tom climbing an exit gulley that included a wrecked 1940’s car frozen into the ice that she described as “creepy”.
Day three’s targets were Fabrikfossen, WI2/3, seven pitch for Ben, JP, Sarah and Tom, and Guasta Marathon WI3,seventeen pitch for Guy and myself.
Gausta Marathon snakes for 800m up the North facing valley wall near the town centre and finishes just below the top of Guastatoppen, the area’s highest peak. It is described as, indeed is, an Alpine route and requires a 5 or 6 km walk-out at the top. As it was only WI3 and both having Alps experience we felt that it was well within our abilities. Ben kindly assisted by rising early with us to drop our car at the finish point and then drop us at the start at roughly 0800. We left the start at about 0815…it was the beginning of a very very long day.
Whilst we had scoped out the climb from below at some distance, finding a way through the trees and snow at the base proved a bit challenging, using glimpses of the roads below and behind us, after nearly 2 hours struggling through fallen trees, we fell onto the lower slopes of the gulley. It didn’t resemble the icy pictures shown but comprised impacted snow over ice more reminiscent of a Scottish snow gulley somewhere between a grade 2 and 3. Moving with just axes and crampons we scrambled to the first ice wall, placed a screw and Guy led the first steep boulder high pitch onto more snow/ice gulley and ran out the ropes to the full length, with time lost we needed to reduce the number of pitches and move together, pitch quickly or risk being benighted. I moved past, collecting some kit, but whilst steep the going was easy and more Alpine/Scottish gully than true ice climbing. We repeated this a couple of times until a longer ice flow, of roughly WI2 was reached. This took two pitches before, following the guidebook we stayed left and near the gulley rather than take a right forking ice wall. This was perhaps an error and may have missed at least two ice pitches, but that is hard to tell and studying our route again the following day we remain convinced that we stuck to the guide book diagram. Let me assure you it wasn’t an easy option, avalanche prone mixed deep snow and solid ice, interspersed with a bit of mixed rock and indeed tree scrambling tested our nerve and ingenuity with protection. We alternated lead, pitching, and moving together until we came to a proper ice fall as the gulley veered back to the right. Leading it over the grade 2 base, I was secretly pleased that Guy would be leading the next bit; WI3, steep, glassy and making strange creaking noises. With only 7 ice screws our pitches were limited. One for the stance – unless near rock or a tree – four or five for the pitch and then one in hand for the next stance. A pitch could be short and punchy and laced or long and, well, still quite punchy and strung out. Guy clambered past me making short work of the lower wall before hitting an easier angled but slippy and concrete hard patch. Two screws in he placed a third and pushed on into the harder ground. About a metre or so above his last protection he slipped, it happened in seconds, no warning and he skittered down the wall to just above my head; all the screws held. “You OK?”….”Yeh”…silently he climbed back up and reached a point to make a stance; respect. It was late afternoon towards early evening now and exceedingly cold, we were both tired and although near the top, we were obviously quite a way from the top. I moved past Guy. A short vertical wall, better ice, easier but less solid placements and the ice still creaked when you hit it with an axe; quickly onto yet more frozen snow/ice gulley but this time more like a ramp. One more pitch took Guy to the base of a large ice wall that I quickly assessed as “nails”. I make no apologies at this point for seeking the easier WI3 ground through this beast to a point where I could bring Guy up. Fumbling with hands that had become as agile as flippers I dropped a screw which Guy luckily recovered. He climbed past. From my stance it looked as if the better ground went right, but deterred by the look of it when up there Guy went left across the very top of the gulley and its large loose snow bank and onto mixed ground. Finding anything to take a stance required imagination and nerve and he perched on a small rock promontory attached to a sling and a sapling….”safe”. I nearly laughed, but for the fact that I was attached to the other end and had to complete the same dodgy traverse to join him! One sling around an intermediate and more solid tree secured us until I joined him. Thank God for frozen moss and the joy of a solid axe placement in a rock crack. I moved past and into what was evidently the beginning of the end. More Scots grade 2 and 3 followed and the pitches, interspersed with small ice walls seemed endless. My last belay was a snow bucket and the move to it protected by a piton…I love pitons. It was the top of the final ridge. We could see the pylons that marked our walk out. Guy moved past and ran the rope out. Body belaying me I moved past him to the top; knackered. It was 2000 and we had to walk off the mountain yet. I texted the others to let them know we were OK. It was great to get a text back saying that they had followed the agreed procedure if we had not returned by 2000 and were already out looking to see if we were at our car, and that the pizza was on order.…but the adventure wasn’t over. We had been climbing in the dark for the last hour. Thankfully, as Guy had dropped his head torch on the last pitch, the moon was out in full in a clear sky; it was beautiful and the moon cast shadows and showed the way. The early going wasn’t bad, the snow fairly solid and the route clear, we covered the ground quickly and carefully, the snow was very deep when you sank into it. Down climbing a large snow slope and then into the woods, within a couple of KMs of where we had parked the car, the snow became even deeper, the route less clear…it was torture. Every other step sank into the snow to thigh or even waist. Guy broke trail following cross-country ski tracks; sick of falling into the snow it was often easier to crawl! After nearly four hours Guy heard someone shouting my name. It was Ben standing on the track where our car was. Using his voice more for encouragement than direction…direction wasn’t the problem, moving at any speed was…we finally struggled onto the track at midnight to join him. The car was frozen, it was -16.5 C, we were exhausted, elated and bloody cold. Going back to meet the crew in the apartment and eat pizza and down a dram was the best ending ever. I was climbed out. Guy and I agreed that for us the War was over and day four would be a rest day!
The next day saw Guy and myself playing chess over numerous coffees and lots of food. The rest of the team spent it at a beautiful valley called Krokan, working on WI2’s, 3’s and 4’s, leading and top roping depending on experience and energy. We all RV’d at the swimming pool for a sauna and chill out before the return journey to the airport. As we all admired the stars whilst sitting in the outdoor jaccuzzi (in -10), I reflected on what was overall one of the best trips I’ve been on outside the Alps and my best to Norway. I can’t recommend it highly enough .
