Isklatring in Golsjuvet

                    Stine and Nor getting ready for the climbing.                  
Amelia looking at them.

"Finally man! Finally! I´m going ice climbing this weekend!" This was the message I sent to Plablo (see https://katuoinekin.blogspot.nl/) before heading to Golsjuvet, 5h drive eastward from Bergen and situated directly south of Hemsedal. This is my 3rd winter in Norway and for my climbing buddies in Baskerland is kind of a shame that I haven´t done any ice climbing yet. "WTF does people do there!!" as Pablo would say. I was totally convinced that this winter would be the one. It took some time to convince some folks to join but finally I managed. Friday afternoon Nor, Seb and me start driving from Bergen in Ameliatheadventurevan. At our arrival in Gol Stine (Seb´s local friend) gives us a really nice welcoming at her place. We drink some beers and talk about tomorrow´s plan looking at the guidebook. So many icefalls around here within 50km drive. This is exciting! Finally we decide on Golsjuvet, just 10min drive from here and head to bed. These guys inside and Nor and me at Amelia. First time sleeping in a van and I think I will love this life once I have my own. Such a magic thing just stepping out of the van to have a pee in the middle of the night under a starry sky at -20ºC and surrounded by snow.

                                        Sun hitting the trees at Golsjuvet                                        

Saturday morning we take it quite easy and arrive to the ice climbing crag at 11ish. The icefalls are just 2 minutes walk from the parking spot. We walk through a few trees and... BUM!!! Fucking ice paradise! We just got into a narrow canyon 30m deep and in front of us 20-30m icefalls with different colors of ice and various formations. The frozen river runs below our feet. There are some really exciting stand-alone features (that we won´t climb because of our inexperience), beautiful pinetrees at the top of the routes bathed by the amazing sunlight in this cold morning of beginning of February. Most people complain about the darkness in Norway at this time of the year. For me, the yellowish/orangish colored sunlight produced by the scattered rays of the still quite low sun, looks from another world. Whether I call it being in Narnia or in The Charming Valley, the feeling of being in a really special place is the same.

                     Lander, last move before the anchor                            

Ok guys! This is fuckin´ beautiful, but we came here for ice climbing a bit. So, we start moving our asses. Nor, Seb and me walk up into the forest above the icefalls to start setting up couple of top-rope anchors. Seb is the expert with the gear, so he sets up everything almost himself (takk for det man!) and we help him out with some minor stuff. We are not sure if we have enough gear to rappel down so Nor decides to walk down and Seb and me rappel down. In my case, I haven´t done any abseiling for a while (never on an icefall) and it takes some time until I feel comfortable enough and start coming down. Fuck! It is quite impressive to rappel an icefall and the view when going down is just amazing.

  A-team. Lands belaying and Nor climbing   

 We climb in two rope teams; teamA - Nor&Lands, teamC - Seb&Stine. The girls climb first since they have been waiting for us down there to finish the toprope and they are already cold. It is a really sunny day but the sun never hits the icefalls here at this time of the year, so it is quite chilly. Nor and me do the partner check and discuss a bit on her eight knot. I am quite sure is not correct and convince her to repeat it (just in case she decides to fall). Her first attempt is not very successful. I try to give her some tips from the ground (everything looks so easy and obvious when you´re belaying) but she have never tried this before and after 5-6 meters her arms are quite pumped and she can´t feel the fingers anymore because of the cold. I lower her down so she can rest a bit and give it another try later. In the meantime, Stine is climbing up an adjacent route, steady and slow but with a decent technique. It is easy to tell that she has done a bit of ice climbing before. Now it´s my turn to climb! I am so excited! I grab the tools and start with the process. Squat, stand, swing, squat, stand, swing... Fuck! I am going up faster than expected but it´s just and illusion. I start feeling quite pumped in my forearms whem I´m just halfway. I am trying to remember the videos I´ve seen make use of some technique but is useless. I am not using my legs at all, but just pure arm strength. Finally I managed to get all the way up in one go (thanks to all the pull-ups in the boulder room), but I am just knackered after only 20m of steep ice climbing on toprope. I wouldn´t tell that this was so hard... Jesus!! It looks so easy when you look at experienced climbers...

     Nor swinging in the first meters of the icefall   

It´s time for Nor to climb again and now we try the line that Seb and Stine were doing before. She hangs from the rope once to take a break midway but otherwise she manages quite well to climb all the way up this time. The technique starts looking better. I climb the same route and before startingto climb I hang some ice screws from my harness. I want to take advantage of the toprope and practice how to place them on steep ice (these routes are graded WI5). I manage to place 3 screws along the 20m length of the route. It takes me between 5-10 minutes to place each of them. WTF! This is really hard!! And I´m just climbing on toprope like a little child. I have serious suspicions that I am not doing anything right placing the ice screw. It can´t be that hard. Just taking the screw from my harness with thick gloves it´s a huge effort, plus drilling the screw all the way into the ice, engage the quickdraw and clip the rope. I can´t imagine doing this with 5 meters of runout below me. That must be really scary. I take quite a lot of time to finish this pitch and Nor is kinda blaming me when I come down because is freezing cold, -15-20ºC. Not so fun belaying with these temperatures. Since every one is already quite cold and tired we decide to go back home. Annuk - Stine´s beautiful husky dog - is really happy to see us arriving. I offer myself to prepare dinner (which doesn´t happen so often) while the others chill and drink wine. I am quite tired but so excited for my first ice climbing day that I can´t stop doing stuff. We have a generous dinner with some wine and a bit of whisky to discuss about tomorrow´s plan. Since there´s a lot of skiing around Bergen we decide on ice climbing again. We head to bed/van not too late. Tomorrow we´re aiming to be earlier at the crag to have more time to climb. That never happens. Nor and me overslept in the van and Seb comes at some point to wake us up.

   Lands and Nor getting ready for another pitch   

We head to Golsjuvet, same spot as yesterday, and even if we arrive at noon there is no one climbing here. This time we set the topropes at the lower sector. Nor and Stine climb first today too. Soon we realize why no one else is here today. It´s only -25ºC and the ice is as hard as concrete. The icefalls today are graded (WI4) as easier as the ones that we did yesterday but they feel much harder. The ice is so hard that takes a number of swings to break through it. We have to make use of the features on the ice; holes, ledges, anything that can make the climb easier. Nor climbs much better today. The first line is quite hard because of the ice conditions and she gets into a very tricky section, but her second pitch on the other line looks really good and she gets all the way to the anchor in one go and surprisingly fast. Does she has been training overnight? Pressure on me. Shit! I also have to perform. I try to place ice screws today again but there´s no way to drill them into this ice. It´s hopeless, so I decide to focus on my feet positioning and technique. The climb is really fun and I feel stoked every time I get to the anchor. I decide to get into a bit more unstable part of the icefall in my second pitch. The ice in this line has a bright blue color and there are many holes, formations and even an overhanging section. Oh man! This is really fun!! I wanna climb more and more but not everyone is so keen so we decide to stop after 3 pitches each. We still have a long drive back to Bergen indeed, so good to save some energy, specially the driver. We pick up all our stuff from Stine´s place, give her and Annuk a big hug and start driving towards Bergen. Takk for oss Stine! That was really nice of you.

              Lands finishing his first climb of the weekend                 

On the drive back to Bergen we decide to stop in Jordalen to spend the night there and do a short backcountry ski trip early in the morning. We park Amelia by the starting point of the route and prepare some dinner, have some beers and listen to some fun podcast about climbing. We are all quite tired and tomorrow we want to be ready for skiing at 7ish, so we crawl into our sleeping bags early. Nor and Seb sleep inside the van and I decide to test my new winter sleeping bag (Tcomfort = -20ºC) and bivouac outside on the snow. I love sleeping under the stars and I haven´t done it for a while but inside tents the last few weekends that I´ve been winter camping.  It is usually quite windy and cold around here so not so nice to sleep without the protection of a tent. Tonight is quite calm, there is no wind at all and it is not so cold, but it is cloudy and at some point it starts snowing. I am tempted to jump into the van with these guys, because there is space for one more in there, just a bit more tight and romantic, but it is just a light snowfall and then it stops and part of the sky clears up to show many of the starts covered by the clouds before. This is amazing. Being here in deep Norway in this isolated valley and just with a sleeping bag and a sleeping mat. All the stress accumulated during the hours at the office fighting with the code vanishes in moments like this. This little special moments that I try to have every weekend feed my soul and help me forgetting any problems of dairy life. It´s such a therapy! I actually sleep quite well and I have a lot of energy in the morning.

                                   Nor and Stine climbing in parallel routes                                   

We start skinning up a bit later than planned but still quite early. I have done this mountain twice before this year so I skin in front with my splitboard and we are close to the top in just about 90 minutes. The weather got worse and the visibility is not so good up here so we make the transition 200m before getting to the highest point of the mountain and start skiing down. The first section is quite open, the snow is good, decent powder, not superdeep but quite fun. I wait for Seb and Nor before the tree line. It is easy to lose each other here because this forest is quite thick. I explain them which line I am planning to take and start splitboarding down. This is really fun. Lots of snow, jumps, treesm bushes. I am quite impressed when I see Nor passing me really fast but she is going straight toward a tree and she doesn´t show any intention of making a turn. She doesn´t. She just crashed direclty against that tree (trees don´t move so often). I´m a bit concerned but soon I realize that she´s OK so I just start laughing. The lower part is wider and easier to ride, the snow is a bit sticky because is not so warm today but still quite good snow conditions. Only Seb didn´t have so much fun skiing down. He´s telemarker and in this kind of terrain is not so easy to turn with free heels, unless you´re really really good at telemark.

It was a fun day and we are back at the van at 10:30AM. Perfect timing to drive back to Bergen and work this afternoon. We arrive to Bergen 2h30 hours later. Thanks guys for another awesome weekend. Who said that norwegian winters are tough?? In my opinion, with this weather and snow conditions is just pure fun and beauty.