The weather in western Norway is usually wet and variable, where long cold spells are rare. But if they occur, the fjords and valleys turn from moist choss piles into the Yosemite of iceclimbing, with beautiful lines around every corner. January and February 2021 were blessed with a long cold spell of up to -20 degrees at sea level and almost no precipitation for several weeks. While that made for bad skiing, for iceclimbers it was like Christmas and easter on the same date.

So I used every opportunity to get some ice under my picks together with my friends Carsten and Achim. Among the notable lines we climb were the 640 m long ice line of Hagafossen that goes up to Hovodungo next to the village of Aurland. It was a long 12h adventure up a gully, with loads of easy WI2-3 pitches and around 2 WI4+/WI5 pitches up some steeper drops. As it was quite cold and got dark we did not take picture at the steeper sections, but it sure was an adventure. The most memorable pitch for me was climbing up a freestanding pillar in the gully that required some mixed chimney climbing past some thin ice sheets. Most of the easy pitches can be simulclimbed and we were making good use of our two microtraxions. At around midnight we topped out and walk back down to the van on tha back side of the mountain. Here are some images from the easy intro pitches: The weekend after we set our sights on Tunshellefossen in Flåmsdalen. This scenic waterfall starts just of the Farm Tunshelle and stands at around WI4+1/WI5. The first couple pitches are enjoyable WI4 climbing with the occasional steep pillar in between. We were making good progress and felt confident to be back early for dinner. But as usual that changed quickly as we encountered some very wet surface ice in the upper part of the icefall. While it was easy to place icetools and crampons in this ice, getting a screw in and out was a another thing. The surface was wet with undercooled water that immediately froze to anything metal, as temperature we below -10 degrees. To remove the ice inside the screws we had to use heat from our bare hands and froze of our lips of trying to blow out the ice cores. And never mind supercoold water running into your jacket. So we decided to bail 2 pitches before the top and rapped of some trees and abalkovs. A decision that was probably also influenced by a warm car and dinner waiting for us down below. Now the ice and snow has melted and it feels like spring has come already in February. But I still have hope for another cold spell high up around Hemsedal, so fingers crossed.

⤧  Next post First ascents in 2020 ⤧  Previous post Processing and analysis of vessel mounted and lowered ADCP datasets