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K3-Hem -> Artiklar -> Northern Ice Northern Ice - Ice climbing in the Scandinavian Arctic by Rick McGregor (rmcgregor*hotmail.com)
I have a friend. Let's call him Anders. The first time I met him he said, "My passion is ice climbing." We met when he had just moved here to Kiruna, 140 km north of the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden. Like me, Anders would no doubt say that there is only one thing wrong with Kiruna -- the winter is too short. For the whole of June, July, August and September there is no ice climbing, and often most of May and October as well -- in a really bad year even half of April and half of November. For some reason Anders' girlfriend didn't enjoy life in a mining town of 20,000 people on the northern edge of the taiga, so she and Anders moved back to southern Sweden a few years ago. But Anders comes up to Kiruna whenever he can during the winter to go ice climbing. I thought I'd use the story of his trips back to Kiruna to describe some of the climbs we've done and recent developments here. The first one didn't start too well -- the last flight to Kiruna from southern Sweden comes in at 11.30 at night -- if it's on time. When Anders flew up one December, it wasn't. Snowstorms and cloud delayed it and it didn't land until about 3 in the morning. Of course I hadn't checked the arrival time before driving out to the airport... Fortunately we hadn't been planning to go too far afield. The resort hotel at our "local" area, Abisko (only 90 km up the road), was celebrating refurbished facilities by offering reduced rates and a party on the Saturday night, so we planned to stay there and climb nearby. There are a couple of places with very short approach marches which would suit very well, especially since Anders hadn't done too much recently. * * * * Spansdalen, Norway (March 2003) Grey weather in Kiruna thickened as we approached Abisko. By the time we crossed over into Norway at Riksgränsen the temperature was at or above freezing, and it rained most of the rest of the way to the lodge in Soløy, an hour or so further north. The forecast wasn't too promising, either, with wind and rain predicted. The alarm went off at 7. No rain, but the temperature was plus 6 degrees C and there was a dark wall of cloud further out in the Lavangen fjord and it was coming our way. After a fairly leisurely breakfast, we left the lodge at 8.30 to drive up past Tennevoll and into the Spansdalen valley. There was lots of water running down the righthand side, and very little snow on the lower slopes. We could expect the ice to be very wet even high up on the lefthand, shady side of the valley as well, but that still looked to be the best bet. Forty-five minutes' approach leads up to a number of waterfalls, three to five pitches long. I was interested in the two righthand ones, four and five pitches respectively, but Anders thought that the latter looked a bit steep, and once we got higher up we could see that a lot of avalanche snow had come down the former, probably from the slopes under the peak of Spanstinden. So we opted to continue up to a three-pitch waterfall further left. There was a steep section on the approach up a stream-bed -- a bulge of wet ice, running with water, which we soloed up on solid axe placements. Another party from Kiruna was just roping up at the base of the first steep wall on the route. Fortunately it was quite wide, with at least three or four separate lines. The others had chosen the lefthand line, so Anders and I picked a steeper one near the righthand side, just right of a large ice cave. As usual Anders was keen to lead the first pitch. He was the visitor so we didn't bother tossing for it -- I handed over my icescrews and quickdraws to supplement his rack, and he tied into our double 8mm ropes. The ice was wet and plastic but not actually running with water up here, probably 500m above the valley floor and another 100 or more above sea level. That made for easy climbing, even though the top half of the 40m pitch was quite steep -- 80-85 degrees for 10m. Anders cut out right to avoid the final steep wall. His calf muscles were tiring from lack of cramponning practice, he said. After following his pitch (straight up at the top as he'd kindly run it out with no more screws on his righthand detour) I continued up the snowfield above to the base of the next section of ice for my lead. It was 45 metres, 80 degrees for five or ten metres at the start and finish, 70 degrees on excellent, wet ice in the middle. The wind was more noticeable higher up, and it had started to snow. The snowfields consisted of very wet, heavy snow and we didn't want to push our luck, so we abseiled off an Abalakov (Anders calls them Ablakovs) without doing the last pitch. Two more Abalakov-abseils got us back down to our packs. The snow storm worsened as we waited for the others, and for a long time we couldn't see them at all. At last they appeared over the edge of the steep wall above us, and by 4 pm they too were back at the packs. The snow eased, and turned to rain, as we descended into the valley. * * * * The Three Little Pigs, Skjomen, Norway (late December 2003): In the middle of winter the temperatures can get very cold on the Swedish side of the mountain range that separates us from Norway. Now that we've got back into leather boots, it's not much fun climbing ice when it's colder than 15 or 20 below. So what to do when the days are short and the temperatures are low between Xmas and New Year? We decided to book into the hostel in Narvik on the Norwegian side and make the most of the milder temperatures produced by the Gulf Stream. Another 7 am wake-up call. It was snowing wet snow and the thermometer showed a few degrees below as we left the hostel and drove the 20 minutes or so round to the Skjomen fjord just south of Narvik. When we got there it was still too dark to see much of The Three Little Pigs -- waterfalls down a cliff right above the road a kilometre or so in from the bridge that crosses the mouth of the fjord. In the pre-dawn gloom the initial pillar of the main waterfall looked very steep and intimidating, but I knew from experience that it's often worth taking a closer look. Once we got up to the base after a ten-minute wade through deep snow and blocks it proved to have more features than we'd been able to see from the road. By strategic planning the day before I had managed to ensure that it was my turn for the first lead of the day, so Anders handed me his rack and I led the pillar. The line of least resistance led up a series of bulges on the right between the pillar and the cliff, with occasional moves out onto lumps of ice on the wall, knocking off icicles as I went. Halfway up I reached an ice ledge in behind the final, free-hanging but solid, pillar and could do a delicate traverse out onto the front of it. By now I only had a few screws left, but as is often the case the top of the pillar was good wet ice so it felt OK to run it out to where the angle eased off into a snowfield. I belayed on a bulge of ice protruding through the snow and brought Anders up. A short snow pitch led up to the base of the second 45-metre pitch up the top wall. Anders led up, over some steep bulges to a final headwall and ice-covered bushes. The light of the short mid-winter day was fading as we abseiled off an Abalakov backed up by a sling round one of the frozen bushes, back down to the snow ledge. From there we could wade out through knee-deep snow to a tree on the edge of the lower cliff out to the one side of the first-pitch pillar. I went down first, unable to see in the dim light whether the ropes reached the bottom. I abseiled down a steep wall, scraped down a slab and finally slid over the lip of an overhang fringed with icicles and could see that the ends of the ropes were on the snow at the base. * * * * Søylefossen, Spansdalen, Norway (March 2004): It was warm when we got to Norway on the Friday night, +4 degrees and very little snow near sea level. From what we could see in the dark, there was plenty of ice on the main routes on the true left of the valley. In the morning the other Kiruna climbers, a team of three, headed up the valley to what I call the "Sunday Waterfalls" -- those on the true left of the valley opposite the "Sunny Side" -- the waterfalls at the top end of the valley which get all-day sun. As for Anders and me, we had our sights set on Søylefossen, the impressively-steep waterfall to the right of the seven-pitch long Henrikkafossen. It is the most intimidating waterfall in the valley, but with a lot of ice on it for a change it looked like a good opportunity to climb it. The weather was still warm (+3 degrees at the lodge in the morning) so the ice conditions should be good, as long as there wasn't anything up above which might fall on us if it melted loose. The approach march took us about 45 minutes, the upper part up a gully of firm snow. It was marginal crampons-on territory but I got up without. We found a bit of a ledge where something big from above had left a crater. After checking that there wasn't anything else that looked like it might come down we perched there to put on harness and crampons. Anders wanted to lead the first pitch of course. It was good blue ice, 75-80 degrees with some short steeper sections. His calves were soon screaming so he had to hang on a screw or two on the way up the initial groove. I had belayed out to one side, but there was a strong wind blowing the ice chips across towards me. For most of the pitch I cowered under my helmet and listened to the ice rattling off it. Anders kept the pitch fairly short because of his tiring calves and belayed out right on an ice ledge. I led through up mostly 70-degree ice with some steeper bulges. I tried to stay out left to avoid too many direct hits on Anders, but had to cut back right to find a good belay under the steep pillar we had identified as the crux. As usual for a long route in Spansdalen, Søylefossen began with a broad base of blue ice, steep but not vertical. This led up to a big overhang. From the road, especially from slightly lower down the valley, the route past the overhang looked to be up a steep pillar on the left. But there is also a steep wall on the right at right angles to the overhang, and from further up the valley we could see that this season it was covered with a thick layer of ice -- less than vertical, but still very steep. I established a belay in the shelter of this pillar and brought Anders up. He let me lead the third pitch, up the steep wall (though I got as high up on lower-angled ice as I could before stepping onto it). The ice was blue and plastic. Apart from a few dinner-plates most of the placements were very solid, but there was a long section of 85-degree ice. The screw placements were good, but it's just a matter of having the strength to hang there and place them. Anders followed, slowly but with no hangs. "I'm feeling pretty tired," he said. "Do you want to lead the next pitch as well?" It was another one with mostly 70-degree ice up over some bulges to what looked like the top. Of course there was a false horizon, but it wasn't far to where the angle eased right off. I put in a belay there, maybe 20 easy metres from the trees at the very top. * * * * Lokta, Sweden (March 2004): The next time Anders came up from southern Sweden I took the Friday off work to give us a long weekend. It was still misty when we got to Lokta, about 120 km from Kiruna, but the cloud was already breaking up (and cleared altogether during the day). There was very little wind and the temperature was close to zero. I had had my eye on a new route above the main road for a long time, straight above what we call Klimpen, a cliff protruding from the mountainside. It looked better than I'd ever seen it. "Do you want to do a new route?" I asked. "As long as you lead," was the reply. After the first month or so of winter the snow is usually so deep that you need skis or snowshoes to get through the birch forest separating most of the climbs from the road. After wading through the calf-deep snow we could leave our snowshoes and crampon up the final slope of frozen snow and turf to the base of a short, steep ice wall left of Klimpen. Anders led the first pitch, continuing as far as he could up the snowfield above the initial wall of vertical ice. He belayed on an ice bulge near the bottom of the upper cliffline where my new route lay waiting. We were still out to one side of it, though, so I led through to the base of the cliff, with a poor piton for protection before traversing to the belay. One hit of Anders' hammer when he followed and it flew out and landed beside him in the snow. So much for that... He came across to join me at the belay on a couple of good bulges of ice out to one side of the steep little waterfall. The first five metres were straightforward 70-degree ice, then I could follow a groove up beside the steeper pillar until bulges of snow above forced me to make a delicate step across onto the face of the pillar itself. I climbed up it on lumps of ice to where it narrowed to the waist of an hour-glass. The top section of the pillar was really an icicle that was only just joined to the lower half. I placed a short screw behind it, into the main face of ice, and then began squirming up the chimney beside it, ice on one side, rock on the other. I got another short screw or two in the ice at the back of the chimney and bridged up with my left crampon on a narrow ledge on the cliff so I could reach over the lip above with my axes. With a bit of struggle I got good purchase with both axes and pulled up high enough to kick a front-point into good ice on the side of the pillar and place a long screw into one of my pick holes. Protected by the ice screw I could heave up and re-establish myself on merely vertical ice for the last five or ten metres. Fortunately there was an ice slope over the lip to get two long belay screws into, and to bore an Abalakov into to abseil off. Anders followed well, even with the pack on. We did one short abseil (30 metres) back down the top waterfall, and a long one (60 metres) back to the bottom of the first little wall. We were on our way to Spansdalen, so we continued through to Riksgränsen and shouted ourselves dinner (pizza) at Café Lappis at the base of the ski-field. It was a pleasant spot with a view down over the hotel and frozen lake below, they Swan Lee playing on the stereo, and it felt good to be able to celebrate a hard new route on ice. "Have you heard Swan Lee before?" I asked. "No," said Anders. "They're Danish. The name comes from a song by Syd Barrett. You know, the founder of Pink Floyd..." "Swan Lee," I thought, "How about that as a name for the climb?" * * * * Kiruna, Sweden (October 2004): It's late autumn in Kiruna, the autumn colours are starting to fade, there's fresh snow on the mountains and the temperatures are dropping. I'm waiting for him to ring. Anders, the man with the passion for ice climbing.
(Published in New Zealand Alpine Journal 2004) |
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