Climbing in France and Spain

My friend Yngve and I went down to Orpierre, france 1st of Nowember. We stayed there for a week and headed down to Gorges du verdon. I wanted to climb the long multi pitch routes in the valley, but a snowstorm wanted different. So we headed down towards spain and ended up in Siurana, an amazing climbing location an hour from Tarragona. Unfortunately snow started falling from the sky and we had to move again. Further south in Gandia we found lots of pockets and tofus to pinch on and what seamed to be the only place in spain with warmish weather and sun. We stayed hear for almost two weeks and then headed up to Siurana to finish of some projects.

I had a few goals during this trip, one of them was to do a 7a. I reached that one and also sent 7b. The other goal was multi pitching in Gorges du Verdon. Weather made that impossible, but I will be back.

There is more information on Yngves blog:
http://fjellboka.no/2013/11/09/les-deux-clochards-part-une-2/

A few of Siuranas crags!

My first 7a, 3rd try, Siurana.

Belaying on 4th pitch? Orpierre

Jamming at night

Made an stove of a beer can

The view form Gandia

Waking up in a mountain village.

We did two multi pitches up this pillar, Orpierre

Multi pitching in Orpierre 

Finally sending an nice 6c after way to many tries, Gandia

Enjoying the sun in Gandia

Summer holidays

Hi!

This summer was going to be the best. I got work as a glacier guide, I was finally running again and got a few weeks of  climbing in Bohuslän. What happen was not much of a surprise I guess. Got injured again and the doctor was pretty positive the pain was related a stress fracture in my foot after running to much. I went home for a few weeks. Nice to hang out with the family for a while. Luckily after a few weeks on the couch, killing a season of both big bang theory and chuck, my foot started co-operating again. I started guiding again and a few days ago my friend Vegar and I did the Dyrhaugsryggen traverse. It was an awesome day trip with bluebird at 2000m for 11 hours with mostly easy climbing and exposed walking.

We also wanted to climb Storen and the heftyes route, which is one of the most popular climbs in the area. According the weather forecast it does not seam to happen in the next few weeks.

Summer is coming to an end these days. This one, like the others, just flew by before I even realized it. Although I am really looking forward to start writing my bachelor thesis, meeting my friends and have lots of fun climbing and skiing this year!

Hope you all had a great summer!

My new dorm in Sogndal

Got to try bouldering at Veitastrond

Had a walk on "Hest"

Great day in hurrungane, Storen in the back.

The cabin at work with two of my colleges.

Jostedalen Glacier and Skitouring Trip in Hurrungane

Hi folks!

It is awhile since I last wrote anything about what I have done or been doing. Mainly because I have not been doing much the last months, but now things are starting to pick up.

I am finally starting to get back in business and ended this week with a 2 day ski touring trip in the incredibly beautiful mountain area, Hurrungane in Norway. A friend of mine and I agreed that we had to ski some more peaks in the area combined with some car camping and barbecue to set the mood on complete awesomeness.

Earlier that week I had a school trip on Jostedalsbreen, which is a huge glacier in Norway. It sums up to long days of bluebird and nature that constantly looked like postcard pictures with a great bunch of classmates.

The weather is to awesome to be sitting inside blogging at the moment, but I am promising that the next post will be kind of more detailed and soonish then this one!


Have a great day, peace and love everyone

Lunchbreak the first day

Pitching tents while the sun sets

Getting ready for the last day of skiing on the glacier

Tale skiing down Steindalsnosi the first day of Hurrungane

Our tracks down Fanaråken

Hungry for dinner!

Sunset

Looking on the face that we defiantly are going to ski next time!

Keeping up the Psyce

Hi everyone!

Have not been blogging about epic adventures as much as I was expecting to this winter. Unfortunately for me I did not realize, or maybe more did not want to realize that my knee was not working as it should this autumn. Finally after 6 months of self rehabilitation from summer till mid december I started skiing and pushing my knee. It did not hold more then a week or so. And I was sitting frustrated home during christmas wondering what the fuck!?

After driving taxi all night long for 6days straight in Oppdal, I went back west to Sogndal for a medical check. After MR they found my lateral menisc was teared up and I had to do a surgery. Awesome! After the surgery the doctor told me it was kind of complicated and that he had to cut of, not a lot, but kind of a lot and enough to make my knee pretty unstable. But man, people are doing crazy shit without meniscs so I got my fingers crossed.

I have not been skiing since my last post now and it started snowing again. It has been a pretty good winter with sick conditions and I am sooo looking forward to rip the shit out of the hills mid march some time! ..And I still got the climbing season (otherwise I would probably kill myself). Due to my new job in a grocery store I defiantly get enough money to hit BC and get frustrated high up in the spires of bugaboos this summer!

 Hungry! Got to make some food..

 See jah man! (I feel like a real blogger now)

My new coffee warmer!

My shirt drying up with the snow dumping in the background

My bandage

Saudalen

Finally the school semester ended and there is time to go shred snow again. The only problem is that my hometown, Oppdal, got none. Magnus and I went down the valley to Sunndalen with a chute on our mind. After one hour drive or so we started hiking to check it out. Not much snow at first, but good enough at the top.



A chute nearby Oppdal mid desember.

Odin

Finally I got to give the icefall Odin a go! It is pretty remote, located way up in the Austerdalen valley. Lars Martin and I drove of at 05.15 for a long day of glacier travel saturday morning the 29th of October. After almost 2hours of walking in the dark we got to the base of the Austerdal glacier. Yet another hour to go, and we were looking at Odin from bellow locating our route. The closer we got, the snow increased in hight and we soon realized that this was unfortunately not the day to push for it.  We walked a bit farther just to satisfy our egos before turning around for the long walkout. We were back in Sogndal around 16.30, hungry, tired and myself a bit bummed we did not reach higher. The glacier will hopefully withstand till next time I got the chance without that much snow.

Getting ready at the parking lot in the dark.

Lars approaching Odin on Austerdal glacier.

Looking at Odin in the snowy weather.

Lars seconding our 1/5th of Odin before returning.

Sorry about the bad pictures, took still frames from the video.

Tufte Glacier

Finally Knut and I went out to try a plan we made during the glacier course a couple weeks ago. With some friends from our class we went to Tufte glacier, Jostedalen the 8th of october for a bluebird day of glacier travel. With the goal of reaching Steinmannen, not far from the glacier plateau, and getting experience in leading, we all left around 6 in the morning for Jostedalen. Looking at the weather forecast it did not seam as the best plan combining icy roads with slippery summer wheels the next day. 


We arrived at Bergset with no incidents ready to walk up the hill to the glacier base impatient to see how much snow there were and if the crevasses were covered or not. The glacier was all white, but we could see the concave immersions of the cracks. After an hour of walking we reached the glacier icefalls and roped up. There were around 50-60cm of new snow which made the travel more difficult and time consuming then expected. The weak snow bridges made it more exciting too and a few of us fell through several times. We turned around probably half way up slightly prior to 2pm, which were our planed time for descent. There were a crust layer at base, which gradually ceased at around 900m. Above we defiantly missed our skis.. With the good feeling of an approaching winter, we were back down at the car 4.30.

Lunchbreak at the way back down   

Wondering why I did not bring my skis