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Gardermoen, airport, Oslo. After a long time, there is a winter showing its charms. -8°C, snowy and windy! Yupii.. |
| Slides vs digital - sometimes that is still debatable.. |  |
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After 150 kilometres we find our destination. An old empty farmhouse is an ideal place for wanderers such as us. |
| Guy and Marius, plus the newcomer, checking on the installations. |  |
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Office, dining room, drying rom. |
| Setting off for the first recco trip.. |  |
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Marius as a guide, Klemen as a scout, _Urban as photographer and me as a driver of president Tito. |
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Bird watching. Ah, those rare northern birds! |
| Access to Salangen falls is flat as a lake surface. Because it is a lake surface. |
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There is also a bridge crossing the water, but it was left ignored. |
| Sjur, the northern bear, a mountaineering icon and above all - an extremely nice guy. |  |
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Marius on a new Guy's route: "Pull harder you fat bastard!" M7+ |
| We were longing for some pure ice.. |  |
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Found it. As usual - a direct attack followed, resulting in emergency employment of all the tricks and mental strength to amend the acute frostbite and the normal first-ice-of-the-season clumsiness. |
| After such a shocky treatment everything comes back. Speed, determination, trust, reliability. |  |
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In fact it all comes back in a pitch or two. |
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| Morning coffee at the gas station. No gas this time, just coffee. . |  |
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The portable drying rack withheld a few loads of 20 kilos. But finally gave up on us. |
| Guy likes to cook something tasty, but the legendary dessert is what we all took after him. Ice cream. . |  |
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a dinner for the hungry! |
| It's 8 AM, still dark. The aproach is behind us, 600 metres of ice will follow in the next 4 hours. |  |
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Weather does not permit too much joy as we solo the first half of the route. Lots of snow between the ice cascades plus a strong wind |
| Even though the temperatures have risen, the wind made sure everything froze solid on contact. We are soon turned in two ice zombies. |  |
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6 rappels using in-situ abalakovs brings us down fast. |
| Farm of Stig in Britta, where our base camp was. , . |  |
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| Guy's pre-departure party suit.. |  |
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When I was brought to bed by flu, Klemen and Urban continued to explore the vicinity of Setermoen. They made the first ascent and an exploring trek to Soerdal, in search of some new major lines. |
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Sunrise at about 10 30 AM.It lasts for a few minutes, then it sets again. Such is the winter time on 70th parallel. |
| Office time. l. |  |
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When my condition improved to the point that I was able to drive, we moved west, to gain some beneficial influence of the sea air. Accordingly to my doctory verdict I should blososm like a japanese cherry. |
Japanese cherries blossom elsewhere, surely not on Arctic treshold. Senja island was a great change anyway. |
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Mountains with great walls, fiords and small fishing communities. |
| Senjahopen is a small fishing village of about 400 people. Nested nicely around a bay underneath the mountains is a place where one can easily settle for a while. . |  |
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A bay, close to Skaland town. This view was captured during the approach to one of the ice falls. |
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The ice line we found close to the road so we could climb it fast, staring in the midday. The other spotted lines were supposed to be saved for the next days. |
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Klemen |
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| The base of the climb was pretty snowy, but hard and stabile. . |  |
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Finkonna, and the icelines. |
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This was the last of the nice faces Senja showed to us. the next mornig greeted us with blowing winds and snow. |
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| We could only climb in falls close to water, without approaches and sheltered from avalanches.. |  |
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The regular morning excercise |
| Ersfjord, and the obvious and very interesting mixed lines. |  |
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Foggy and extremely windy day. |
| . The approach to the wall |  |
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| Wind blew all the snow upwards to the rocky face itself. The accommulation was about 3 metres of powder. | |
200 hundred metres lower, as we were left by avalanche |
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| With not much time left and a particular experience behind we spend the last two days around the island visiting villages and hidden bays. |  |
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There was a short window of god weatherupon our departure, as if the elements wanted to apologize for all the nuisances. |
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We should get back here some day. There's a lot to do and It can't snow all the time! |
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