Rjukan day 3

Ice climbing at Rjukan from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Today we were in the Upper Gorge. We started with climbing Bakveien (WI4) in 3 pitches and abseiled down the line of Vemorkbrufoss Vest. Then we went to Nedre Svingfoss which we climbed in series to simulate the girls leading, they built some more belays for themseves and after 2 pitches drilled an abalakov thread to abseil off.

Conditions so far this week...

Krokan: Unknown (WI2), Kjokentrappa (WI4), Gaustaspokelse (WI4), Bullen (WI3) and Jomfrua (WI4) are all seeing many ascents.

Upper Gorge: Trapfoss (WI4), Bakveien (WI4), Sabotorfossen (WI5), Nye Vemorkfoss (WI5) and Nedre Svingfoss (WI3) are all also popular. Tracey's eyes is buried under snow (and this has been sloughing off). Blindtarmen hasn't been climbed in a while but is complete. Vemorkbrufoss Vest looks great but Ost is much thinner. Host and at least 1 other route nearby are also climbeable.

Lower Gorge: Camillafoss and Pentium (both WI3) are seeing ascents but there is a lot of snow down there.

Centre: Fabrikfossen is buried (has seen an ascent of the first few pitches until they ground to a halt under heavy snow) but Tjonstadtbergfossen is apparently good.

Ozzimossis: plenty of ice and numerous ascents have cleared the snow off this week.