With a week off work to take we headed to Rjukan for a cheeky last minute break. It was going to be either Norway or Scotland but Norway won the day as the convenience of climbing fat ice falls with short walk-ins was a lot appealing than the potential sufferfest and poor conditions that can be Scottish Winter climbing.
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Rjukan is a village 300m above sea level in Telemark Southern Norway and throughout the winter months gets very little sun. Flanked by soaring hills and mountains up to 1800m and with more than its fair share of precipitation it has optimum conditions for producing icefalls. It has to be said it is one of the best ice climbing venues on earth for the average weekend ice climber (or even rare ice climber like myself).
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 | | Me on the first lead of the trip |
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 | | Pilar messing on something hard |
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Norway is super expensive so I would recommend self catering in an Airbnb or staying at the Old School Hostel. Car rental is extortionate however it is still savvy getting a large 4x4 as heavy snowstorms can make driving a nightmare.
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 | Krokan
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 | Pilar on Lead
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On first acquaintance the village feels like a godforsaken gloomy place with nothing but an industrial museum to look around. However it does have charm and is very picturesque when the skies are blue. It has to be said though, in winter there ain't much to do apart from ice climb or telemark ski.
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 | | Enjoying perfect conditions |
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 | | Pilar having fun |
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We spent the first two days cragging at the awesome Krokan and Ozzimosis. Both crags are single pitch and have easily accessible ice across the grade range. We led up the easier lines to begin with and dropped top-ropes down the more challenging routes. Not being much of an ice climber I found conditions to be near perfect and I could relax more than usual whilst climbing ice (something that can I find terrifying).
The Bullen (WI-3+, 30m) at Krokan is one of the most climbed Icefalls in Rjukan.
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 | | Me on the classic Bolgen |
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 | | Pitch 2 |
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Climbing ice seems to be exhausting regardless of the route you are on and by day three our muscles were screaming. Still we hiked up to the classic route Bolgen (WI-3+, 180m+) after a leisurely breakfast. This route was advertised as being 3 to 4 pitches of WI-3 to 4. Sounded perfect. However with an approach a bit of a slog and further investigation on our phones revealing that the route is more like 6 to 7 pitches plus abseil descent we started to wonder if we had started early enough. Being nothing short of exhausted we climbed the first two pitches and decided to abseiled off of some in-situ tatt. Definitely a route to come back to when fully rested and with an earlier start. Its a beautiful climb and should be on every visitors list. Once down we went to explore the Lower Gorge as a consultation. Here the routes were buried in snow but conditions were still good.
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 | | Pilar approaching a belay |
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 | | The walk out |
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 | | The Lower Gorge |
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 | | Pilar in the gorge |
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A snowstorm came in the next day (forcing us to rest). However, for the following two days we cragged, enjoying perfect soft ice at Krokan and Ozzimosis again, having the crags to ourselves and climbing in both sunshine and in foggy atmospheric conditions at Ozzi where we climbed variations of the classic
Ozzimosis Fall (WI-4, 25m).  | | Classic Bullen |
|  | | Placing a screw |
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 | | Ozzimosis a classic |
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 | | Pilar placing gear |
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Undoubtedly driving back to the airport was the crux of the trip. With another snowstorm hitting the drive ended up taking five and a half hours and with only a little Suzuki (apparently 4 wheel drive at least) we narrowly avoided catastrophe on more than one occasion when the car lost traction completely. Luckily all Olso flights were delayed and we managed not to miss ours. I'd highly recommend getting an SUV unless you are experienced in driving in heavy snow.
