Rjukan Ice – CC Meet 2015

Ascent of Gaustaspokelse

Ascent of Gaustaspokelse

This year’s Rjukan ice trip was sadly without Smiler, but luckily not without smiles. Although, it was looking for a while as if the crew might be rather depleted, due to a spate of injuries and illness. First, a handful of people had to pull out due to injury. Then – disaster – Smiler came down with a debilitating illness which forced him to pull out for this trip. Ah, but Smiler had already done the bulk of the work, and Torbjørn who runs the hostel in Rjukan, knows how everything works at that end so what could possibly go wrong?

…It turns out the answer was Torbjørn could fall and break his leg. At this point I was wondering who was going to fall sick or injured next, so I’m relieved to say that despite the absence of our organisational veterans at both the Norwegian and UK ends of the trip, the always friendly staff at the Rjukan Gjestegård did us proud and everything somehow still ran smoothly.

Kelly MacLennan at Krokan -this was Kelly's first ice climbing trip - she must have enjoyed it because has been climbing  all winter on scottish ice since her return

Kelly MacLennan at Krokan -this was Kelly’s first ice climbing trip – she must have enjoyed it because has been climbing all winter on scottish ice since her return

The final Team Rjukan this year consisted of myself (Peri Stracchino) as replacement leader, Steve Jenkins, Dave Hayward, Steve Blackman, Roy Lemmon, Matt Burrows, Steve Woollard, Ian Harris, Kelly MacLennan, Chris Dickinson, Richard Spencer, Pete Frost, Mark Jones, Paul Hastwell, Mike Threlfall and Robin Garton, plus Oslo Climbing Club local Ben Campbell-Kelly. We found ice and conditions this year ‘interesting’. In the 48 hours before we arrived 2 metres of snow fell in the west of Norway, leading to traffic chaos in Oslo and some challenging wades on the approaches. We made a foray to Kong Vinter one day, but after wading through waist deep snow on the approach, peered over the edge of the ravine to find the routes mostly buried. Did I say waist deep? At one point Steve Jenkins found himself neck deep in a drift without touching bottom. Most of the winter this year had been quite mild, and the ice had been slow to form and those routes which had formed were quite thin. This combined with the deep snow cover to produce some tricky conditions, which led to our final injury when Dave H took a whipper off rotten ice on Trappfoss and injured his ankle, putting him out of action for the rest of the trip. This at least gave us the opportunity to test out Norwegian medical services and Dave came hopping out on new state of the art crutches, which came complete with retractable spikes for handling the icy pavements. He seemed happy as Larry in the circumstances, turns out the doctor attending him was a sports injuries expert, so Dave had given him the third degree about all his existing niggles and picked up some new tips.

Paul Hastwell and Mark Jones on Bakveien, somebody else on Nye Vemorkfoss

Paul Hastwell and Mark Jones on Bakveien, somebody else on Nye Vemorkfoss

As well as the active climbing contingent, special mention should go to Ben Campbell-Kelly, an ex-pat and ex CC member now based in Oslo who had to give up his own plans to climb due to imminent ankle surgery but still made a special trip over in order to give Pete Frost a promised lift, and gave an enjoyable slide show about some of his expeditions to Patagonia and Yosemite on Saturday evening.

Over the week the temperature plunged and conditions improved. After a first couple of days enjoying a thoroughly Scottish experience, i.e. climbing routes with streams of water running down our necks and up our arms, more routes started to come in – although we were pretty much limited to Krokan, the Upper Gorge, Ozzimosis and some of the town centre routes – Chris, Kelly and Co. did Fabrikfossen and I a team did Bolgen. Teams also got on Bakveien, Nye Vemorkfoss and Rjukanfossen. The Vemork Bridge routes and Lower Gorge

Vast quantities of snow at Krokan

Vast quantities of snow at Krokan

remained firmly out though, despite our attempts to encourage them by longing stares. It says a lot about the quality of the climbing in Rjukan that despite these limitations there was still enough climbing for the week.

And we hope that Smiler will soon be recovered enough to be back into the thick of things.
Latest news is that the drugs seem to be starting to work. Here’s hoping to be back climbing soon. S.

Peri Stracchino

Posted in Meets, News

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