Climbing in Norway

Slab action in Setesdal

We have just got back from a six week long trip to Norway, walking and climbing. There is a lot of developed climbing in Norway, and  vast potential for more. You can find trad, sport, plaisir and of course mountaineering. Routes vary in length from single pitch to the longest rock climbs in Europe on the Troll Wall. Guidebooks are available to most places but are usually in Norwegian.

We started in the south at Setesdal. The climbing here is predominantly slab climbing on granite with both single pitch and multi-pitch climbs. The guide book has 500 routes, so in 1 week we only scratched the surface. We started with single pitch ‘sport’ routes.  Here ‘sport’ means ‘bolted’, but very sportingly - you can easily go 10 m or more between bolts. The routes are between 40m and 50m long so you all gather at the top and then abseil off. Most of the routes we did were excellent. We also did some longer multi-pitch routes. The longest and best was on ‘Monsterwand’ and was 830m of climbing in 14 pitches, with a summit book to sign at the top.

That 'lost in a sea of granite' feeling

From here we moved on to Nissedal, a fantastic area with loads of great trad climbing. There is a long lake surrounded by forest with granite domes poking out everywhere, rather like Tuolomne Meadows near Yosemite. We climbed on Haegefjell, which is an enormous granite crag 1000m high at the highest point and 2km long. 

The top half of Haegefjell. 1000m high, 2km long.

The main route we climbed was Via Lara which is often touted as the best grade IV in Norway. It was very good, rather like climbing on the Idwal slabs, it follows a crack line all the way up. The difference is that it’s 350m long, with 7 pitches and no one else there!

Via Lara

This last point is worth noting, in our experience a ‘busy day’ in Norway is when there is another party climbing on the same crag as you. Virtually all our climbs were done while we were the only party on the crag.  Both Nissedal and Setesdal have huge potential for new routes. They both have lots of enormous, attractive looking crags with only one route on, or none at all!

After Nissedal we did some walking and driving. Three days driving in fact to get to Lofoten in Arctic Norway. You may have heard of Lofoten, it’s well known for the climbing and there is a guidebook in English published by Rockfax (though currently out of print). The Lofoten Islands are known as the Magic Isles and while it’s difficult to pin down what it actually is about the place, we found that it felt like a magic place to us and we were very reluctant to leave. 

Climbing above Solvaer

The walking, particularly in the Western part, is fantastic - but I’m writing about climbing here. Once again you can do single pitch or multi-pitch, with the majority of the multi-pitch routes being just right for a day out (8 – 10 pitches). There is great variety, sea cliff, roadside, long walk in, multi-day epic and mountaineering.  Grades from IV up to IX and every climb we did was excellent. We kind of ensured this by only doing routes from the top 50 in the guidebook. With good weather any trad climber would find Lofoten a fantastic venue. We had some days out that were just perfect. 

A busy day on Bare Blabaer

We had hoped to visit Stetind, Norway’s national mountain on the way back but after two weeks of blue skies it finally rained and we had a wet drive south.

Stetind

Obviously there were dozens of places to climb that we didn’t have time to visit but a rock road trip in Norway has to include a visit to The Troll Wall, particularly this year as it is 50 years since the first ascent. There is a pleasant campsite below the wall, from which you you can gaze upwards, but you do not get an ideal of the scale; it looks like you could easily climb it in a day! However, it is 1100m of vertical and overhanging climbing with several hours of scrambling to get to the base. 

The Troll Wall, in shade vertically above our car.

For a better experience we walked to the top and looked down; here the enormous height is all too obvious!

Peering into the void!

A great trip, great weather and loads more venues to go back to. The only problem is it was 6 days driving to get to Lofoten, and a total of nearly six thousand miles. 

Only two routes on this crag

Reine Slab 350m high. Only 2 routes on here too. Similar crags nearby with no routes on at all - enormous potential