Talking the Talk and Walking the Moonwalk

Has slab climbing become fasionable? Well, at least this particular route seems to be the talk of the town

Scott Mooneys first ascent two weeks ago of Moonwalker at Bistaberget near Nyköping, about an hour and a half from Stockholm got a couple of us buzzing. Not that it’s a stunning line, don't get me wrong, it's not by any means bad but it was more the style that intrigued me, a bouldery and slabby face climb at Scandinavian 9- (8a) with miniscule holds, delicate feet and funky sequences, a style not that common on routes of that difficulty. Last weekend a couple of us went down to see what the whole shebang was all about and try the route. We played around on it for a bit and even though I technically was rather close I felt like I was miles away. Erik Lundqvist showed us who was master of his domain by redpointing it fairly easily while Martin and I looked and felt fat, week and uncoordinated.

Martin "Goldie locks" Lejdebrant playing on Moonwalker

This Saturday young and talented Simon Andersson, who couldn’t join us last weekend, was eager to tag along to get even with this sneaky little devil. Weather looked pretty grim when we left Stockholm in a drizzle but the forecast had predicted better conditions at Bista. It proved to be half right, just slightly better; one of the few routes that were reasonably dry was our plat du jour which was good enough for us. Most everything else was dripping so we warmed up with a shot of coffee and a cigarette before we set to work. Again the crux felt ridiculously hard but after a few goes and some fine tuning of the moves the holds suddenly felt resonable and not too far a part and the send was a fact. Simon followed my example and fired it as well, his first route of that grade IAD. F**king Brilliant! Feeling rather satisfied with our feat, we cooled down with some more coffee and some smokes before heading off to nearby Simonsberget where we scrambled around for a while before calling it quits.

Spring, for real!

Style is everything. Simon Andersson climbing Cosmos Kid, yet another of Stockholm's classics. Maja Fresk and Hedda the Basenji sucking up some UV-rays.

Spring in Stockholm

Stefan Wulf sticking the final dyno on Mr Magister to make the first send of the year and by doing so earning himself a beer. Photo: Erik Lindvall

Travelling back from Chalten was maybe not a nightmare, but definately not pleasant. nearly 60 hours of travel via El Calafate, Ushuaia, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and London before landing at Arlanda where Sofia, Audun and Hilde where waiting to suprise me. I once again was reminded of the fact that I really don't like travelling, more hate it, but I certainly love visiting new places. It's a quite big difference.

Anyhow, it's great to be back home in Stockholm with my family as well as friends. Climbing wise it feels like I got the timing just perfect. The winterseason was just diminishing as I left for Argentina and now as I get back spring season is accellerating. Saturday was the first day on rock for me after coming home last week. Splitter winter weather made climbing on the south facing Dödskalleberget quite pleasant and it attracted quite a crowd. These first days of early spring on Dödskalleberget have sort of become an institution for the Stockholm climbing scene and even though I've climbed these routes countless times it's so nice to feel the sun gradually heating up the rock after it's winter hibernation. It's good to be back home.

Topping out Holidays in Eden, one of my favorite routes around town. Photo: Erik Lindvall

Patagonia: An inspired Moment

Thanks to Seba at Aylen Aike for making our stay so pleasant. Thomas posing for the wall of fame.

After a wet departing party for some gringos and long night and a long night that ended up at the lokal Tango place in El Chalten, Thomas Meling and I got inspired to make use of the last little window of good weather. We started our hike up to Paso Guillamet after an early dinner and made it up to the bivi well past midnight. After a few houres sleep in the pass followed by a shot of coffee and some Clif bars we started scrambing up the Brenner route in head lights and summited at 8.30 am. We rapped the Amy couloir and were back by 10 just as the wind picked up, just as the forcast had predicted. A mellow lunch at the pass before we raced down the talus and made it back to the Rio Electrico bridge in 2.40 h. 17.40 CTC. Way better than submitting to being hung over and watching movies at the hostel.

Scrambling in magic morning light. Fhoto: Thomas Meling

Patagonia, a late update.

A lot of stuff has been going on over last couple of weeks but too slow inetrnet connection. David and I have mostly unsucessfully attempted various things. A lot of cool stuff has been done by other climbers. Such as Magnus Eriksson's and Thomas Meling's integral ascent of the Mate y Porro" on the north pillar of Fitzroy just houres after the first complete ascent. Here are a few pics from David's and my attempt of the Pendulorama-Kearney/Night on the north pillar of Fitz. Unfortunately David got sick and started puking on the first bivi. A pity since conditions were perfect.  The pendulorama variation was not as bad as people have been saying and is in my opinion an excellent option if the gully from the other side isn't in. A brilliant line in it's whole that's worth coming back for. Definately! We descended via the regular approach gully (bowling alley). Not recomended in warm weather! To quote Jules in Pulp Fiction: "That was divine intervention".

[caption id="attachment_576" align="aligncenter" width="553" caption="Stemming up a not to bad corner on the Pendulorama. Photo: David Fält"][/caption]

 

 

Underground activities

Tsunami. Photo: Jörgen Sölander

This weekend started out with a trip back to the silver mines outside Sala to climb with my friend Stefan Lindblom. Sala is located 20 km north of my home town Västerås and is most known for the mining which today the  has ceased and given place to slightly more recreational exploits. Over 400 tons of silver where excavated from the mines that where in use between the 1400s till 1908 and where for a period the most importand mining site in Sweden.  Over the past decade Stefan has put a huge amount of effort in to developing the ice and mixed climbing in the old mine holes resulting in some of the hardest graded mix routes in the country.  Started off the day by on sighting and thus making the first repeat of  Thurneman, a dicey and technincal mixed line. Stefan added a new route, Den magiska cirkeln, which involved quite technical climbing as well as a thuggy finnish around a roof on to the ice. I got the honor to repeat it and did so first go. I also got the opportunity to try his test piece Tsunami again and managed to send it this time, first try, pulling off the first repeat of this burl fest. 

[caption id="attachment_526" align="aligncenter" width="426" caption="Ph: Stefan Lindblom"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="426" caption="Ph: Stefan Lindblom"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_527" align="aligncenter" width="426" caption="Onsighting Thurneman in the old silver mines outside Sala. Photo Stefan Lindblom"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_525" align="aligncenter" width="426" caption="Stefan Lindblom making the first ascent of "Den Magiska Cirkeln". Sala."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_524" align="aligncenter" width="426" caption=""Den Magiska Cirkeln" Photo: Stefan Lindblom"][/caption]

 

 

Winter holidays and a New Year

The last weeks have been spent exploring the ever so exellent winter conditions of the local crags and doing loads of cross country skiing mixed up with some milage climbing indoors, crossfit training and a couple of pathetic efforts of bouldering. The bouldering part doesn't really bother me part from it sucks beeing even weaker than normal. Despite that I figure I'm about three times as strong as i need to be for Patagonia.

During christmas I got the opportunity to join my old maestro Stefan Lindblom to the old silver mines outside Sala where he has established heaps of ice and mixed lines. The setting is wicked cool and I got to climb a few of Stefans dry tooling test pieces. I also ha a good burn on his route Tsunami, an unrepeated thug fest. Even though I think drilling hook placements is quite lame I must admit that that the climbing is fun. Considering that its on quarried rock I quess one can live with it. We also went down to Ågelsjön again and Stefan and I, as well as climbing the ever so fat lines on the main wall both repeated Peter Värvels old M8 on the lake cliff . I flashed it with preplaced gear, not the best of styles but it just worked out that way. Any how a way cool line that deserves more traffic. Big ups to Peter for leading the way of this kind of climbing more than 10 years ago and to climb it on natural pro.

Thanks again to my ever so trigger happy friend Erik Lindvall for sending me these photos from our day out last week at Uddudde with Måns Berg.

Gallery

Gritstone Ice

[caption id="attachment_432" align="aligncenter" width="607" caption="Climbing a very rarely formed ice pillar on Gritstoneberget outside Stockholm. December 14th. Photo: Erik Lindvall"][/caption]

Southward bound

For some reason I'm really psyched about the winter that has arrived way too early and actually pretty exited that the ice is building rapidly. I never thought that I would care much for ice climbing other than as a substitute for proper climbing but it seems I was dead wrong. I’ve really been looking forward to this season. And what seems even more alarming is that I seem to have got all caught up in the alpine game and the other day I bought tickets to Buenos Aires with El Chalten in Patagonia as the final destination. One month of alpine climbing or at least the chance to do some of it if weather provides an opportunity. How did this happen? Ok, I've always enjoyed long routes in the mountains every now and then and been on a few trips to Greenland for example, but that's mainly been long rock routes with some alpine approaches. But this? Now I'm actually looking forward to climbing some icy couloirs and chopping ice out of cracks. Naïve probably!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="619" caption="The hills outside Antalya"][/caption]

Now we, Sofia and I that is, just spent a week in Geyikbayiri in Mediterranean Turkey. This was our first trip together without kids since we had any at all and it was a holiday for sure! One week of limestone sports climbing on sick karst formations in beautiful settings, nice and perfect temps and more or less full board lodging, as far from dirt bagging you can imagine. So good! Climbing in and around the caves offers varied and three dimensional climbing on mostly tufa formations and a lot of the routes we climbed were 35m+. We rented a cabin at JoSiTo’s campground which served pretty decent food as well. For breakfast there where various options such as Scrambled eggs or fruit salad and dinners where rather huge portions of home made cross over cuisine. In short, a perfect holiday destination.

[caption id="attachment_421" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Goat."][/caption]

 We also got the opportunity to take a rest day and go into Antalya and paid a visit to a 600 year old Hammam, a Turkish bath house, or spa if you prefer. What could possibly be better than getting scrubbed by a big hairy Turkish man? The experience was definitely worth the money. The rest of the day was spent in the old town drinking freshly squeezed orange and pomegranade juice and, checking out turkish fast food and haggling. A part from that Antalya wasn't quite my cup of tea.

Summing the climbing all up I think it’s a long time since I climbed so well, consistently on sighting nearly everything that came in my way and feeling a playful ease while climbing. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been climbing a lot and training a fair bit, if it’s because this type of climbing suites me, if the ratings are a tad soft or just because I simply didn’t really care if I would fail. Never the less it was fun to boost the ego a bit. Sof flashed 7c and 7b+ and I managed to do 15 routes betwwen 7c and 8a on sight  (10/11 7c,  3/4 7c+ and 1/7 8a) in five days of climbing. I didn’t try one single route twice. Now it’s time to get fit for Patagonia. Bombah!

[caption id="attachment_422" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Morning yoga on the porch."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_443" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Crag dogs"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_444" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Sofia climbing in to the mist at Sarkit"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_446" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Olli Petteri Manni"][/caption]

Valle di Orco

[caption id="attachment_161" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Chilling on the ledge below the 8a pitch on Itaca, Sergent. Tom getting ready for an attempt."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_163" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Tom attempting the 8a-pitch on Itaca, Sergent, Valle di Orco."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_244" align="aligncenter" width="461" caption="Photo: Tom Randall"][/caption]

Autumn in Bohuslän

[caption id="attachment_156" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="Electric Avenue. Photo: Ivo Ninov"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_157" align="aligncenter" width="281" caption="Oskar Alexandersson sending Petter Restorps Backdraft. Skälefjäll, Bohuslän"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_155" align="aligncenter" width="299" caption="Hilde Björgaas climbing the beautiful Gamzatti on Skälefjäll, Bohuslän"][/caption]

Summit Post.

[caption id="attachment_140" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mårten Blixt and Erik Massih on top of Tinninertup IV after making the FA of Qivitoq, 2002."][/caption]

Finnish Splitters

[caption id="attachment_222" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Sofia racking up."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_223" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Anita Rostén on one of Kräkiniemis small splittergems."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_224" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Bomber! Anita Rostén finds comfort."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_225" align="aligncenter" width="336" caption="Sof playing on yet another gem."][/caption]

War and Poetry

Morgonfixen 03.05 am
Ca 40 timmar innan nästa, koffeintabletter ej inräknade.

Oskar, War and Poetry P17

War and Poetry P18
ca 300 m dieder framför oss. Foto: Oskar Alexandersson

War and Poetry, P25 "the bowstring crack"
Foto: Oskar Alexandersson

War and Poetry topo, Källa: Mountain Info

Life is Beautiful

Kom hem till fru och barn i småborgerliga Gamla Enskede igår efter nästan fem veckor i Tasermuitfjorden. Tillsammans med Oskar "handsome cowboy" Alexandersson, samt Hannavirrpanna, Trondheims-Hilde, Snyggmange, Pekka och Ryssen har vi vandrat massvis för att få klättra lite grand. Ganska mycket bra väder i år för en vandringssemester. Hilde och Hanna klättrade Left Piller Route aka Brittish Route, VI 5.11 A1 700 m på Nalu i ett push utan fasta rep eller bivy. Första helkvinnliga best av Nalu. Både förste- och andretjej klättrade, dvs inte jumarerade. Ryssen och Mange klättrade samma Left Piller Route i ca samma stajl. Dessutom tillbringade Hilde o hanna närmare en vecka med en del halvdant väder på War and Poetry innan de vände ca 200 m från toppen. Oskar "probably the badest ass in the valley" Alexandersson och jag han bland annat med en första fribestigning av Life Is Beautiful VI- 5.13- (7c+) 600 m på 21 timmar upp och ned. Vi klättrade hylla till hylla, förste och andrecowboy ledde och följde fritt och inga fasta rep användes, inga bultar placerades men vi utnyttjade en del av de gamla från aidbestigningar, samtliga på standplatser. Oskar och jag han även med en fribestigning av Geneva Dihedral på Ulamatorsuaq, dvs War and Poetry som Todd Skinner med följe döpte frivarianten till, VI 5.12+ 1000 m. Ett push, inga fasta rep, inga stashar (däremot fick vi kramar och några slurkar te av jäntorna strax under Black heart, repl 15), on sight av försteman, tvåan följde fritt (tot 3 häng av tvåan, på lätta repl fö). 30 h upp och ned. 3 h paus under nattens mörkaste timmar.



Imorgon bär det av på familjesemester till Mojavato och Uskedalen i Norge för lite sportklättring och lite fina sprickor.

Nalumasortoqs Sydvästvägg.


Hilde och Hanna på moränen ca 1 h från insteget på Nalus Left Pillar

Probably the baddest ass in the valley. Hemtäljd pipa men inte hemodlat innehåll.

Life is Beautiful, 3:dje repl "the Wasa pitches", 5.11+. Här bor det knäckehäxor...

Pitch 6, "the Micah Dash memorial pitch" 5.13-

Midnight cowboys

Farsan och Jim, kl sex på morgonen

Oskar följer på Left Pillar Route

På väg upp till Ulamatorsuaq och War and Poetry

Mer bilder kommer nog...