An eventful week

The last 10 days have been interesting to say the least.

The aim of last week was for the friluftsliv class to spend 3 days ski-touring, over nighting in snow holes. The chosen site for the snow holes was a steep sided stream bed, with a lee slope and a windward slope. My group of four chose to dig our hole on the windward slope which also caught the sun for most of the day. The rest of the class decided to dig into the lee slope where there was deeper snow. The spot was fairly sheltered from a constant 25 mph wind

Around 3pm the next day the lee slope avalanched partially filling the 3 holes that had been dug there. Luckily nobody was hurt despite 1 girl being carried a short distance and fully buried in the slide and 3 or 4 others who were covered to their waists. After digging out all the buried sleeping bags, cooking kit and clothing we binned the trip and headed back to Levanger. It seems the moral of the story is not to dig your planned snow hole into a lee slope that is being loaded by wind transported snow, spend some time finding a safer location instead.

As a result of some snafu’d communication I have just had a week without lectures instead of joining classmates at a ski school in Dombas. All is not lost as I can join another group of students next week. Instead I have been giving blood in spectacular fashion.

On Thursday whilst top-roping a steep and thin ice pillar with Gudmund I got hit in the face by a large chunk of ice. I had swung my right axe into the top of a bulge and was watching it to see the quality of the placement as you do. A chunk of ice literally exploded out of the bulge and caught me just under my nose. I spluttered with surprise and shock and liberally coated the ice in front of me with blood. My mouth had become an air brush, loaded with bright red paint. I assumed that I only had a nose bleed, so sprayed my way up the rest of the pillar and set up another top rope over another route. Gudmund climbed this while I belayed with a wad of snow stuffed into my nose. Rest, Snow, Compress, Elevate.

When we got back to the car my face was still dyeing chunks of snow a bright red. So I had a look in the mirror and decided a trip to the hospital was probably a good idea. 2 stitches later I was set free to wander home, feeling like I had been facing Amir Khan for 5 rounds.

Warm days and cold nights are a recipe for disaster if you travel by bike. The route to join friends for dessert, whiskey and cards went via a steepish downhill. An icy steepish downhill. As the back wheel slid away from under me I knew I was going too fast to get a foot down and a trip down the road on my backside was inevitable. And painful. No stitches this time, but I will need to take the bits of road out of my arm soon and put them back before the council complains. My heartfelt thanks to Gudmund and Kirsten for helping me plug holes in my body twice in 2 days and especially for the effective top quality liquid analgesics, matured for 10 years in oak casks in a misty land far away.

Sunshine, spindrift and stuck ropes

I spent last weekend climbing with Martin. We had beautiful weather on Saturday, a real blue sky day. So being of above average intelligence we decided to climb the first route in the shade (bloody freezing) 2nd route in the sun (melting fast but lovely and warm) and the third route back in the shade (really cold now the sun is fast going down and we are both soaked from the sunshine route)

On Sunday we were both feeling pretty tired so decided to go after only one route and ahve a short day and an early end. I picked a beckoning gully right beside the road but unfortunately over the river. Neither of us was certain that the river ice was strong enough so I gallantly allowed Martin the honour of testing it. The ice held and I soon was leading the first, deceptively easy looking pitch.

7 hours later we had completed 2 abseils to regain the base of the icefall. Then the ropes got stuck. Really well and truly not budging at all. I ascended the borrowed 10mm rope using 2 tiblocs, causing some stripping of the sheath (sorry Gudmund!) and released the offending knots using my knife. 1 hour and 2 abseils on the good 8mm later I was back on terra firma, wiser for the experience and feeling pretty done in.

In all, a typical 'quick day out'!

Making climbing communication easier

After a bit of a belated start I have been getting back into a winter climbing frame of mind with some great ascents of short and long icefalls in the area. I have climbed with 3 different partners, all of whom spoke pretty good English (much better than my Norwegian) although it was obviously not their first language.

Communication in the winter environment is usually harder than in summer, as climbing often happens in worse weather conditions with wind, snow and spindrift sloughs all obscuring the message. When the climbers speak different languages and are from different climbing cultures then clear communication becomes essential.

I have a system that I use that I find very simple, possibly foolproof. It is based on an understanding of what each member of the climbing pair are doing at any time. The leader has to deal with any problems alone. The second cannot really provide any help- they cannot see the issue or give any useful advice other than 'Have faith in yourself'.

The leader leads, dealing with any problems that occur on their own. They build a belay when they have finished leading. They stop leading for a host of reasons: the pitch is completed, the leader runs out of energy, the climbing is too hard for them, etc.

When the belay is complete they shout "SAFE" This is the only spoken-or shouted -communication between the climbers.

The second will then take the lead rope from their belay device. They can then take off extra jackets, change gloves, faff and begin to strip the belay station, leaving as many pieces of protection in place to protect themself as is necessary.

Meanwhile the leader is purposefully faffing- putting on a belay jacket, deciding where the rope will go, arranging the stance and locating food and drink etc. When they are ready, and NOT before, they haul up the slack rope. When there is no more slack rope to pull up, they put the rope into their belay device and take it in tight.

The second will have observed the rope being pulled in. They know they are not on belay yet. The rope goes tight, then loose again whilst the leader places it into their belay device. The rope is pulled in again in a series of short pulls as the leader takes in through their belay device. The rope goes tight on the second and remains tight. The second knows they are on belay and can strip the remainder of their belay station and begin to climb. If they start to climb and the rope remains slack they should stop and wait for it to be taken in again.

In reading various climbing handbooks I have come across advice such as 'avoid buying black ropes as "take on black" could be confused with "give me slack"' In reality the word "slack" can also be confused with "lovely crack" "I want my money back" "I'm having a panic attack" and so on. If you use a simple communication system you can buy all the cheap black ropes that the other less informed climbers avoid.

I think that shouted, extensive communication between 2 climbers is unnecessary, stressful and confusing. A leader does their job, a second does their own and both should know what the other is doing. The only spoken communication in this system is the word "SAFE" therefore if the second hears or half hears any shouted word then it means "I'm safe". The only exception is "Aaaiiiieeeeeeeee" -the sudden tightening of the rope will give a clue as to what has happened!

Another means of getting clear communication is to use radios- fine until they are dropped, or the batteries run out. Radio handsets are also pretty hard to use with gloves on. If using radios it makes sense to have a back-up system agreed on for when they fail.

Whatever your communication system, the essential aspect in making it work is understanding it before the leader starts to climb. One partner inthe past didn't communicate at all. He just pulled hard on the rope until I started to climb, not knowing if I was on belay or if we were climbing together. I was unhappy with this to say the least. Knowing that it would happen would have helped immensely.

3 days in the 'wild'

I didn't have any lessons last week so with the kind help of Ragnar and Eivind I escaped civilization for 3 days in the hills. I borrowed a pulk and skiied around 9k on tracks to arrive at a free, clean and quietly empty cabin.




On the next day I got up early and attempted a ski ascent of the highest mountain nearby, Hermannsnasa, 1032m. I reached a height of 800m, spending the last 90 minutes navigating in a whiteout.

I then realised that coming down was going to be much harder then going up. How can you estimate distance travelled when skiing downhill in a whiteout, or follow a bearing? There must be techniques but I do not know them. Literaly 2 minutes after I turned around and started to ski back downhill the clouds started to lift and I could see shapes and horizons again.

Momentum carried me further downhill, quashing the voice that was encouraging another about turn, telling me to chase the clouds up the hill again. I skiied on, attempting telemark turns, following my ski tips to a frozen lake through pines and powder.

After some exquisite skiing through 2 inches of fresh powder on a hard base I got to the lake, made a seat and dug my sarnies out. Just in time to watch the summit of Hermannsnasa appear out of the clouds!


Throughout my return journey down the river back to the cabin the mountain summit remained cloud free and sunstruck, almost smug in its untouched state. However, the 2 peacefull hours of skiing down the frozen river back to the cabin made a superb consolation prize.


Overnight 2 inches of wet snow came down. The ski back to the road was an effort, until with a stroke of genius I chose a track that led to a higher elevation. You see, its colder higher up, therefore the snow will be dryer, much more pleasant to ski in. The snow condition definately improved whilst the visibility unquestionably deteriorated! More whiteout nav, amazing rime covered trees and back to the road at last, absolutely knackered!