UKC

Planning a summer trip to Norway, including the Narvik region, and looking for some help regarding a couple of routes.

Does anyone have experience of climbing on Gangnesaksla, specifically the route Gangesvaet, described as Norwegian 5 and about 30 pitches in the guidebook? Is the grade roughly accurate, and is the route finding ok?

Also, has anyone done the route Livet lever on the NW face of Eidetind, N6- and 16 pitches? Found a description online that suggests the start of the route may be drawn in the wrong place in the guidebook photos: http://kuus-aa.blogspot.fi/2011/09/eidetind-2011-fail.html (in Finnish). Those climbers retreated, but I'd like to know if anyone has done the route, and if so, are the grade and guidebook description/photos accurate?

In reply to RAK:

If you email the guys who write Kuus Aa or leave a comment on the page they'll probably be able to give you some specific beta, they all speak great English and Mikko (Tuksu) has helped me out loads in the past with info for Finnish cliffs.

My impression is that the stuff on the back of Eidetind sees very few ascents. Asking on the Norwegian forum (Steepstone IIRC) is likely to be your best chance I reckon.

On Gangnesaksla, I guess you should try send a mail to 'submariner' as its him who added the crag to UKC and seems to have done another of the 30 pitch routes. They do sound like epic adventures!

Good luck - I'll be interested to hear how your trip goes.

In reply to TobyA:

Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I'll get in touch with the kuus aa folks, and language isn't an issue as I'm Finnish (you might also have noticed that I posted something similar to this on slouppi, not sure if you follow those forums).

I also found submariner's photos, his is the only account and photos of climbing on Gangnesaksla that I could find online.

Re Steepstone, it seems to be out of action...? I'd briefly looked for a Norwegian equivalent to UKC, but didn't know about that.

In reply to RAK:


Tosi hyvää in that case. There are some Brits living in Norway who are regulars here, they might be able to tell you where to try for a Norwegian forum.

Have you climbed round Narvik before? My impression is that a lot of the stuff in the book is really just the first ascent description (or rumour) written down. There are lots of routes which I suspect the writers haven't done - 10 pitch grade 6s with great descriptions like "follow the obvious corners". Plenty of adventure even with the guide! Have fun.

In reply to TobyA:

Not climbed all that much around Narvik, just Kuglhornet, Stetind Sydpilaren, Eidetind SE buttress, that's about it really. We were thinking of trying a route on Gangnesaksla a couple of years ago but we went in early June and there was still quite of lot of snow on it (we also couldn't get to the Kuglhornet ridge because of steep snow).

And I agree, you do get the feeling that some/many of the routes in the guidebook have been climbed just the once. However, given the increasing popularity of Lofoten and the publishing of the guidebook, I expect there will be more repeats of the Narvik area routes as well.