In reply to UKC Articles: I would add to "Prior to our visit, the main development had been by a handful of local climbers as well Austrian activist, Albert Liechtfried and Kurt Astner from Italy" that actually lots of routes up there have been done by Finnish teams over the years. There was even a Finnish language 'home-made' guide to winter climbing around Lyngen from the mid-90s, if I remember compiled by Leo Määttälä who had been climbing up there from the 80s onwards. Harder things have been done in more recent years too.
It seems some annoyance has been caused in Norway over the years by foreign teams finding "new routes" up there and then spreading the news over the net. Although Norwegian ice climbers seem to have taken "hiding their light under a bushel" to extremes of modesty not seen elsewhere, so it is perhaps a bit late to moan about people claiming previously climbed routes if they never wrote a guidebook!
But what Finnish teams have done up there is cloaked in possibly even more mystery by a language that makes Norwegian look simple!
In February 2013, a British team consisting of Neil Gresham, Ian Parnell, Mark Garthwaite and Kenton Cool visited the Lyngen Alps and Lavangen, two rarely explored ice climbing destinations near to Tromso on the Arctic coast of northern Norway.
