To celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary, Kelly and I gave the family a 2-week trip to Norway. Hosted by our good Norwegian friends, Henrik and Stine (and their daughter, Vilde), we spent the majority of our trip on the water and in the mountains…for the most part, family-friendly adventure hiking and sailing/motor-boating in an amazing land of sea and cliff.

We did enough climbing to help avoid “distracted-daddy syndrome,” but not really enough for the full-value TR.

Yet, with in-print guidebooks hard to come by and details (in English) scarce on the net, I couldn’t help but try to evoke beta, photos, and trip reports.

Some of you ST folks have got the scoop, right?

Where you been?

Lofoten islands anyone?

The (hopefully) evocative stimulus:

We spent our first two days in Oslo. The city has sport-climbing cliffs scattered around the hills above the city, with much of it easily accessible by public transportation.

We had a family day at Hauktjern, a scenic crag set beside a lake. I’m just sharing a couple pictures from the day, primarily because I got embarrassingly shut down on both of my “big” on-sight attempts. The ego-protecting cognitive spin = it was jet lag.

The crew heading for the train in downtown Oslo:

and, Samantha making quick work of a fun little 5.6 hand crack:

We spent the next few days in Henrik’s and Stine’s summer house on the Oslo fjord. Henrik just bought a new motorboat for cruising around the fjord; a highlight was a day’s excursion out to a beautiful little island for a bit of hiking, swimming, and relaxing.

Next up was the Hemsedal valley, about a 3-hour drive northwest of Oslo. The valley is lined with dramatic cliffs and is conveniently located for jaunts out to the western fjords.

Basecamp:

Our best day there was centered on a hike for Kelly and a climb for me.

Kelly, Henrik, and Stine (with Vilde on back) got an early start and hiked Veslehodn mountain in the morning, while I hung out with our girls. Then, the hiking crew met me at the local climbing shop in town at 1pm, from where Henrik and I drove off to climb a route on Skogshoden mountain.

The peaks being close to town (about 20 minute drives to the trailheads) and the late setting sun (approx 9pm) helped us all get our dose of adventure.

I took this picture of Veslehodn at just about the time the hikers were on the summit:

Kelly’s picture of the lake that feeds the waterfall:

The team’s rendezvous point
…the guys in this shop were immensely helpful, spending several beta-giving sessions with me and Henrik as well as printing off more than a dozen pages of handwritten topos and Norwegian web pages with routes and beta...help support ‘em if you are in the area.

Their recommended route was Demonstranten (graded V or V+, depending on topo, which is in the 5.7-8ish YSD range). After my Norwegian sport-climbing spanking, the moderate grade sounded about right, although the twinkling local eyes when describing the route made me wonder.

Here is a view of the mountain and line of the route (in yellow) as well as our topo, a bit worse for wear.

After about 2 hours of hiking and scrambling, we started climbing at 4pm. The first half of the climb heads up easy 5th class slabs and corners, but I thought a line directly along the right ridge looked more fun (the red on the topo). A short 5.8ish hand crack was, indeed, fun; trying to climb around the loose rock, however, was like trying to bass fish between lily pads without catching a snag.

Halfway up the route, we relaxed on a huge grassy ledge and munched on reindeer sausage. Henrik on his way up to the ledge:

The second half of the climb is gorgeous, and now one of my favorite climbs in the grade. You can see most of the route in this picture, starting with an easy offwidth, continuing through exposed face climbing and a section of wild stemming, and finishing up over the steep bulge at the top right of the photo:

Here comes Henrik, after the wild stemming, to join me at the last belay, below the top bulge:
…this belay ledge was a perfectly flat 2 x 2 square of rock that hung out over the entire climb…kinda spooky.

We topped out at about 7:30pm:

Plenty of time to enjoy the view with Cuban cigars Henrik stowed:
(directly across the valley in the second pic is the peak the hikers bagged)

We were back to the cabin about 10pm to have reindeer stew and Danish beers with our beautiful wives.

But, if that isn’t enough stimuli to evoke the desire responses, then I’ll start posting random pics of the fjords.