Öckerö - Malmø by boat

We arrived at Øckerø harbour and brought maps and iPad navigation device to the local Strandbaren, a rough looking pub in the area. We were not disappointed and with massive 1 liter pints we sat down with our maps and plans at an appropriate table. We got the plan layed out and only just avoided a proper fist fight between the locals. We went to sleep at Spooky at midnight.

Map of route with trip notes and photos

Yamamoto

So, following a brilliant weekend - just brilliant - I came back to Denmark to catch up and then I was off to Gothenburg for work Tuesday morning. Summertime change means that it's light until 8pm now which means, after work rock is game on!

I phoned Kaspar (resident climber) and he brought rack and yoor to work and we planned to meet up in the early afternoon. Weather was looking a bit sketchy but Bohuslan was indicating better weather than local Gothenburg. A perfect opportunity to test out whether this area has micro climates like your own Isles. 

Kaspar was on and we managed to grab the rock mobile and head it towards Bohuslan at 15.30. A bit of traffic already built up so a slightly earlier departure will be optimal in the future. 

1 hour an some later we turned off at Munkedal and headed to the "southern crag" of Bohuslan. Place looks excellent in the guide - 40 meter splitter city. 

Kasper did well on the navigation and we arrived at the face of the rock with parking at the base - belay from the car sort of job. 

Place is called "Høgberget" (high mountain) and it is really impressive - steep and blank and quite intimidating. I am glad we had had a good bit of practice already as it would be the sort of place that could put you off unless you already shared a kinship to the rock.

We searched out the route from the topo - it's a weird crag in a way - it's not in the Bohuslan guide and it's in a edge of the Gothenburg guide. They Gothenburg guide is usually really accurate and really a most excellent guide (the best I have seen actually) but on this crag it's not as clear as reality is. The straight splitters in the topo are actually more broken and its a bit tricky to suss out the routes. Kaspar (fairly novitiate at this game) did very well on spotting the lines and we eventually came to agree on what was what. There are basically to amenable routes 5 and 5+ at the crag (VS and HVS) and then above. These were our aim. The whole crag was a bit seeping unfortunately and the sun was behind clouds and it was pretty nippy. So decision was needed: do we engage or not. As the routes are pinched in amongst harder lines it could a real good place for some undesired epic messing around. A classic "should/should not". Fuk it, let's go for it and a minute later Kaspar had coiled the ropes like a pro. I tied on an started up Olivia 5 (VS). Up a ramp and then up a diedre with an insitu crack line. 

A bit wet in places but nothing that couldn't be avoided. Great route with a few tricky spots but excellent gear. Kaspar followed and we rap'd down with the evening still on for it. Next up: Feministisk Alternative 5+ (HVS) and this bad boy looked a bit more gnarly. More steeep, more wet and more manky. No going back though: the fire had been ignited. I started up the sloping full size body crag which in dry condition would make an excellent friction fest, but here it was growwelling slowly upwards in dirt and seepage. It was pretty manky. I liked it. Getting the transition from lying position and up getting a dry handhold on the face and thankfully dry footholds on the lower face was ... exciting. It was a fairly gnarly transition and one that required a bit of care. Gear was ok in dirty cracks so not the most confidence inspiring. I managed the transition and rock was on! 

Further up the break/ramp and up to a shelved at the bottom of a vertical steep crack system. Good amount of breaks between with proper shelves to rest it looked like. But, what hadn't been obvious from below: real bad seepage. The cracks seem oddly dry (but manky) but the good positive jugs on the shelves were alll water puddles. Bugger. I had a moment of doubt of the sense in continuation but the yoor took charge - I remembered the willerup.com ascent of Jasper in full wet conditions ( https://flic.kr/p/5bScD ) and I knew it would go.    

The thing about wet rock is that to a certain extent it does go. Not full on rain water soaked rock but the average seepage type crack does go. You just need to apply care: you can pull slowly and precisely on a wet edge - chalk like a Beale and most importantly avoid wet for the shoes. Up and up it went and after a fairly intense lead I topped out still with a good bit of evening left. Yoor!

Kaspar followed and although he was not as smitten by the charm of the wetness he did it clean and got up in style. We walked off and got to the rock mobile with two excellent ticks in the bag.

Drive back to Gothenburg and 1 hour later we found ourselves with food (and beer!) still being served at "The Red Lion" - a really good English style pub in the center of this city of rock. 

Rjukan Ice Climbing

Climbing in Bohuslän 2016

It was with great excitement that I picked Martin up at the Gothenburg train station Friday night for this rock climbing reunion. I had booked a hotel room on the hotel closest to the local Gothenburg crack of Utby, as we had already a clear objective: the ascent of a local test piece jam splitter in the crag of Lexby. I had looked at this previously with local rock star in the making, Kaspar, but I needed Martin to lead this baby in pure splitter territory. And Martin was on. After last orders at the hotel at 1am we were both in bed st 2am ready for Jamspricka #1 the next morning.

We arrived at the base of Jamspricka next morning, weather looking a bit dodgy but the objective remained. Martin tied on the sharp end and, loaded with the best of both our racks, he started up the base climb leading up to the actual splitter. He came, he saw and he took the victory. It was a beautiful. I followed and I can now finally say: yes! I can climb pure cracks! We ticked “October” and moved on to see more of the GBG rock action in Utby. This took us to Crack of Doom, a short jamming test piece which was surprisingly stiff, and Asterix & Obelix a neat crack in a roof sort of job.

After an excellent day of Gothenburg rock we left northwards to the area of Bohuslän 1 hour from where we were. We arrived in heavy rain and went route spotting in full water proof regalia. Martin had his eyes on Hallinden, one of the main crags of the area.

The weather forecast looked promising and we were pretty confident about dry rock from the morning. We found an excellent place for dinner and lager in a southernly Tapas place and camped in our tent on a forrest track near Hallinden ready for rock the next morning. The morning was indeed dry but it had rained a lot so Hallinden needed some time to dry up as it is not in the sun from the morning. So we chose a neighbour crag called Vetterkullen, which hosts a few good 6-'s. Some brilliant splitters called us in and we started racking up at the bottom of TRÖTTMÖSSANS TYSTNAD. Martin seemed to have peaked on his leading the day before at Jamspricka, and offered me the sharp end to start the day. It was our first route in Bohuslän. What a place. Rock everywhere. Like a mini version of Yosemite. Martin sensed my kinship to Swedish rock and had me leading most here. Yoor!

I was a bit intimated. Though we had a really successful day yesterday in Gothenburg the words on the street is that Bohuslän is a good bit harder than Gothenburg in grading. The route looked good from below though and the route turned out to be fine, a nice match for our level. Anyone who dreams of Bohuslän should just go and live that dream. There is so much rock and so much love there. Martin joined me at the midway stance and finished the route up on the beautiful domes of Vetterkullen.

We walked down and I tied on the sharp end of the neighbouring “For You” a notch easier on the grade. It was another excellent jam crack with a boulder problem start followed by sustained climbing up the impressive main face. The finish required commitment and I was pleased to get to the top.

After out morning session it was time to address the main cliff of the area: Hallinden. We had been trawling the guide book on “what to do” and wasn’t quite sure as we walked towards the massive face. There was a nice activity of climbers there already - the Swedes seem to like to family camp at the base of the rock and have there coffee pots and other homely gadgetry out to add to the rock climbing. It’s quite nice really.

A couple of routes stand out: Prismaster, Ettan (both E1’s) and look absolutely amazing. Splitters from bottom to top. 40 meters. As we got thoroughly humbled by the scale of the rock we found a suitable objective: I Andra Hand, HVS, Center Stage, 2 pitches, total yoor! Martin picked up the lead and started up a technical slabby start, followed by an OW move and then onto the actual face. Here we swapped leads and I lead the 2nd pitch. A brilliant route.

Time ticking and we decided to visit a third crag: Häller, which hosts some of the most known routes of the whole region. Rickard Ekeheads playground and also has a Leo Houlding route there. It has an excellent location and is even more intimidating than Hallinden. We wanted to check out “Tor Line” which is an E2/E3 crack-through-a-roof type job. Looks absolutely doable from below, is probably absolutely impossible when you’re on it. We needed Tim. Next to it lies “DEN GAMLE KLASSIKERN” which goes a lot easier at VS/HVS. 2 pitches starting with a pure OW enjoyment that naturally fell to Martin to lead. Great worming skills applied and I finished the route up the second pitch with a heartbeat increasing exposed traverse around a corner. Surrounded by really hard terrain this was another great route for the bag.

We ended up in Gothenburg, where despite it being a Sunday, the night life was in full festive mode and Martin and I was spoiled for choice in finding suitable places for refreshment. Conclusion: West coast of Sweden with Gothenburg as the starting point has a lot of rock to offer. It resembles Yosemite in character on a smaller scale but with pine forrest and nice rounded granite domes scattered around the landscape. Camping is free and legal anywhere and the rock is plenty.

Mathias November 2016

Lexby Night Abseil

This Gothenburg place is cool. Here was my afternoon. Read the last bit only if you don't want random ramblings about climbing. We had a somewhat unorthodox abseil. Here goes:

1700 leave work with Kaspar, young motivated new-to-climbing climber and who has been studying wide-boyz videos the whole last week. Just wants to go crack climbing. Spotted a place called Lexby which has cracks. Arrive at crag 10 min drive from work.

1730. Kit up and decide on objective. Been flicking through the guide book endlessly to be sure abut the choice. Decide on some wicked looked crack up on the second tier of the crag. Rig up and scrabble up a sloping ledge to the base of the 2nd tier. Place is like a dream. Brilliant position and splitters and flakes as far as the eye can see. And lots of blank granite 30 meter above the deck and 30 meters above. A sea of rock.

1800. Weary about the chosen objective. Clearly the line of the crag and looks amazing. (See photo). Guide keeps going on about "crack just a centimer wider than a camelot 4" which the biggest piece of gear I have. The route is 30 meters long and already fairly exposed starting up from the ledge. So anyway, plenty other lines, same grades same problem. All mentions the gear needs to be "fairly large".

1830. Decide to bail on the dream crack and find the easiest way out. It's also "need big gear" so spot a line that looks more like it'll take anything I have, but is graded a notch harder. Considering getting out of there, but then - the yoor is mustered and we go for the gear friendly looking line. Rack up, and off I go. Climb was as hard as ever for a completely incompetent crack climber like me, and I was glad to get up it despite a short fall and rest on a well placed 3 nut. Kaspar comes up in style (struggled getting my weighted 3 nut out), and we are topping out in - well fair urban darkness. The place is semi lit from a nearby football field, but the young swedish footballers are calling it in and we are in a hurry to get off the face.

2000. We find the guide book described abseils anchor and rig the 60 meter single rope in two. It flows beautifully down a completely blank granit face to the ledge below. Excellent rappel, and Kaspars first!

Second rappel is the interesting one: we are at the ledge and scrambling down in darkness isn't really what we fancy and we can see the deck below. It's quite a bit down but I am fairly certain it's not 30 meters above ground.I throw the rope out and start rappelling as Kaspar mentions "what if you can't reach the deck" scenario. I ignore this and start rappelling. This rappell is a out-from-a-ledge and then free-hanging type of job. Brilliant, and spectacular, although it's all pretty dark. I can sort of see the rope in the distance and it does look a bit tight. As I approach the lenght of the rope I can see that it doesn't actually reach the deck and that the last bit is on a blank wall type job. I judge the rope to be close enough to the ground figure something out then I get there. Turns out it's like 1.5m above the deck and thankfully I had measured the rope ends equally long, and I hadn't tied knots on the end. This allows me to elegantly abseil off the rope ends and drop the last distance in a nice jump to the ground! Wicked!

Problem is that now the two rope ends are floating 5 meters above me, now the rope stretch has gone. I tell Kaspar to start abseiling as I expected the rope ends to just reach me once he puts weight on the length of the rope. About 2/3 way down I can now reach the end and I quickly tie a figure 8 knot on the on rope end and let the other loose. This way when Kaspar arrives he should be pulling one end down with him. He arrives and is just short a safe "abseil off the rope end" distance and I let him drop onto my shoulders as the rope snaps away from him and whisttles up. The one end remains stuck to his belay device and we can safely pull the rope down and all is good. Fairly unorthodox abseil I suppose. But what en evening!

The place need some jamming masters. Well worth a visit!

Oh, and yeah! We got properly benighted, and made the pub. A perfect evening climb.

Lancer

Excellent trip from Oxford to London north bound.

Arriving at Oxford - Lancer looking in good shape!

Cloggy Climbing Weekend

"Watch me Martin, I may do a Fat Freddy!" - I was struggling in the crux of the second pitch of "Pedestal Crack" a steady VS up in Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, the temple of traditional British rock climbing. On the week-end of an excellent conference in Bristol I was in Wales with Martin and Roystone, on a mission convert some last year's fat into proper muscle and scale some of the awesome rock climbs in Cloggy. Having climbed both Friday and Saturday this last climb of Sunday was starting to wear me out. I was hanging in a steep exposed corner trying to remember how to "rest" while hanging in one arms, placing gear with the other. A "Fat Freddy" was my hook to Martin to watch me, as stories of Fred peeling off"Goddess of Gloom" loomed in my nervous mind. I knew Martin would be sharp on the ropes should I take a lob, but he's firm reply had me back to focus. "Oh no you're not". I knew the belay and gear was bomber all the way and comparisons to Goddess of Gloom disappeared as a clipped yet another bomber friend 2.5 onto one of the ropes dangling between my legs down to Martin's belay. "Go on you bastard" I kept telling myself. Swearing and being really rude to yourself seems to help keeping the mind and body in an aggressive mood, and with plenty of this tactic I managed to pull up beyond the 2nd pitch's hardest parts. I still had 25 meters of pure steep rock climbing to go and was for now recomposing on a safe bridging ledge, before heading back into the exhausting finish.



Cloggy is an excellent crag. The walk is half way up Snowdon, with a full pack and full rack, it takes about 1.5h in a steady pace, both ways, both days. This gives the crag a nice and committing feel, as the pilgrims all have to enjoy or suffer the long walk in before getting rewarded with a plentiful selection of some of Britain's best rock climbs. Martin was a perfect guide as ever, both in organising and executing the logistics, as well as sherpa'ing most of the load up and down the walk. He probably carried over 30 kilos, and me 3.

Once at the crag the tactics of "climb whatever is not busy" (it's a very popular crag), paid off, as we were quickly racking up at the bottom of "The Corner", a great looking HVS at the centre stage of the crag. I tied on the sharp end and headed up some sketchy protected rock, quickly realising the full on nature of this place. Trad at its best. I arrived at the belay in good shape, happy that I had been accepted by the rock. On the way I had the pleasure of meeting Royston who was sitting on a nearby ledge, with a big grin, clearly in his element belaying his friend Rob up "Scorpion" an intimidating looking E2 just left of where we were heading. Royston quickly calibrated my compass to focus on the lass climbing the E4 on Great Wall rather than ol' Martin coming up from below and continuing above me.

Knowing Martin would flow up this splitter easily I could pay full attention to the conversation with Royston setting the tone for the weekend. Apart from the odd "watch me here Matheighas" Martin flowed up the route in his new found elegant, chalk normalised and steadily protected style (he used to grunt a lot more, cover the route in a slimy track of chalk, and fill any and every orifice with gear - now a thing of the past). Joining him after a desperate but fair fight from me on the jamming and lay backing extravaganza was a pleasure and the first route was ticked.

Routes take a fair bit of time in Cloggy but we had time for another. The oldest climb of the crag "Chimney Route" at VS, climbed by two nutters in 1931, was the next obvious objective. The route would set the tone for the rest of the weekend: superb back-and-footing up perfectly steep and consistent chimney. The climbing was awkward and challenging, and well worth it. We topped out at 6pm and decided to retreat to the climbers hut in time for lager and socialising. Walk out was brilliant in the setting sun - we left Royston at the crag: he was engaged in photographing duties of an onsight attempt of an E7.


Once back at the superb hut, we got amble amount of lager and a dinner extraordinaere from Martin: an Azusa inspired recipe of technical pasta tubes with a delicate sauce of asparagus and broccoli fried in chilli oil and slices garlic. Absolutely heaven. Rest of the evening was spent talking about climbing - an inherent quality of the CC huts. Brilliant. I cowardly crashed out as the first in the bunk bed after an for me exhausting and all together exhilarating day.

Sunday was a repeat, weather was still on for it, a bit more wind which was actually a relief: the walk was easier. Today we were climbing in 3 which was planned and the tactics was the same as the day before: meet up with an objective and if it was not on, find another route that was available. "The Boulder" E1 was occupied (I think), so after a bit of a debate we decided to go for Curving Crack, an stunning distinct line of the main face of Cloggy. Martin shot off from the swamp smelling base (actually smelled really badly), we later found out why. Martin's pitch was another back-foot job with a tricky finish and we all made it to the first stance in varied style. I led the second pitch which was brilliant and Royston the last which ended up in the sun on the lip of the crag.

Royston decided to call it a day and get back on his motorcycle to Edale, as Martin eagerly pushed on for another tick in the stephogalism. Although I was quite knackered I was actually really on for more, before we inevitably would have to return to the Bristol Beale Depot. The choice was obvious: Pedestal Crack, VS 5a, 4c, 4b, the other splitter of the crag: a straight line from start to finish. After our sandwich the remaining crisps, Martin led off the 5a pitch and I followed swearing and grunting along the way: it was hard and I was getting quickly drained. My turn to lead and Martin suggested combining the two pitches into one glorious finish for the weekend. I was up for it, although as I was engaging in the crux of the 2nd pitch I was getting a bit concerned: would I have enough juice left in the guns to finish this baby in style. "Watch me Martin, I do a Fat Freddy!". I thought it was hard and I was not sure I could stay on. Encouraged by Martin's calm: "on no you're not", I pulled it through, got composed midway and climbed the 3rd pitch in succession and topped out on the brilliantly exposed ridge of Cloggy. Martin joined me and we left Cloggy in the evening sun - thinking of objectives for our next pilgrimage to this Temple of Rock.