Sunlight and nightfall part 2.
The 2017 summer in Bergen has been unusually wet for a place which has a lot of rainfall anyway. Between June 1st and 20th August it received 733.1 mm of rain, making it the second wettest summer since records began. I arrived here at the end of July hoping for a lot of fair weather to get out climbing, and by 15th August I was starting to go stir-crazy with cabin fever. But then the sun came out, and it became a bit of a rush to make sure we would make the most of the opportunity.
A small crew of us headed over to Sotra after work, and as the usually-empty car parking had 5 or 6 cars in it, it was clear that other people were grabbing this weather window. We chose to go to the Liafjell walls, and warmed up at the small Southern outcrop to warm up.
I paired with B and he took the lead – he'd only started leading trad the weekend before when he took a training course run by the Bergen Klatreklubb, so it made sense for him to go up an n4 (perhaps n3+, I'd say UK Severe) single-pitch route and get a bit more practice before we went for something harder. He's very strong and a talented climber, so he didn't have any difficulty with the route, but he didn't place more than four runners over perhaps 20 metres. I checked all his placements on second, all sound and sensible, but he'd missed a lot of opportunities to get more in. We talked about the idea that there might be a safe trade-off between moving quickly and easily to better protection, and the possible risks involved with hanging around looking for perhaps slightly less good placements. I think you get used to seeing opportunities for gear the more you do it, and so it's something he'll get better at quite quickly. But the route was much beneath his skill level, and had very low objective risk on it – it's the sort of thing I could imagine him soloing if he wanted.
We were joined at the outcrop by A&C, who went up the same route after us – like B, they've just recently got into trad climbing, having climbed hard sport routes for several years. Now they've acquired a rack they similarly wanted to get more practice on safe routes placing gear and arranging anchors etc. We left them to it and headed off towards the Liafjell Middtopp to attempt the climb that I'd picked out.
We found M-L Risset (n5**, 60m, 2 pitches) easily – it's distinguished by an obvious ten-metre straight and vertical crack line in the lower half. I took the first pitch. A high-stepping bouldery move off a corner got me established on good edges, and I could bridge out and get some protection quickly. Then there were positive holds moving up and left, following a curved scar where the rock of an overlap had fallen away (undercut in places) to some cracked and crazed rock at a soft angle perhaps 8 metres up, at the base of the vertical crack.
I could see that the crack is almost entirely uniform – parallel sided with a gap perhaps the size of a number 5 nut – with occasional wider points, so it looked suitable for hand-and-finger jams. The left- and right-hand walls of the crack are, for the most part, on the same plane. I started working my way up, great protection, some decent features on the walls either side for toe holds here and there, jamming my hands and occasionally my toes, thoughtful climbing and pumpy work. The angle of the crack breaks after 6 or so metres, both walls suddenly curve back from vertical, with the right-hand side reclining to a steep slab, while the left-hand wall keeps going up, but in the shape of sort of curved nose, with a rounded arête. It's these changes of angle that I find quite challenging – even though a softer angle is easier to deal with, if your hands are committed to a crack, it means that they're going to be lower down relative to your normal posture once you get your feet up. My centre of gravity was moved forward as I adopted a more scrunched up body position to get my feet on to the right-hand slope, and that means there's slightly less pressure going down to make those feet stick on the smears. Not entirely pleasant.
The crack wasn't over, however, since the right wall ramped up again to vertical, meaning that this steep slab was only about a 30 or 40 cm deep, and the remaining 2 or so metres of vertical crack (before a small ledge on top) was wider and more flared – not great for nuts at all. I got a dodgy-looking nut somewhere high up, and standing with my right foot at the back of the steep slab I squidged my left foot into a high toe-jam, but because the crack is at the back of a corner made by the sticking-out rib of left-wall, it was hard to get the toe-jam to stick properly. The best way to get a good foot jam is to go in with your knee sticking out at the 9 o'clock (left knee) or 3 o'clock (right knee) position and then swing the knee up to vertical, which lock-twists the foot or toe into the jam. With that left wall there, it was impossible to get the knee out properly. I stepped back down tried to rearrange my feet, with a plan to getting standing up on my left and getting my right foot jammed in higher, but it threw me off balance (since my left foot would have to be on the steep slab to the right). I think I fiddled away like this for at least five minutes, although it felt like more, trying different combinations and angles and positions, and I could feel a sense of panic starting somewhere in my body. It wasn't dread or terror, just a sense of deep unease – the feeling of starting to recognise that I was standing on a sloping edge with only my hands in a crack to hold me there. So I tried to think a bit more sensibly and found a way to arrange another piece of protection – I can't quite remember what it was, but I think may have been a nut which bit down on a small bulge in the crack at about face-height after several attempts to place it. I clipped and then tested the gear a bit more thoroughly, pulling on it downwards, and once I was satisfied I shouted for B to get me tight on the rope while I reconsidered my strategy.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm gradually getting used to being able to pause and think. As a trad-beginner, a bit like B, I'd regularly just elect to 'keep moving' when I was stuck with something, and I'd make some bold and risky decisions. Although it didn't result in any falls or accidents, I started to see that those aren't good habits to inculcate or persist with. I'd rather that I achieve a climb in a way that I understand, rather than throwing myself up in a moment of berserk or desperate energy.
I pulled back in to the crack and found another way to get my hands locked in enough to get both feet up so I was in a sort of bent-over L shaped sitting position, left jammed in the crack, right out on the wall. Then a mantling-type push down and a foot switch got me up and out of the top of the crack. It was exhilarating, and felt like a technical move. I'd say the whole pitch (which gets graded n5) would probably get VS 5a in the UK scale – I'd say it's 5a because of the sustained nature of the crack-climb and some of the techniques needed, especially at the top, but it's very easy to arrange the protection which is incredibly good throughout. Above this there's a ladder of vertical jugs that follow the line of weakness straight up another few metres, and this then leans back into a blocky and broken groove with some mattress sized slabs on the left, and vegetation above. I went up to a grass block and traversed left above the slabs to where there's a dead birch tree in a corner formed by a big pillar. The route goes 3 metres up the corner behind this and the pitch finishes sitting on top of the pillar, with a wide cracks in a corner to the left behind it, and another crack around to the right in a groove that goes up behind the pillar on that side. A well positioned seat from which to survey the person coming up second.
B followed quickly, and seemed to have no difficulty with the bit where I'd had to rest and rethink. I think he'd probably be just as strong on the lead here – he has a cool head for being above his last bolt when he climbs sport routes, and he seems to be unphased with climbing past his protection on trad – and I wonder what he makes of the fact that I paused there.
He lead up the next pitch. The climb branches, and there are several variations for the final bit. Leaving the ledge to the left, the route gets an n6-, and although the initial corner moves are well protected, it looks like there's very few opportunities to get runners after that. B moved into the groove off to the right of the ledge, essentially a continuation of the corner that we'd used to get on it. It's at a more gentle angle, it's a slab climb, and the start of the groove is cracked in the corner, so he was able to get a small cam in there. But the next 5 metres were bold slab climbing – no protection, and just small indentations on the rock to assist upward movement. He managed it just fine, and reached a large flat hollow-sounding flake that I suggested he could get a sling around, which he did.
The flake is another fork in the path: the guidebook suggests either continuing upwards at a grade of n5+, or striking out further right at a grade of n4+. B didn't know that he was at a junction, and kept going up the slightly steeper slab, again running it out a bit, to a very solid spike underneath the 1.5 metre wall on the left. Then he walked right and bridged wide across a right-angled corner made up of two cracked and streaked walls, and pulled up to a right-trending ramp. He probably spent as much time climbing as he did making a fairly unusual anchor at the top – I think he wanted to try out what it felt like to be on a hanging belay, and the result was this:
I think he was happy with the pitch and the way he lead it. It's supposed to get n5+ in the guidebook (although it's not quite clear where that's supposed to be), but there weren't any n5+ moves on it, and I don't get the impression that the Norwegian grading system is increasing the grade just because something is bold. That's to say: I've been up bolder, more technical n4+s than this in Norway, so it's a bit of a mystery.
I showed B how he could have lassoed a huge block at the top with the climbing rope to make a quick anchor – wrapped all the way around, with a figure-8-on-a-bight, it would have been fine for protecting him and me for that final pitch. He subsequently used that technique on a different climb, so he's clearly happy to experiment and practice things. The sun had set, and the midges were starting to bite, so we walked over the top of Liafjell and came down the wet and slippery decent gully, glad to be doing it in the half-light and not the dark. By the time we made it back to the car it was fully dark, and standing still for even 30 seconds was enough to be engulfed in irritating insects. But I was buzzing in a positive way from that climb. I'd confirmed for myself that I'm okay with venturing up new things with very little information about them (something I discussed in this previous post), and also that I can get stuck into crack climbs on vertical walls – they're both things I'm happy about.
I was happy that B and I experienced the climb together, and we worked well as a pair. I don't know what he made of it, but I get the impression he'll go back and try to lead it before long. I feel a bit sad to think that these guys are all going to be climbing things that are beyond me very soon – they already do on sport routes – and I'm not sure what to make of those feelings. I don't have any monopoly on climbing ability, far from it, and I'm happy to encourage these talented guys to do whatever they want to do. I also don't feel any sense of competitiveness, either with them or with myself or with the rock; no ambition to conquer things. I want to improve, and to be comfortable in lots of different situations, doing more challenging things but feeling good about them. I can tell that these guys are more stimulated by making powerful moves – they like overhanging rock and bouldery moves – and I suspect that they've found trad climbing a little tame so far (and it's not long) since they've been on softer-angled rock and the main difficulties they'll have met will have been about security; their other climbing abilities and reserves of technique won't have been called up on yet.
A small crew of us headed over to Sotra after work, and as the usually-empty car parking had 5 or 6 cars in it, it was clear that other people were grabbing this weather window. We chose to go to the Liafjell walls, and warmed up at the small Southern outcrop to warm up.
I paired with B and he took the lead – he'd only started leading trad the weekend before when he took a training course run by the Bergen Klatreklubb, so it made sense for him to go up an n4 (perhaps n3+, I'd say UK Severe) single-pitch route and get a bit more practice before we went for something harder. He's very strong and a talented climber, so he didn't have any difficulty with the route, but he didn't place more than four runners over perhaps 20 metres. I checked all his placements on second, all sound and sensible, but he'd missed a lot of opportunities to get more in. We talked about the idea that there might be a safe trade-off between moving quickly and easily to better protection, and the possible risks involved with hanging around looking for perhaps slightly less good placements. I think you get used to seeing opportunities for gear the more you do it, and so it's something he'll get better at quite quickly. But the route was much beneath his skill level, and had very low objective risk on it – it's the sort of thing I could imagine him soloing if he wanted.
 |
| Running it out in style and sunshine. |
We found M-L Risset (n5**, 60m, 2 pitches) easily – it's distinguished by an obvious ten-metre straight and vertical crack line in the lower half. I took the first pitch. A high-stepping bouldery move off a corner got me established on good edges, and I could bridge out and get some protection quickly. Then there were positive holds moving up and left, following a curved scar where the rock of an overlap had fallen away (undercut in places) to some cracked and crazed rock at a soft angle perhaps 8 metres up, at the base of the vertical crack.
I could see that the crack is almost entirely uniform – parallel sided with a gap perhaps the size of a number 5 nut – with occasional wider points, so it looked suitable for hand-and-finger jams. The left- and right-hand walls of the crack are, for the most part, on the same plane. I started working my way up, great protection, some decent features on the walls either side for toe holds here and there, jamming my hands and occasionally my toes, thoughtful climbing and pumpy work. The angle of the crack breaks after 6 or so metres, both walls suddenly curve back from vertical, with the right-hand side reclining to a steep slab, while the left-hand wall keeps going up, but in the shape of sort of curved nose, with a rounded arête. It's these changes of angle that I find quite challenging – even though a softer angle is easier to deal with, if your hands are committed to a crack, it means that they're going to be lower down relative to your normal posture once you get your feet up. My centre of gravity was moved forward as I adopted a more scrunched up body position to get my feet on to the right-hand slope, and that means there's slightly less pressure going down to make those feet stick on the smears. Not entirely pleasant.
The crack wasn't over, however, since the right wall ramped up again to vertical, meaning that this steep slab was only about a 30 or 40 cm deep, and the remaining 2 or so metres of vertical crack (before a small ledge on top) was wider and more flared – not great for nuts at all. I got a dodgy-looking nut somewhere high up, and standing with my right foot at the back of the steep slab I squidged my left foot into a high toe-jam, but because the crack is at the back of a corner made by the sticking-out rib of left-wall, it was hard to get the toe-jam to stick properly. The best way to get a good foot jam is to go in with your knee sticking out at the 9 o'clock (left knee) or 3 o'clock (right knee) position and then swing the knee up to vertical, which lock-twists the foot or toe into the jam. With that left wall there, it was impossible to get the knee out properly. I stepped back down tried to rearrange my feet, with a plan to getting standing up on my left and getting my right foot jammed in higher, but it threw me off balance (since my left foot would have to be on the steep slab to the right). I think I fiddled away like this for at least five minutes, although it felt like more, trying different combinations and angles and positions, and I could feel a sense of panic starting somewhere in my body. It wasn't dread or terror, just a sense of deep unease – the feeling of starting to recognise that I was standing on a sloping edge with only my hands in a crack to hold me there. So I tried to think a bit more sensibly and found a way to arrange another piece of protection – I can't quite remember what it was, but I think may have been a nut which bit down on a small bulge in the crack at about face-height after several attempts to place it. I clipped and then tested the gear a bit more thoroughly, pulling on it downwards, and once I was satisfied I shouted for B to get me tight on the rope while I reconsidered my strategy.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm gradually getting used to being able to pause and think. As a trad-beginner, a bit like B, I'd regularly just elect to 'keep moving' when I was stuck with something, and I'd make some bold and risky decisions. Although it didn't result in any falls or accidents, I started to see that those aren't good habits to inculcate or persist with. I'd rather that I achieve a climb in a way that I understand, rather than throwing myself up in a moment of berserk or desperate energy.
I pulled back in to the crack and found another way to get my hands locked in enough to get both feet up so I was in a sort of bent-over L shaped sitting position, left jammed in the crack, right out on the wall. Then a mantling-type push down and a foot switch got me up and out of the top of the crack. It was exhilarating, and felt like a technical move. I'd say the whole pitch (which gets graded n5) would probably get VS 5a in the UK scale – I'd say it's 5a because of the sustained nature of the crack-climb and some of the techniques needed, especially at the top, but it's very easy to arrange the protection which is incredibly good throughout. Above this there's a ladder of vertical jugs that follow the line of weakness straight up another few metres, and this then leans back into a blocky and broken groove with some mattress sized slabs on the left, and vegetation above. I went up to a grass block and traversed left above the slabs to where there's a dead birch tree in a corner formed by a big pillar. The route goes 3 metres up the corner behind this and the pitch finishes sitting on top of the pillar, with a wide cracks in a corner to the left behind it, and another crack around to the right in a groove that goes up behind the pillar on that side. A well positioned seat from which to survey the person coming up second.
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| Stance after p1 on M-L Risset |
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| Author shot on the back edge of the ledge. |
He lead up the next pitch. The climb branches, and there are several variations for the final bit. Leaving the ledge to the left, the route gets an n6-, and although the initial corner moves are well protected, it looks like there's very few opportunities to get runners after that. B moved into the groove off to the right of the ledge, essentially a continuation of the corner that we'd used to get on it. It's at a more gentle angle, it's a slab climb, and the start of the groove is cracked in the corner, so he was able to get a small cam in there. But the next 5 metres were bold slab climbing – no protection, and just small indentations on the rock to assist upward movement. He managed it just fine, and reached a large flat hollow-sounding flake that I suggested he could get a sling around, which he did.
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| Reaching a flake. |
 |
| Sitting proud. |
I showed B how he could have lassoed a huge block at the top with the climbing rope to make a quick anchor – wrapped all the way around, with a figure-8-on-a-bight, it would have been fine for protecting him and me for that final pitch. He subsequently used that technique on a different climb, so he's clearly happy to experiment and practice things. The sun had set, and the midges were starting to bite, so we walked over the top of Liafjell and came down the wet and slippery decent gully, glad to be doing it in the half-light and not the dark. By the time we made it back to the car it was fully dark, and standing still for even 30 seconds was enough to be engulfed in irritating insects. But I was buzzing in a positive way from that climb. I'd confirmed for myself that I'm okay with venturing up new things with very little information about them (something I discussed in this previous post), and also that I can get stuck into crack climbs on vertical walls – they're both things I'm happy about.
I was happy that B and I experienced the climb together, and we worked well as a pair. I don't know what he made of it, but I get the impression he'll go back and try to lead it before long. I feel a bit sad to think that these guys are all going to be climbing things that are beyond me very soon – they already do on sport routes – and I'm not sure what to make of those feelings. I don't have any monopoly on climbing ability, far from it, and I'm happy to encourage these talented guys to do whatever they want to do. I also don't feel any sense of competitiveness, either with them or with myself or with the rock; no ambition to conquer things. I want to improve, and to be comfortable in lots of different situations, doing more challenging things but feeling good about them. I can tell that these guys are more stimulated by making powerful moves – they like overhanging rock and bouldery moves – and I suspect that they've found trad climbing a little tame so far (and it's not long) since they've been on softer-angled rock and the main difficulties they'll have met will have been about security; their other climbing abilities and reserves of technique won't have been called up on yet.
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