Viking Alpinism

Life is moving on...

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Fri, 13 May 2016 12:49:00 +0000

Slowly life is moving on, last winter I crashed on my mountainbike and injured my left thumb, since then my pinch strength is basically zero and I haven't been able to hold on to an ice tool. A few times when I've been rock climbing and encountered a passage where I had to use my thumb I simply had to jump of. Hopefully it will heal and I'll be able to get back on steep ice and granite but the last year I have been focusing more and more on mountainbiking.

Lately I have also been working more towards starting my own brand of outdoor equipment. A lot have happend since I made my first backpack and posted the pictures here so many years ago. That dream have finally come true and I have just started Endless Trails Outdoor Equipment. The first products are up(mainly bikepacking bags) and more will come over the next few months!

Klättersäck

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:36:00 +0000

One of my last projects, a 40 liter daypack for the upcoming ice season!

The full presentation is on my portfolio on Behance. Check it out!

Petzl Nomic hammers

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 10:10:00 +0000

Last year I posted a review of the Cold Thistle Nomic hammers made by Dane over at Cold Thistle, a great hammer but sadly it had some design issues and I managed to break two of them. Instead I invested in Petzl's own hammer but I wasn't really satisfied with it. Getting pins in was no problem but it altered the balance and swing of the tool significantly so when Petzl released a micro version I happily bought it.

First of, why use a hammer? For pure ice climbing or bolted drytooling they are superfluous but for thinner ice routes, trad mixed and alpine stuff where you place a lot of rock gear they are nice to have. I have pounded on pins with the aluminum head of my Nomics as can be seen in the pictures and it works but they take a beating so having at least one hammer is pretty nice. I also don't use them only for pins, hexes and nuts(sometimes even cams) may need a few taps to set them in icy cracks.

Personally, I'd say about 40% of my winter climbing involves rock gear and the rest is pure fat ice, I generally don't change picks back and fourth and you can never be really sure what to expect so I like to have the hammers on at all time. As such I need something that works for both ice and mixed and unfortunately I feel that Petzl big hammers kind of fails here. They are certainly the best hammer out of the three when it comes to pounding on gear, the radical bend in the shaft for the Nomics means it's harder to use the hammer than on say a Quark but like I said before, it's kind of heavy and having all that weight on the back of the head of the tools means it feels very clumsy. With no hammers on the Nomics feel like an extension of my arm, but with one of these on, that feeling disappears. I also have a feeling I get more dinnerplates with it on but I haven't really counted. But I do know it makes the tool harder to swing, I can feel this when I'm super pumped and switching hands. 99% of the time, I guess it doesn't really matter, they still climb great but when you are run out, pumped like crazy and crying for mum, it does.

The micro hammers then, how do they stack up? Very good! yes, they are small, really small and hitting the target can be an issue in weird positions and angles but for the occasional use they are more than OK. Their light weight(20 gr vs 58 for the big hammer) means they are barely noticeable compared to no hammer when ice climbing. If you do a mix of ice and mixed, these are definitely what I recommend getting. For Scotland or other "dry" areas with no or very little ice the bigger hammers might be worth getting instead.

I've included a bunch of photos from different angles of both the Petzl hammers and the Cold Thistle hammers to give a further idea of their sizes compared to each other.

Yard sale!

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 16:51:00 +0000

Selling of a bunch of stuff to fund a couple of months of climbing in Chamonix this summer. Pick up here in Gothenburg or I ship at buyers expense, payment possible through PayPal or bank transfer. I've put prices in both SEK and EURO to help international buyers. Probably not worth the price when shipping is added for international buyers but I do of course combing shipping so if you're interested in several items the total price should go down!

Send me an email at edvin.mellergard@hotmail.com if you're interested!

EDIT: Pretty much everything is now sold!

Tough but lightweight crampon bag. Made a few of these a while back and have a few left over. Fits either a pair of crampons and a few screws or up to 14 ice screws(BD style) if you pack it carefully. Black is made out of coated 500 denier Cordura or 1000 denier Cordura(slightly heavier). Also have blue, yellow and gunmetal-gray(gray-green-ish) made out of 420 denier coated packcloth(pretty much the same as the 500d Cordura). Weight is ~40 grams each.

80 kronor + 20 kronor shipping in Sweden
8.5€ + 2€ international shipping

Zip-open fleece pants

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 16:34:00 +0000

I always tend to get really warm on the approach and then cold while climbing. Taking of or putting on an extra layer on my upper body is quite easy but an extra layer on my legs involves taking of both shell pants and boots. Not fun. So a while back I made these fleece pants where the entire side zips-open so it's possible to put them on without having to slide my legs through any hole and therefore be able to put them on with boots still on.

Zipper closed and open

Pre-bent knees and gusseted crotch to maximize movement. I can't really do a full split but at least these pants won't stop me :)

I cut them really low in the waist, that way the waist elastic sit lower than the waist on my shell and base layer to stop all the layers from bunching up under my harness and also helps them dry faster. To further improve breathability and comfort I used two different fabrics. Back of knees and crotch is made out of a 200 gr/m² Polartec PowerDry to maximize breathability without that much warmth. The rest is Polartec Classic 200, i e normal fleece and really warm at 300 gr/m².

I also added a small extra side-zipper for ventilation, I first tried using just one zipper with multiple sliders but it didn't work all that great so I choose to use a separate one instead. To make it easier to find it in the dark I choose a white one.

3/4 length so they stop just above the boots.

Beautiful weather, great company and super-psyched!

Norway a couple of weeks ago. A quick alpine trip to Hurrungane where we climbed Store Skagastølstind, the third highest peak in Norway. I had just finished the pants and I brought them along.

Why does alpine climbing always have to involve a lot of slogging?

Waking up to no wind and a beautiful sunrise it was an easy decision to do the approach in just base layer and softshell. We roped up and started the first pitches of steep snow and some shorter ice and mixed steps. Just as we reached the steeper rock, hell broke loose and we went from sunshine and dry rock to full on Scottish conditions in less than 10 minutes. The rock hoared up, spin drift started coming down and the wind really kicked in.

Me on the last pitch of Andrews renne.

Normally I would just have put on an extra fleece jacket and let my legs freeze, taking harness, boots and shell pants of mid route really isn't an option. Instead all I had to do was take a sling and make a quick shoulder harness, drop my shell pants and harness. Open the fleece pants, put them on and keep climbing in comfort.

BTW: if you haven't signed the survey I put up a while back, please have a look at it. I'm ready to sum it up but I wouldn't mind getting a few more replies first.

http://vikingalpinism.blogspot.se/2013/11/design-and-fit-survey.html

Alpine pack, latest edition

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:47:00 +0000

A couple of pictures of the latest edition of my 40 liter alpine pack. I've been making a bunch of these for friends and other folks the last year. No major changes from the last time I posted photos of these, just been working out some of the kinks and improving the general design

For those of you who haven't seen it before. Here's a quick breakdown. 40 liters, optimized for ice and alpine climbing. Made out of the waterproof fabric laminte, X-pax VX-21 with reinforcements of 500d Cordura and extension sleeve of 200d PU coated Nylon. Weight, about 650-700 grams depending on exact configuration.

No frame, just a padded backpanel but still carries good as long as you make sure to pack it carefully, eliminating any "holes" between items that can cause the pack to collapse.

Long crampon pocket for rigid crampons

The pocket folds down flat when not in use thanks to the bellow design. The ice tool bungee got a new design to make it a bit more streamlined. A small piece of fabric heat bonded to the inside of the X-pac keeps any water out.

Drawcord opening is offset from the center to not interfere with the rope strap

The backpanel is quite narrow and is designed to be just wide enough to provide padding where the pack touches ones back. That way weight is kept down and breathability is maximized. To keep the pack steady 500 denier Cordura is used on the backpanel. It provides high friction which keeps the pack in place and also transfers some weight to ones back. But on the inside of the shoulder straps a lighter, very slick fabric is used which together with the shape of the shoulder straps enables full and non restrictive arm movement when climbing.

The shape of the pack matches ones back to maximize carrying comfort

The crampon patch is made out of X-pac VX-42. A heavier version of the same fabric that's used in the rest of the body. It used a 420 denier face fabric instead of the 210 denier in VX-21 that gives it some extra toughness and abrasion resistance without adding that much extra weight.

Oversized zip-pulls to make it easy to use with thick gloves.

The white inside of the X-pac fabrics use it really easy to find stuff in the dark. The neck pocket is now free hanging inside the pack instead of being stitched against the back. Easier to pack the main compartment and easier to get things out of the pocket.

Some pictures of a couple of these packs in use from a long ice climbing trip to Norway in January

"Hoods are like bacon, they make everything better"

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 22:37:00 +0000

A fleece vest with a hood. Bit of a odd piece but not something new, I've never seen any for the outdoor market but from various fitness companies but the hood has been more of a fashion accessory on those. The only people I've actually seen using the hoods have been the "grunters" at the gym doing nothing but bicepcurls and bench press. Not the people I want to be associated with but for my own clothing system I think it fits in quite good.

Like I wrote about in my last post about my softshell jacket I've usually been climbing in a windshirt, fleece and base layer. With the pretty thick softshell fabric I found I could climb comfortably down to about -15º C with just a thick wool base layer underneath. But then I spent a couple of days at the end of December making a slim full body base layer out of thin(130 gr/m²) Polartec Powerdry that was quite a bit colder. Great for the approaches but once it started to get colder I occasionally had to put on a fleece, only problem is both of my usual fleeces are really warm so back to the drawing board. This fleece vest was what I came up with.

A vest will always be warmer per weight than a jacket or hoody and will pack down smaller. Adding a hood to it means my neck will get some extra warmth and wind protection as well. The hood sits under my chin, since the baselayer I made(orange) can be pulled up ninja-style to cover everything except my eyes it made sense to make the face opening large on this hood to stop the fabrics from bunching up under the helmet strap.

Some sketches...

I used two different fabrics to match the different needs at different places. The body is blue Polartec Classic 200 gram/m² for warmth and the black is thick Polartec Powerdry. The powerdry excels at wicking away moisture and dries fast, nice to have under my arms and below my waist where my softshell pants and harness will cover it anyway. Originally I wanted to used Polartec Powerstretch for it's stretch and wind/weather resistance in the hood but I had to little so I ended up using the Powerstretch there as well.

A small chest pocket where I can store my camera that I usually carry on a piece of cord around my neck. The zipper is angled slightly upwards to better match the motion I make when I put the camera in there.

Me heading up the third pitch of a new route we attempted in Drivdalen, Norway last month, fading daylight, waiting partners and Scottish ~VII eventually sent us down with tails behind our legs. Have to come back for that one. Photo: James Smith

Got some other things going on aswell, for example the yellow pack I'm wearing in this picture is my first attempt at a large pack with a frame. VX21 fabric, 65 liters, 970 grams and carries 25 kg all day with no problems :) Tried a padded hipbelt design that folds away leaving a webbing hipbelt for the actual climbing but I'm not really satisfied with the solution. More work needed, might go for a normal completely removable hipbelt. We'll see... Check back in a month or two and hopefully I've found the time to write it all down

I fucking love this softshell jacket!

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 12:53:00 +0000

I've never been particularly fond of softshell jackets, tried a few but nothing that fitted my long arms and slim waist properly. They also seemed quite heavy for their warmth, protection and durability, my RAB Alpine Pull-On, aka "best-garment-I've-ever-bought", a "heavy" weight windshell offered just as much wind protection, was durable enough to climb granite chimneys in and about half the weight. With a thin fleece under I had more options and more warmth for the same weight. And most importantly, the cut around the shoulders was good. It simply didn't ride up when I lifted my arms.

But in the three years since I bought it I've put on quite a bit of muscle mass on my upper body which meant it started to get a bit tight over the shoulders and the fabric started to get worn out. I've probably used it for about 250 days, mostly climbing on granite so it was due for replacement. Softshell this time, but on my conditions!

I've never sewn any garment before, let alone developed a pattern but when a fleece shirt I made turned out great I got the courage to attempt a jacket.

We all have different things we look for when we go shopping. In a jacket the number one thing I'm looking at is the cut around the shoulders and armpit. There's absolutely nothing worse than using a jacket where the waist gets pulled out of my harness or exposing my wrists to the cold. Most jackets on the market today just don't have enough fabric to reach between your waist and hand when you lift your arm up. Some of the other design criteria I had was:
-Slim fit, long arms.
-External drawcords for the hood. Sucks having to unzip to tighten the hood.
-Thinner more breathable fabric under arms
-4-way stretch fabric
-Stretchy seams

The real list actually had about 50 different requirements on it so too long to add here but that's the main points.

Testing the jacket on the FA of "Winter is coming", scottish V/6 in øvredalen, Hemsedal, Norway Photo: Jonas Lyckegård

Like I said before, I don't really have any experience in making patterns so I started my making a copy of my RAB Alpine Pull-On and then got to work heavily modifying it. Some of the things I did was to add a full length zipper, add the two fabric panels under the arms for the thinner fabric, add and subtract a lot of fabric around the shoulder and armpit, remove the original pockets and add a single "napoleon style", lengthen the arms and torso, articulate the elbows, completely change the back panel to give the jacket a more form fitting shape and change the way the hood "lies down" as well as the face opening. Making the pattern and an initial prototype took some time, the fabric was quite expensive for a student like me so I had to get it right the first time.

Crappy image but there's the final pattern, back is down left, front and sleeve is in the middle and the hood is on the top.

I've already given away the final design in the first picture but here it is again, this time to illustrate the minimal waist lift. Raising one arm, zero lift. Raising both arms, about 2 cm of lift without a harness on. This jacket isn't going to get pulled out of my harness or restrict my movements.

Except for the excellent fit that stops the jacket riding up I also stole an idea from Arc'teryx, they use small pieces of foam stuffed around the waist that's supposed to get caught against the harness. I might remove these, in the 8 days of climbing I've had so far with this jacket the foam haven't even come close to my harness so I don't really see the point in keeping them.

Windflap on the inside of the zipper, I used some heat sealable nylon I bought for another project that got a thick PU-coating that makes the fabric quite stiff.

Like I said earlier, external drawcords for the hood. I really don't get it why some manufacturers insist on having the drawcords on the inside. If you want to tighten it, it usually means you want some protection from the cold or you're getting hit by spindrift or wind. Why would you want to make it worse by having to open the jacket first? There is also a volume reducer cord on the back of the hood to keep the hood tight when I'm not wearing helmet.

Look at how the hood "lies down" when it's not pulled up over my head. The opening lies against my neck under the helmet and my chin and is completely shielded from snow and ice. Took some work to get that right.

A single napoleon style pocket. I'm almost never using the pockets on my shells so one is enough, snacks and belay gloves goes in my belay jacket, camera on a piece of cord around my neck and into a chest pocket on my middle layer to keep the battery warm and happy. The only time I'm really using the pockets is when I'm doing multiple rappels and I keep some cord in the pocket for easy access. The pocket is lined with a polyester mesh to optimize breathability.

The darker blue fabric is a thickish softshell, probably from Schoeller, extremetextil.de where I bought it said something about the best known softshell manufacturer in Switzerland. At 280 g/m² it's quite heavy but will hopefully last a long time. It got a thin coating between the outer and inner layer, not a real membrane but enough to add some weatherproofness. It got a nice 4-way stretch and seems to breathe just fine. The lighter blue under the arms is classic stretch woven Schoeller. No coating or membrane to increase the breathability.

One of the things I have disliked about the softshell pieces I used in the past is that the seams keep ripping. The problems is that a lot of the manufacturers use a straight stitch to finish the seam. It looks good but doesn't stretch. So when the fabric is stretch under use most of the force is eventually on the seam, which break. It works on windshirts, hardshells and other fabrics that doesn't stretch but not on a softshell. Instead I finished the seams with a zigzag, it doesn't look as good but it stretches. Nice to actually be able to take full advantage of the stretch in the fabric. The only place I've used a straight seam is on the zippers and the face opening where I have a thin non-stretchy lining.

Final weight is 550 grams, not feather weight but very light considering the weight of the fabric and the weight of similar jackets from the big boys :) We'll see if it changes my perception of softshells, so far it going strong!

As for actual use, so far I've used it 5 days climbing in the mountains around Hemsedal in Norway over two weekends. Both mixed and ice and a couple of times on crags here in Gothenburg. I've made a few smaller changes so far, mainly making the face opening a bit smaller as well as changing the windflap behind the zipper, the first one wasn't stiff enough. The jacket have performed great, windproof enough even at 15 m/s winds but still very breathable. I don't miss the lack of pit zips something I contemplated adding.

Among other things we did the FA of "Winter is coming", a super nice scottish V/6 in øvredalen with good pro and bomber hooks the whole way and climbed Surrebecken in Grøndalen, a pretty long ice that's not in the guidebook. About 6 pitches total, max WI4 but a lot of it very easy.

Leading the crux of Winter is coming as the sun rises Photo: Jonas Lyckegård

And topping out a few pitches later Photo: Jonas Lyckegård

Topo, the line follows a continuous crack system for the first 4 pitches, then it's some snow plodding or scrambling before a final pitch. It goes on the buttress to the south of the ice described in the guidebook. The crux is the first ~10 meters but it can be avoided by traversing in on some snow. Please note, the valley as well as the descent is very avalanche prone later in the season.

Fossebekken, Grøndalen Photo: Jonas Lyckegård

Photo: Jonas Lyckegård

WI0.5? Jonas starting up Snurrebekken, 3 long pitches of soloing and simul climbing took us up to the fun stuff

The WI4 pitch, might be a bit easier later in the season

After the steep bit we continued up into the gorge/gully and found a last pitch which took us up onto the mountain plateau.

Adding some traction to your boots

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:26:00 +0000

November usually means the ice starts to form in the mountains in the northern hemisphere, but with little snow in the terrain the trails can be slippery and icy. In some places like Scotland where you start walking down in the valleys where the temperature is above zero the trails will stay icy the whole season. I've spent two weekends in Hemsedal so far this winter slipping around on the approach and descent and finally got around to do a mod to my ice climbing boots I've been thinking of the last two winters. I've done it in the past on some running shoes with great success but I haven't had the chance to put the boots to test yet. Will edit this post at the end of the season with an update of how it has held up.

The idea is to insert a couple of small SS screws into the sole of the boots, then cut of the head to get a couple of small and cheap studs to give you some extra traction. You could use your crampons but doing a long approach with them on can get tiring. This modification is also not a substitute when it gets a bit steeper but will help on well trodden trails or when crossing streams..

So, what do you need?

1 small screw driver
1 pair of wire cutters
Flexible glue, like Aquasure, seam grip or similar
12 or so small stainless steel wood screws, I used 2.4 x 14 mm but length isn't very important
Boots
You also need to have your crampons, snowshoes, skis or what ever you're planning on using your boots together with

Start by checking where the sole touches the ski binding, crampon or anything else you're going to attach. The Silvretta 500's shown above had a big clearance and only touched the sole in the very front and rear. Rubber straps from gaiters or snow shoes will wear down very fast if they sit on top of the studs.

The Petzl Lynx on the other hand doesn't leave much of the sole exposed. A good thing for the actual climbing :)

Start screwing the screws into the sole. The best thing is if you don't go deeper than the rubber sole. Some boots have carbonfiber, honeycomb plastic or some other reinforcement in the middle sole that you don't want to damage. With thin soled boots like the Scarpa Phantom Ultra I got this mean you can't insert the screws very long.

I managed to get 6 screws into each boot. The placements isn't perfect, I think closer to the midline would have been better as well as having the two heel studs further back but the crampons got in the way.

Once you got all the screws where you want them, unscrew them and put a bit of glue over the hole. The rubber will flex back and close the hole so you probably wont be able to get any glue in the hole. Then screw the screws back into the holes. When you do, a little bit of the glue will be pulled with the screw back into the hole and help securing the screw as well as helping to keep water out.

Then wipe the excess glue away and cut of screw with the wire cutters a few mm above the sole. If you cut to high or low you can grab the screw with a pair of pliers and screw it in or out to get the right height.

Done! Admire your work and let the boot dry overnight! Just don't walk on any parquet floor :)

Design and fit survey

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 20:45:00 +0000

I'm interested in knowing what people in general think of the design and fit in gear and clothing aimed at ice and alpine climbing. If you are an ACTIVE winter/ice/alpine climber I would really appreciate if you took the time to fill out this survey. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.

Please note that I'm really only interested in winter climbing and with that I mean pretty much any kind of climbing that takes place in a cold place and involves using ice tools such as ice, alpine, mixed, scottish winter... but I do not mean mountaineering(walking up steep snow), dry tooling or ski mountaineering. Those sports have other design criterias and I want to limit the survey to climbing this time.

Once I get enough answers I'll put together a post with the result!

Click here to get to the survey if it doesn't pop up automaticly below!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Combined dry sack and pillow

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 21:38:00 +0000

As a side sleeper I've always had a hard time getting a good nights sleep when I'm out camping. Without a good pillow my neck doesn't get enough support and I have often woken up with a sore neck or cold hands when I've held them under my head in cold weather. I have tried using both inflatable pillows and some of the "normal" pillows offered by several of the outdoor gear manufacturers. The inflatable ones have been okay in cold weather when I've had my head wrapped in a sleeping bag but they just won't stay put and often slides away after a short while. The "normal" pillows are often not thick enough to give my neck enough support. They do also add extra weight and take up extra space in my bag. For a good nights sleep it's definitely worth it but if it can be avoided, why not?

I've also tried using the climbing ropes with good result but if they are wet or icy it's not very nice to bring them inside the tent. A stuff sack filled with leftover clothing/stuff works pretty good and doesn't add any weight but it suffers the same problem as the inflatable ones, it usually slides away during the night. With a fleece wrapped around it to help wick moisture away from my skin it's also pretty good in warm weather when I have my head right against it.

When I was packing for a multi day backcountry ski and climbing trip last winter I got an idea, inspired of how some people put a piece of cord on their quilts under their sleeping pads to keep it in place I attached a piece of fabric to the stuff sack of my Exped Downmat that would go around the sleeping pad and keep it in place during the night. I didn't want to use cord since I would need much higher tension on it than with a quilt and I was afraid of wear on my sleeping pad.

Not really related but it's a good picture. Soloing easy ice on the approach
up Store Skagastølstind, Norway on the trip when I first tried this solution.

I made a quick prototype which worked great during that trip but since I'm usually bringing my Neoair even during the winter and the stuff sack for that one isn't big enough to use as a pillow I've just made a new one to replace the Sea-to-summit Dry Sack I have used for my Custom Robert's sleeping bag.

It stays in place really good thanks to the straight sides of my older NeoAir. The newer ones are tapered at the ends to make them lighter and I suspect that this solutions might not work as well with those.

The material I used is pretty cool, it's rip-stop nylon with a silicone coating on one side and a PU-coating on the other side. That means you get the strength(kind of) of silnylon but you can tape the seams on the PU side to get a fully waterproof bag. Sea-to-summit uses the same kind of fabric in their Ultrasil Dry Sacks. IIRC the weight is 65 g/m² for this fabric.

Webbing on one of the sides and two layers of thin piece of PET plastic glued together in the other. I have done quite a bit of testing of different materials lately to see what can be used to stiffen up the edges in roll top closures and I think PET plastic is a really good choice, it doesn't seem to fatigue and break as quickly as some of the other plastics I tried when subjected to a lot of bending back and forth. You can get a strip from a coke bottle and flatten it by ironing it really quickly on medium setting.

I also made a fleece cover for warm weather use. I prefer cotton for the nice feeling of it but fleece wicks moisture faster and with only a thin layer I think that's the right choice. The fleece I used is quite heavy at 280 g/m² but with a very high loft so should be good for wicking moisture away so I won't wake up with that clammy feeling.

To make sure it stays put during the night I made it so it wraps around the dry sack a little bit, I hope that'll be enough, otherwise I'll have to add some kind of strap or worst case a piece of velcro.

The band that goes around the sleeping pad is also offset a couple of centimeters from the edges so the fleece will wrap around the sack better.

The dry sack holds about 8 liters and weight 46 g and the fleece cover's weight is 53 grams.

More packs!

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:14:00 +0000

After I finished my last pack a friend from Scotland asked me if I could make one for him as well. Sure why not so after some mails back and fourth I had an idea of what he wanted, basically the same design as my last one but slightly bigger. Unfortunately I was out of the yellow fabric I used in my previous two packs but I had heard some good stuff about a 4-layer laminate from Dimension-Polyant called X-PAC. So I ordered some and got to work. Although I'm not entirely happy with the X-PAC material I think it's one of the best out there if you're looking for a completely waterproof fabric that will stand up to some abuse. I've written a bit more about it at the end of this post.

Just as I finished it another friend asked me for a bag and since I really liked the first one I figured I might as well make two. Our personal preferences was a bit different thou. I wanted a drawstring closure, my friend in Scotland wanted a zipper and my other friend in Sweden wanted a roll top closure. So although it's basically the same bag when it comes to material and size, they are all a bit different from each other.

As I said before, I've never been a big fan of the specialized tool attachments. Sticking them down the side under the side compression straps is definitely the best. I just add a single bungee cord at the top which I thread the the axe through to keep it in place for a little bit of extra security.

On my last yellow pack and the first these red ones I made I had a small pocket in the lid for my head torch, emergency kit, rap cord etc but I really liked the drawstring closure I had on my very first pack, some after some thinking and testing I came up with this idea. A small pocket, sitting right behind my shoulders accessible from the outside. At first I was afraid that the stuff inside it would poke me in the back or block access to big stuff in the bottom of the big compartment but I haven't had any problems with that at all.

It can be a bit tricky to get into if the pack is really full since the stuff inside the big compartment pushes against the small but with something soft, like a belay jacket, right behind it I find I can get stuff in and out without any problems.

...and open. Big enough for first-aidkit, sunglasses, head torch and some other small items. My food generally goes into my belay jacket. Since I usually only eat when I'm belaying or gearing up I already have the food on me and don't have to dig through my pack to get to it.

For the drawstrings I used 4 mm Mammut pro-cord, in an emergency they are strong enough to rap from although I prefer 5 or 6 mm. But the best thing about this cord is how it's made, the sheet doesn't just sitaround the core, during the weaving Mammut actually takes some strands from the sheet and weave it together with the core which means the sheet wont slip and if you have to cut it open and can't melt the ends together it won't fray. I have completely stopped using any other cord for this reason. It's simply the best out there!

I really love having a white inside of my packs, it makes life a lot easier when you're trying to find something in the dark. As you also can see, all the seams are sealed from both the outside and the inside with Aqua sure which makes the seams a lot more durable as well as making the pack almost waterproof, only the top opening that will let water in.

A picture of the rolltop closure one of my friends wanted.

Reinforcements at ALL critical points

A size comparison to my old pack. The yellowe one is about 30-35 liters and the new red one is about 40 liters + extension.

Same shoulder straps and back panel but wider waist belt on the new one

The final weight of the bag is 550 grams for the one with roll top closure and 580 for the one with drawstring closure.

Fabrics: In these bags I used four different fabrics.

Mainbody: X-pac VX-21. 230 gr/m². This 4 layer laminate from Dimension-Polyant isn't cheap. But compared to a normal rip stop PU-coated nylon it's pretty cool. On the outside you have fairy thick 210-denier nylon and on the inside a much thinner 50 denier polyester. Between those there is a X-grid of strong and thick Dacron fibers(polyester) which serves as a standard rip-stop and a Mylar(also polyester) film which makes the laminate completely waterproof. In fact, the water column of this fabric is supposed to be about 130 000 mm compared to about 3500 mm in a really good silnylon. All this means you get a waterproof fabric that will stand up to some fairly have abuse from both the outside and the inside thanks to the extra thin 50 denier fabric. That is something you don't get with most other fabrics. On those the PU(or silicone) coating on the inside is exposed to any sharp object inside your pack which will abrade it. Another cool thing is that while you can get the outer fabric in a couple of different colors the inside fabric is always white which it wont be so dark inside the pack. How ever, not everything is good. The fact that the X-grid Dacron fiber sits between the two fabric layers and these are laminated together means that the fabric gets "pushed out" a bit over these fibers. This in tuns mean that the fabric gets worn out much fast over the Dacron fibers. I think a much better approach would be to either skip the Dacron fibers completely or even better use an face fabric with built in rip stop. Preferably made of dyneema. That would mean that the grid stop would get worn first and nut the actual fabric.
Shoulder straps and back panel: 420 denier nylon. 200 gr/m². A fabric with a pretty thick PU-coating. Pretty smooth fabric that feels good against the skin for long and sweaty top less approaches during the summer :)
Bottom reinforcements: 500 denier Cordura 240 gr/m². A very abrasion resistant fabrics with a thin PU-coating to hold it together on the inside.
Drawstring closure, pocket and inside of the back panel: 110 denier PU coated nylon. 100 gr/m². Not as strong as the fabrics used in the rest of the bag but that's not really needed here either. I'm not 100% happy with this fabric either, it has some kind of DWR that makes it almost impossible to seam seal.

Marmot Stretch Man Jacket update

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:34:00 +0000

A while ago I wrote a review of Marmot's Stretch Man Jacket (found HERE), that jacket died last week during a backcountry ski and alpine climbing trip in Hurrungane in Norway and I got it replaced with a new one. In an effort of keeping the information as update as possible here's a short review of some changes Marmot have done on the jacket.

Photo: Henrik Wirsin

The last climb...

First of, what finally failed on my older jacket was the zipper. The "lock" at the very bottom was made of plastic and one of the sides broke which ment the zipper kept opening up from the bottom. Luckily we had really good weather so I didn't need the full protection of a hardshell but annoying none the less. If we hadn't cut the trip short for various other reasons I would have just stitched it together. In the newer version Marmot has replaced the zipper with a tougher one where this part is made of metal which leaves me thinking I'm not the only one with this problem. Anyway the newer zipper looks much better so hopefully no more problems with that.

The other big improvement is the velcro tap at the cuffs. In the older version the velcro on the jacket consisted of three small bits. That worked ok when the jacket was new but as the velcro got slightly worn it started losing it's holding power and loosend up. Quite annoying. The good news is that it's taken care of in the new model. There's now a full strip of velcro on both the tab and the jacket.

Sadly, not everything is improved. First of Marmot has decided to hide the cord-lock in the neck on the hood behind some fabric meaning it's really hard to loosen it when you're wearing gloves.Probably worth it to take out the scissors and trim some fabric of there. Secondly they have also started using two different fabrics. The slightly brighter fabric in the pictures is the same as in the older jacket, but the darker is a bit heavier but also not as stretchy. However, in almost all the areas where you really need the stretchiness Marmot is still using the lighter fabric so no real harm done.

But the biggest drawback for me is that they must have changed the cut a little bit and I don't like it at all. In my earlier review I raved about the long arms and the face that the jacket didn't get pulled out of my harness when I raised my arms. Sadly that is gone. The arms feels a few centimeters shorter now and the whole waist is pulled up quite a bit when I raise my arms. I don't have the old jacket on hand anymore so it's hard to make a real side-by-side comparison but that's how it feels to me. But then again, I have really long arms so might not be a problem to people with a more "normal" build and shouldn't matter at all to non climbers.

So even if Marmot has fixed some of the issues I had with this jacket it looks like I'll be selling mine and look for something else. I do however still highly recommend it to anyone as long as you don't have problems with the length of the arms or problems with the waist getting pulled up.

Ice action in Rjukan!

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:59:00 +0000

I had a couple of days over before I had to start studying for my final exam in Thermodynamics and thought I might as well squeeze in one last weekend of ice climbing in Norway before it all starts to melt away. With two trips to Hemsedal already this winter Rjukan seemed like a natural choice. But none of the usual suspects were interested or had other stuff to do(seriously, get your priorities right!!!!) so I throw out a question on Facebook. Luckily, Dick, who I met briefly in Chamonix two years ago were interested. He's more of a mountaineer than a climber but I agreed to rope gun for him on some easier stuff as long as I got a shoot at the super classic WI6 Juvsøyla.

Photo: Dick Petersson

Saturday morning. Still a bit tired from the late arrival the night before I wanted to warm up on the super classic Sabotørfossen (Sabotagewaterfall) but with a party already on it we headed up Vemork øst instead.

Rjukan is a bit infamous for it's soft grades. This waterfall was graded WI5 but is usually no more than a soft WI4

Photo: Dick Petersson

Going up just to go down

I snapped this picture the day afterwards from across the gorge. It shows the first pitch of this awesome climb. If you keep to the far you can climb a slightly easier version(WI3) Bakveien (The Back Door).

Photo: Dick Petersson

After the warm up we continued further into the gorge. Juvsøyla straight ahead!

Photo: Dick Petersson

A short ice step leades to a snow couloir up to the start of the real ice

Dick on his first "solo"


Photo: Dick Petersson

Starting up the first pitch. The ice is usually quite thin once you pass this lip but I found pretty good ice all the way.

Photo: Dick Petersson

Ok, not ALL the way. Managed to hit some mud with one of the screws. Had to drill another hole at the belay just to get it out from the screw. Lost my Grivel Candela in Scotland. Grrr... it's perfect for pushing mud and stubborn ice of screws

Photo: Dick Petersson

There was two Norwegians before us that finished up the pillar as I was starting up the steep bit. They had taken quite some time to climb the second pitch and i wondered why...

Photo: Dick Petersson

From below it look quite easy ~WI4+ but once I got on it quickly became obvious it was harder than so. Overhanging mushrooms, two small roofs and hollow ice. Good hooks almost all the way though :)

Photo: Dick Petersson

After quite some time I was at the foot of the pillar, I planned on building a belay here to make the climb easier for Dick so I didn't bring alot of screws. But unable to find any good ice I had to start up the last 25 m crux pillar with only 3 screws left. Happy times :)

Photo: Dick Petersson

Walking out just as it got dark :) Dick climbed in his TLT5M the whole weekend. Not my firsthand choice for this kind of iceclimbing but for longer slightly easier routes they are awesome! I soloed a 350 meter WI3 in Norway last winter in mine. Didn't have to stop a single time to give my calf some relief :)

Photo: Dick Petersson

Before we went home I really wanted to shop Dick one of my favorite ice routes, Sabotørfossen. The second pitch climbs thin ice past several short steep steps up a long and winding deep chimney.

This picture doesn't really do it justice but if you're ever around. Get on it! The last of the three pitches is the crux at about WI4+ but it's the second pitch that does the climb

Photo: Dick Peterson

After having dispatched Sabotørfossen we walked across the gorge to another classic. The easy Lettvann(Light water). There's several pure ice lines up this wide 2-3 pitch ice but I had my eyes on a chimney to the left with some mixed and turfy bits in it.

Self-portrait of Dick on the second belay

Photo: Dick Peterson

Not hard, but fun nonetheless

My latest pack, 40 liters + 5 liter extension. One big + one small compartment. Fully featured. Just above 500 grams. What's there not to love?

Ice climbing in Hemsedal

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:07:00 +0000

I spent last weekend doing some ice climbing in sunny Hemsedal in Norway with some friends from Stockholm. I was there the last weekend in October for some early season action but not much was in so I've been quite psyched to head back there later in the season when the ice was fatter to get on some of the bigger and longer stuff. So last Thursday I took the buss up to Oslo where Mike picked me up before we continued west up into the mountains

Photo: Mike Collins

Driving through the Hemsedal valley there's two ice falls that really stand out, Hydnefossen and Grötenutbekken. Hydnefossen being a long and serious WI6 with a hell of an approach wasn't really an option for us this time but Grötenuten was on both of our minds so a natural choice.

Photo: Mike Collins

As we got near we realised it was quite sun damaged but it still looked OK. I

managed to find a 40 cm wide strip of really good ice and headed up.

Mike starting up the second pitch

Photo: Mike Collins

Following the steep second pitch

Photo: Mike Collins

At the bottom I told Mike I wanted to lead the super exposed crux pillar but as we
got up to it and saw how hollow and chandeliered it was we decided to sneak around
it to the left instead. The climbing would have been easy but protecting it would
have been too hard. Next year!

Going left was definitely a lot easier but had some exiting traversing moves around a curtain

Photo: Mike Collins

5 long pitches in total, the last two was really easy, about WI2 with an occasional steeper section but despite the sun I don't think I got a single placement on the last 50 meters that didn't dinnerplate so I was quite sweaty from all the swinging when I reached the top

Night photo of the ski resort

The thin and not so obvious Teigafossen. Mike had tried this line when he was in Hemsedal at Christmas but bailed due to little ice. But he was keen to give it another try and me.. well, I'm always up for some mixed action!

Thin detached ice with no pro, what's there not to love? Photo: Mike Collins

I'm not the easiest guy to get out of bed in the morning and with two late evenings behind me(late arrival the first night and a date with Captain Morgan the second) and since I take about half the time of Mike to get ready in the morning I didn't want to get up until Mike was already up and running. So far so good, right? Well the problem with that is that Mike is even harder to get out of bed so on our second day of climbing we didn't get up the start of the route until maybe 12 o'clock.

After a a very thin first pitch with 2 pieces of pro in the first 30 meters I stood beneath a big overhang. Failing to find any gear I escaped up to some threes to the right and brought Mike up. I then tried to traverse back into the couloir but ended up bailing from a tiny juniper bush. After agreeing to bail Mike headed down first but after some digging at the overhang he managed to find some thin ice and a dirty crack for a cam. So game on... again!

Success at last!

Photo: Mike Collins

Seconding the icecorner after the roof

Setting of on the third pitch. Photo: Mike Collins

Setting of on the third pitch. Unfortunately the ice was even worse on this one, 2-3 cm thick and with another 2 cm of air underneath the climbing proved to scary for me. It looked pretty easy but the ice got even thinner ahead and having already ripped two tools and with no pro other than two loose tiny boulders to sling I decided I wasn't willing to risk a factor 2 onto the anchor and headed for the safety of another small bush out to the right. Imagine my happiness when I discovered the stem was 10 cm thick :)

Second bail from the same climb the same day

From cold to sweaty in two moves! Perfect plastic ice on Haugsfossen Photo: Mike Collins

Since we had to get back home on the sunday we decided to get on something slightly shorter for our last day and after the failure the day before we wanted something thick! The short Haugsfossen and it's neighbour Indre Haugsfossen sounded pretty good!

Enjoying the sun!

Photo: Mike Collins

Mike in a short ice chimney on Indre Haugsfossen

Photo: Mike Collins

Some Norwegians also enjoying the sun

The sun was really strong that day, even my belay inner gloves got burned :)

Whisky and mixed climbing!

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:58:00 +0000

I got back home a couple of days ago after spending 4 weeks in Scotland. Unfortunately the weather didn't really cooperate the first 2 weeks(super warm and lots of rain) so I did some mountinbiking and drank a lot of whisky instead. Nothing wrong with that but a bit frustrating when I was there to climb! Luckily the weather finally changed and I managed to get some amazing(and some less amazing) days up in the Scottish mountains before I had to get back to school! As always I tended to forget my camera half the time and didn't get it out of my jacket to actually take photos the other half but here are atleast some photos!

Coire an Lochain, northern Cairngorms

Exchanging gear at a slightly crammed belay on The Overseer Direct

Photo: Unknown

At the first belay (hard to spot)

Photo: James Smith

Heading up the short, but hard last pitch

Photo: James Smith

James freezing at the belay

Photo: Tim Newton

Myself leading the first and superb pitch of Deep Throat. I'm not really a roof climber so passing the 3 roofs on this pitch was a bit spicy!

Tim leading the last pitch with real climbing

Photo: Tim Newton

Looking down at the 2nd belay of Deep Throat, the last pitch is just a steep snowslope with a bit of scrambling to pass the cornice

Photo: Tim Newton

Me heading up to the crux of Auricle, also in Coira an Lochain. The crux pitch is short but steep and contains bomber gear, hauling on chockstones and a massive reachy move. Definitely my style!

Photo: Tim Newton

Tim coming up...

...and setting of on the third pitch

Photo: Tim Newton

Photo: John Hall

The first pitch of Stirling Bomber, Tim belaying while I'm trying to squeeze through the first chimney

Tim heading up the super wide chimney on the second pitch

I didn't really have any problems seconding this, but I can imagine shorter climbers struggling. There isn't that many good foot placements so most of the time you really have to press your back against one side and feet against the other.

Another team on the start of Central Grooves

For my last two days of climbing James and I headed west to Glen Coe aiming to do the four star route Central Grooves on Stob Coire nan Lochain. Despite two really early starts there were other teams on it both days we headed up. Grrr!

On the first day we went for Tilt instead, afterwards both James and I concluded that it was the best route we'd done in winter!

James heading up the exposed amazing second pitch

The view over towards Aonach Egoach was amazing. This long ridge is supposed to be one of the best mountaineering objectives in Scotland.

Photo: James Smith

The sunset that day was amazing

That's all the photos for this time! I'll definitely be back next year for some more mixed action!

Cold Thistle Hammer review

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 15:03:00 +0000

Last winter when I bought myself a pair of Petzl Nomic's I also invested in a quite expensive hammer from Dane at Cold Thistle. He started making these a couple of years ago for the first generation of Nomics when Petzl themselves didn't offer any hammers but even after Petzl now has released two versions he's still making them as an alternative.

Over the years he's changed the models a bit, with the first generations you even had to modify your own picks in order to make them fit but as of this season(-12/13) they fit straight on all Nomics and the last generation of Ergo's and Quarks as long as you also got the latest picks(with the in cut) from Petzl. All details HERE.

UPDATE February 2013: I have now managed to break two CT hammers, so that's it, I'm through with them. Full details at the end of the post.

ColdThistle Hammer to the left, Petzl to the right

So why do I have both hammers then? Well, last winter I spent almost two month mixed climbing in Scotland where you occasionally have to pound in some pins or hammer in some hexes in a icy crack. Two weeks into the trip I managed to break my Cold Thistle Hammer and since Dane was sold out I had to wait until the next batch before I could get a new one. Up to that point I had pounded in maybe 8 or so pins, one or two tricky ones but nothing really special. When it broke I was simply pounding in a knife blade into a crack in the middle of "blank" face and suddenly saw something flying away. My first thought was that it was a stone or something coming down from above so I kept on hammering until I realized the hammer was actually broken right at the T. After contacting Dane there was absolutely no problems getting a new hammer for free from him, the only thing he wanted was a couple of pictures of the broken part I still had so he could try to figure out what went wrong. He also informed me that this was the first CT hammer ever to break he heard of. As there's more than a thousand them out there be now I'd say that's a pretty good!

Again, Cold Thistle to the left and Petzl to the right.

As I still had a couple of weeks to go I needed a new hammer and simply bought Petzl's version. As you can see in the pictures the difference is quite big. The Petzl hammers stands out much further from the head making it easier to hit on pins in corners but it's surface area is also slightly smaller.

Fitting it to my ice tool was a bit of a pain in the ass, the heads of the tools seem to wary a bit in size and as a result the hammer didn't really line up with the holes. In the end I first had to grind of half a mm of aluminum and then use a (real)hammer to pound it in before I could finally get it to line up with the pick.

The ice tools are actually lying on top of each other but since I was taking this photo from quite close they might look like they're slightly of, but they're not.

I finished my trip to Scotland and kept on climbing in Italy, Sweden and Norway for the rest of the winter with no further problems and at the beginning of this winter I finally got my new CT hammer, was thus able to climb with both hammers and compare them side by side.

The CT hammer is machined from tool steel and heat treated to become extremely hard. There really isn't any markings at all on it even after some quite serious hammering on a couple of mixed routes, only a slight surface rust but nothing worse than any other climbing gear I have. It costs 60 $ + 7.5 $ shipping, it weights 32 grams and completely covers the back of the head on the ice tool but since it doesn't stand out much from the back of the tool it can sometimes be hard to hit the pin. Fitting it is super easy since there is about a mm or so between the head and the "hitting part" of the hammer. The newest versions also fit the stock Petzl picks straight on so it's a 2 min job to fit it.

As for the swing, yes, it changes the balance a little bit, but not as much as the heavier Petzl hammer. The only time I really notice it is when I'm really pumped and climbing "virgin" ice. The tools simply feels a tiny bit heavier and clumsier. It's a tiny bit harder to get a good stick, but on soft or beat out ice, it's hard to tell any difference.

The Petzl hammer on the other hand weights almost twice as much(58 grams) and is cast. It's also quite hard but nowhere near the CT one, the color get's worn of quite fast and mine got some minor scratches from hammering pins and jamming the head into cracks and general bashing. As I already wrote fitting it can be quite time consuming because of it's much closer fitting. Not something I would want to do in the field but then I'm never carrying any spare picks either so technically I shouldn't have to do that anyway :)

Hammering in pins is definitely easier than with the CT hammer but because of it's weight it also affect the balance a lot more. On a technical ice axe, like a Nomic, you want the center of gravity as far forward as possible, hence the pick weights. The hammer moves the CG further back and changes the balance quite a bit. Again, the only time I'm really suffering from the affect is when I'm pumped and on virgin ice. It's simply harder to keep the pick straight and get a good wrist flick towards the end of the swing. The result is more dinner plates and less first time sticks. But again, it's only marginal, I wouldn't be surprised if a person who's just starting out ice climbing don't notice any difference.

Petzl also offers an even lighter hammer, at 20 grams, it even lighter than the Ct hammer but also even smaller, more of just a head protector rather than a real hammer. I haven't had the chance to use it so I can't fully comment on it but a simple conclusion from looking at it and handling it in stores would be that it's definitely affect the balance less than the CT hammer, but also makes hammering in pins even harder. For an pure ice climber who needs to only hammer in one or two pins every season it might be perfect?

So what's the verdict? Are the CT hammer worth the extra money and work involved in getting one compared to the Petzl hammer? Yes, I think so. Now that Dane's changed the design so they fit straight on with absolutely no hassle they are definitely a 5 star product.

Maybe not for everyone but if you're serious about your climbing and climb lots of ice as well as mixed it's definitely worth the extra money, but if you only climb "dry" mixed routes like in eastern Scotland and almost never do any real ice climbing I would actually recommend Petzl's hammer instead, it's cheaper, easier to get and would suit the purpose better.

UPDATE: Last month in Scotland I managed to break a second CT hammer, so that's it I'm done with them. Even if I think they are really great I need gear I can rely on in the mountains. This time I was hammering down one tool with the other into frozen turf to set-up a belay and it just snapped of, just like last time. I suspect it's because the hammer isn't flush against the head so all the force gets concentrated on the part that goes into the head. So while it's definitely easier to mount it because of the offset design I now think Petzl's design is better. Even if it means you might have to grind of a little alumnium of the head to get it to fit.

Climbing pack 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 23:22:00 +0000

Long time since my last post but I've been busy with other things, I moved back to Sweden at the end of the summer to start studying in Gothenburg. Living in Tromsø was great but the lack of any kind academic challenge at my job(warehouse) quickly reminded itself and when I found a three year program in Gothenburg combining engineering and industrial design it simply felt like the right thing to do at the time. So the last couple of months I've been relearning all the math I've forgotten in the last years and learning how to properly do this design thing.

Some simple sketches made from a hand drawing I scanned and finished in Photoshop

Anyway, down to the business. A couple of month ago I made a new climbing backpack and I though I would share some pictures and thoughts about the process.

Starting of with some simple sketches and CAD-drawings. I generally prefer to use CAD as I suck at sketching but I figured I need to get better at that stuff anyway so I made a few sketches.

Again, scanned drawing finished in photoshop

I kind of know what I wanted, something with the same volume as my last pack(about 35 l), but with an additional small pocket and a thin waist belt. I was also thinking about adding a lid over the top opening. But lid's are generally really heavy for their added volume so in the end I decided to ditch the drawstring closure and the ice tool holders all together and instead go for a small top pocket and waterproof-zippers. I also added some other things such as a reinforcement layer to the bottom of the back, load-lifters for the shoulder straps and I also made some in cuts on the side of the back panel to aid ventilation and save some weight.

I intentionally also made the pack a little bit too short for my back. It's still long enough to sit on my butt and the waist belt just sits on the top of my hips but it's hard to transfer all/most of the weight to my hips, some weight will always be on my shoulders. BUT once I have my harness on and is actually climbing I can shorten the shoulder straps a little bit and now the pack sits above my harness. This means it won't move around as much(compare to real running packs which sits around the ribcage rather than whole back) and I have easy access to chalk-bag, lockers and other stuff at the back of my harness. When I designed it I was also mostly thinking about areas like Chamonix with short approaches(<1-2 h) and where you often start the day with your harness already on so sacrificing some carrying comfort in exchange for climbing performance seemed like a logical choice.

I then built a very simple paper model of the backpack so I could get a feel for the proportions in real life and not just see it on the sketches and on the computer screen. These models are always best to build in real size, even for quite large thing. A few years ago when I was making a bivvy bag I actually build one in real size and crawled into it with my sleeping pad and bag just to see how big I would have to make it so it wouldn't feel claustrophobic or compress my sleeping bag.

I generally start by making a "frame" out of thick cardboard with some reinforcements wherever needed. I then usually take a shitload of normal a4 papers and tape them together and cover the whole thing This has the added benefit that I get templates for all the fabric pieces.

I didn't take any pictures of the actual sewing so here's the final result:

The padding in the shoulder straps doesn't go all the way back, that makes the attachment really flexible so I can move my arms around easy when climbing without the pack interfering. I also added load lifters to help keeping the pack near my back and therefore transferring more of it's weight to my feet and not my arms, also helping me climb harder :)

But to be clear here, because it's a frameless pack the load lifters won't be as effective as if there was a real frame in there, all they do now is keeping the pack close to my body, pull to hard on them and all that's happening is that the pack is compressed.

I gave the back panel a "waist" to aid ventilation. It also saves some weight since it's a smaller area that needs three layers rather than one(outer fabric, padding, inner layer vs. just the outer fabric)

Reinforcements for the shoulder straps, just as the rest of all the seams they are coated with some Aquasure(PU based glue) both to protect them from wear but also to waterproof the pack.

YKK-zippers, "almost" waterproof. All seams in the whole bag is atleast tripple stitched with a mock felled flat seam and all the webbing is bar tacked.

I've never really liked any of the tool attachments for "modern" tools without a big hammer or shovel, I prefer to just stick them down the compression straps so I ditched those completely. But I did kept the upper bungee attachments just as an extra security. For example if your rappelling with an almost empty pack they don't sit that secure under just the compression straps.

Because of the white PU-coating on the inside of the outer fabric, it's really easy to find things inside the pack even when it's dark outside!

Materials: I bought most of this stuff from www.extremtextil.de
Fabrics: I still had some of the same fabric as I used in my last bag, it's a yellow very tightly woven rip-stop fabric with a pretty thick white PU-coating on the inside that makes it completely waterproof. Weighting in at 200 gr/m² this is much lighter than most materials found in normal climbing bags and as a result it's not as hard wearing either. Unfortunately this was the last I have of this fabric and I haven't found anywhere that stocks it. So for my next project I'll have to find something else, probably V-pac.

For the shoulder straps and the reinforcements in the bottom of the bag I used a black 200 gr/m² nylon fabric. Since it doesn't have to be waterproof I choose a fabric with a much thinner PU-coating that won't add any unnecessary weight. And lastly for the inside of the back panel and inside of the top pocket I choose a much thinner silnylon weighting 90 gr/m².

Padding: Just as in my last backpack I used a single layer (~10 mm) of sleeping pad foam in the shoulder straps and back panel. It worked really good so I decided to stick to it. It's definitely enough for the shoulder straps but doesn't give the pack itself any real support, it just stop things inside the pack from poking me in the back. A quick note here, I would never use any kind of mesh in something that I would use during winter, snow sticks to it and then melts and get's me wet.

Zippers: YKK-Aquaguard 5C. These zippers are pretty waterproof, they'll keep rain and wet snow out but will let water in if submersed.

Webbing: I always use Polyamid (nylon) webbing, the few times I tried using polyester I've just found that is slowly slips through the buckles. Besides I live quite far north and the mountains aren't that high around here so UV is not really an issue. I used 25 mm for the shoulder and waist straps and 20 mm for the compression and chest strap.

Buckles: Back in the good ol' days when I was into diving I wouldn't touch anything that wasn't made of stainless. The plastic stuff always broke, either somebody dropped an 20 kg airbottle on it or it got crushed when somebody shut the tail gate. Sadly, stainless tend to weight a bit more than I'm willing to carry up in the mountains so it's back to plastic. Generally I try to use the beefiest stuff I can find. The few grams you can save on buckles is NOT worth it. The only specific buckle I always use is this, with a built in whistle. Nice for emergencies.

Below a very warm Ben Nevis, Scotland, a few days ago

Weight: Luckily the bag finally came in just under 400 gram, my initial goal :) With the seams sealed and everything ready it weights 395 grams. About 100 grams heavier than my last pack but still not to bad considering how much regular climbing bags weight.

Now all I wish for is some colder temperatures so I can actually get some climbing done and not waste my precious Christmas holiday just hanging out at this bunkhouse in Scotland!

Using an overhand knot with ropes of different diameters

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Just a quick tip if you want to use an overhand-knot to join two ropes with different diameter for rappelling. I know alot of climbers think this a big NO! NO! But so far all the testing I've seen shows that using a fat single and thin half- or twinrope is in fact more than ok and is actually stronger than two thin ropes. I've also used a single and halfrope myself a couple of times with no problems at all.

There is however one thing to keep in mind when you're tying the knot. But first we must look at how an overhand knot can fail under load. There are three different ways:

The ropes break at the knot - Not very likely given how strong climbing ropes are and the low forces involved during a rappel.
The thinner rope slips through the knot - Again, not very likely given how soft and the big amount of friction in climbing ropes.
The knot starts to roll and eventually rolls far enough so it rolls of the ends - This is the most likely scenario and can happen if the knot is badly tied.

So what we want to stop is the rolling action. Basically, there is two different ways to tie the knot. The difference is which of the two ropes that goes closest to the side where the ropes are pulled apart. Look at the two next pictures. (Note: I have used a superfat 10mm static and superthin 5mm cord here, this big difference might be too much in real world use)

The correct way of tying the knot, the thinnest rope is closest to the side where the ropes are pulled apart.

Wrong way, the fat rope is closest to the side that get's pulled apart.

So why is the first way wrong, and the second right? It's actually really simple, if tied correctly the thinnest rope actually have to roll OVER the thicker rope. Highly unlikely. But if tied in the incorrectway the thicker rope only have to roll over the thinner rope which is much more likely.

This picture shows just that, worth noting though is that once it has rolled one time it's going to form a new overhand, but this time "the other way around" so if it was tied in the wrong way first it SHOULD form a new overhand but this time with the thin rope closest to the side where the ropes are getting pulled apart. But it's always best to get it right the fist time.

And if you want to be extra cautious you can always back it up by tying another overhand with the thin rope around the fat one ABOVE the first overhand. That way for the first knot to roll it ahs to roll over the overhand which is more or less impossible.

Lastly, always make sure that you dress ALL your knots and pull on all ends to really set it before loading them. That will make them stronger, safer and easier to untie versus a badly tied one.

Some links to strength tests of overhand knots:

http://user.xmission.com/~tmoyer/testing/EDK.html

http://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en-us/journal/climb//qc-lab-what-is-the-best-rappel-knot

New routing @ Otertinden

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 20:36:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I hooked up with climbing and skiing bum Fredrik Aspö from Finland. Just as myself, he's up here in northern Norway enjoying the amazing skiing and climbing. The first time we headed up in the mountains was for some midnight climbing to make the most of a short weather window before the rain was suppose to start early saturday morning.

Fredric heading up the second pitch of Baugspydet on Kvaløya

Up here around Tromsø there is litterly mountains everywhere with alot of steep walls, however, the rock is really rotten and loose so practicly nothing is climbable. The only place with good climbing is on the island Kvaløya just outside the city Tromsø, where a big chunk of granite provides some really, really amazing climbing on steep walls with a lot of cracks and corners. There is however a few smaller areas with granite, marble and other harder rock types here and there. I've had my eyes on one in northern Lyngen and I heard "rumors" about a few other.

So when Fredric mentioned he'd been out a couple of days before to have a look at one of these areas and found some good looking walls I jumped at the opportunity to explore some new terrain. So saturday morning the next weekend I drove east for 2 hours to get to the Otertinden.

Otertinden(to the right) and a forepeak to the right taken from the south-west.

The only information we could find about the climbing on this peak was about two teams in the 80' who climbed the east wall(around the corner to the right in the above pic). This wall is atleast 600 meters high but it's only about 250-300 meters in the middle with nice granite, the rest is a lot looser and wasn't very tempting. Instead we were looking at a two much smaller walls, the south-east and south-west on the the southern fore-peak(the left wall and around the corner to the left in the above picture).

We ended up climbing two different routes, the first loosely following the south ridge and the second a line on the south-west face. We decided to only claim the second line as a first ascent since we found a couple of rap anchors along the south ridge and also an old piton, but I think atleast 80% of the line was unclimbed before based on the amount of loose blocks and smaller loose rocks inside the cracks which we had to clear.

South ridge 2.0?

After dumping my camp stuff at our base camp Fredrik set up the night before at 500 meters we started scramling up the south ridge, at about 700 meters the rock finally changed from loose rotten choss into nice granite and at the same time got alot steeper so time to rack-up and get the ropes out. We decided to simply head up the south ridge and trying to tag a wild looking pinnacle along the way.

Fredric starting up the first pitch, about Norwegian 5+, 50 meters later after an some nice crack, an axcellent v-groove and a loose chimney I took over the sharp end of the rope and led through to the top of the pinnacle.

Looking back on the pinnacle from the top of the third pitch

Two pitches higher up after some nice cracks and alarmingly thin flakes I found this old rap-anchor. The nut was hanging loose, scary to think that it probably ripped during the last teams rappel :/

Fredric coming up to the belay. I really dig the small furry ball on Fredrics helmet. Might have to get something similar. Maybe two big Viking horns? :)

A couple of minutes after he dissapeared out of my sight on the next pitch I heard him shout ROCK!!! I immediately ducked under my overhang but when nothing came I leaned out for a quick look. 200 kg of stone coming straight towards me. In a big explosion it crashed into the ledge, 1.5 meter away from me before it kept on going further down. Needless to say, I crawled even further in under the small overhang and stayed there until he was finished with the pitch. Turns out he had grabbed this big piece of rock just to get it in his arms, to heavy to hold onto it, Fredric just shouted ROCK! before trying to throw it out as far as possible.

After what seemed like an eternity he finally shouted Safe! and brought me up. What lied after the belay gave me The FEAR! A big gap from the boulder we were standing on to get to the wall on the other side. Once across, you first had to tackle a ofwith before the crack narrowed down to a more conventional size. Fredric freely admitted that he had tried to summon up the guts to pass the gap but couldn't make it. We both agreed that it's one of those things you have to do straight away, if you linger around and build up the anticipation it just get's too freaking scary.

Well, I was scared. It didn't look very hard or dangerous, it really wasn't really that exposed either. It was just plain scary.

After some pondering i finally committed to it, turned out to be a good decision because the last pitch was AMAZING! The crack on the other side of the crack is steep but with bomber jams all the way and some small ledges for your feet on the of-with sections it was just a pure joy. On the ledge right after I had to take a quick break from the adrenaline. I considered building a belay there but the next crack looked to good to give up so I kept on going. The rope-drag started to get pretty bad by now but the climbing was too good to stop. Up-up-up! Another super nice corner followed and I realized I was just below the top. My heart still beating hard from the adrenaline and endorphines I finally had to stop. It was really one of those times when everything click and you just want to keep on going forever.

We didn't know if we could walk down or if we had to rap down the face so before packing up our stuff we went on a little recon mission. The faces that goes up to the main summit are just bad ass! The one in the picture is about 90 degrees and probably in the 600 meter range. Unfortunately both the top and bottom isn't granite and looks really loose without any obvious weaknesses :(

Luckily it looked like we could traverse out to below the main peak and then cut downwards so pack to our stuff for some after-climb snacks and then back down to the tent. Turns out the descent is quite ease, just a steep and quite loose grass gully going down to ermm... descender/skiers right about 50 meters after the ridge joins the mainpeak. Head down about 150-200 meters until it starts to flatten out and then cut back left. If you continue straight down you end up at the top of another (loose)wall. Just watch your steps when you head down the gully since you'll be walking right above a long slab.

Topo:

1st pitch 50m 5+ Start at the very bottom of the ridge, start up some cracks and aim for a v-groove. Move across a ledge and climb a short chimney to a belay on a ledge.

2nd pitch 30m 5+ Climb cracks towards the right of the pinnacle, bypass the roof by going around the arete and then immideatly back. Gain the top of the pinnacle by either some thin and badly protected face moves from the middle of the ledge or move all the way around the corner to the left and then easy to the top.

3rd pitch 60m 3 Climb down the pinnacle and move across the ledge to get back to face.

4th pitch 55m 5 Aim for a nice crack during a small shield above some slightly broken up terrain, build a semi-hanging belay halfway through this shield.

5th pitch 50m 5 Follow the cracks for 15 meters then move slightly to your right up some excellent flakes. They start pretty thick gradually get thinner and thinner. Slightly bold but pretty easy finish up to a ledge. Build your belay towards the right of this ledge.

6th pitch 35m 5+ Climb one of the slight overhanging corners, then look for a narrow chimney. Climb this and then move right and climb up on a boulder with the "towers" on each side. Pass the "Leap of faith" or build a semi hanging belay on the outside of the boulder if you don't got the guts to do it :)

7th pitch 60m 6- Pass the leap of faith and climb the superb of-with to fist to hand crack(number 4 Camalot useful) to get to a ledge, climb the second excellent crack and unless the the ropedrag gets to bad also climb the third excellent crack to the top.

Gear:

Standard tradrack including micro cams and a number 4 Camalot. Double ropes useful but not neccesary. Bring trainers for the descent.

Camp Otern

On our second day we decided to head up the nice looking slabs to the left of the ridge to investigate some big roofs about halfway up. After some fucking around(I managed to drop a shoe...) we finaly started climbing. Two easy pitches with more scrambling than climbing took us to a big ledge with a small snowfield some 40 meters below the roofs. Here we decided that I should lead one more pitch to jsut below the roofs and build a belay to let Fredric take over the sharp end and hopefully find a way to the upper part of the face.

The pitch started a bit loose but as soon as I gained the real corner I intented to follow it became much better. But the crack I followed steadily grew thinner and halfway up I couldn't get my fingers into it anymore. A quick pendulum took me to another crack a couple of meters to the right which took me another 10 meters up before it finally rejoined the corner and ended :( I had about 10 meters left to the roofs where big cracks were inviting me to come up and play. But with nothing more than a wet knifeblade crack ahead I finally had to admitt defeat.

Too bad because so far the pitch had been a real 3-star one and the roofs didn't look any worse. A hand-jamming traverse under the roofs would have taken us out to the right where a fist or maybe offwith (ohh... the horror!!!) corner crack would have taken us through the roof. But that's life... I placed two nuts and rapped down to Fredrik to discuss what we should do next.

Looking up towards the roofs from my highpoint

A pillar to the left with a splitter crack looked like the best option so I handed over the rack and Fredric set of. After some carefull climbing around two big loose blocks he reached a belay and brought me up.

Just after the belay I reached a big ledge and started traversing along it to try and find the "best way". After my recent failure I was in a bit of "better safe than sorry"-mode and walked past two nice finger cracks which looked like they would end in the middle of a blank face and finally stopped below a flaring crack that would atleast take me up to the next ledge I built a belay. When Fredrik arrived we quickle agreed that I should take the next pitch aswell since this last one hadn't really involved any climbing. The flaring crack was just as good as it looked with some nice rock knobbs to stand on and with surprisingly good gear if you just looked around a bit. After that it was just one more pitch up some slightly broken up terrain until we once again stood on the top and had the FA in the bag!

On the walk down we ended up going down on the wrong side of the small river. There was a track but it vanished once we hit the treeline. After a while I saw this three hanging out over the water. I half jokingly suggested we climb it and then swing to the other side. Fredrik took one step out and then kindly let me do it first. Still not serious about it I climbed out thinking I would just take a look, maybe pose for a photo or two. Then thought "what the heck', worst case I end up wet and it's just 15 minutes back to the car anyway" so I swung across. Fredrik not having my massive long arms struggled a bit more but also got over nice and dry :)

Topo: Blåbärsriset 6-, south-west face of Otertinden

FA: 070712 Fredrik Aspö, Edvin Mellergård

1st-2nd pitch 120 meters 3-4. Aim for the big niche below the very obvious overhangs. Scramble up as for as your comfortable then get the ropes out.

3rd pitch 40m 6- Once you get to the niche, look for a slightly diffuse pillar to the left. At the top a block kind of overhangs this pillar. Climb the excellent crack in the middle of this pillar before moving out towards the left. After a couple of meters move back right(watch out for some BIG and loose blocks), build a belay behind a block.

4th pitch 40m 4 Climb up and over the block to a large ledge, walk across this for 30 meters until you get to a flaring crack that leads up to a corner. Build a belay here.

5th pitch 55m 5+ Climb the excellent crack and corner, then go left and up another corner. Build a belay on the top of a block.

6th pitch 55m 5 Continue up the next corner and the following slight broken up terrain up to the top.

Roberts.pl custom sleeping bag

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sun, 27 May 2012 18:34:00 +0000

I got a mail asking about more information about the custom made sleeping bag I ordered from Roberts Outdoor Equipment I mentioned in an earlier post. So I thought I might as well write a full review of it.

Anyway, last spring I went looking for a new lightweight sleeping bag, I tried a couple from the big manufacturers(Marmot, WesternMountaineering, RAB etc) but I finally settled for a one from Robert's Outdoor Equipment in Poland. The biggest reason was that they would build one completely to my specifiacations(length, width, fabrics, down quality, features etc). Although several of the bags I tried pretty much fit the bill, a custom one simply proved to tempting for a gear geek like me!

Settling in for a warm night just above the Tour glacier in the Mont Blanc massif

There is a lot of information on their website about different models, construction, fabrics etc. But you
have to mail them for currently available fabric colors and a pricelist. After some thinking and a couple of mails back and fourth with Roman at Roberts I finally settled for a bag based on their Superlight but with the following modifications:

400 grams of 850 Cuin down (By European standard, ~900 by American)
Standard H-shaped baffles
Red Pertex Quantum 27 gr/m² upper
Black Pertex Quantum 33 gr/m² inner, bottom and side fabric. This is slightly heavier than the red but for some extra durability in the high wear areas it's worth it. Black on the inside is to catch the sun better when flipping it inside-out to air it out in the morning so it dries faster if it's damp
Internal down collar positioned much closer to face opening than normal to keep the opening a bit lower so the opening is centered around my mouth rather than eye/nose and therefore avoiding getting it wet from the moisture in my breath
1 meter left zipper with a thin down filled draft tube
Length to perfectly match my own length of 183 cm
Superslim, internal circumference at ankles/hips/shoulders 90/145/150 cm. With this circumference I can just get my synthetic belay jacket in there together with me to boost it's warmth. Slimmer means less surface area to loose heat through and thicker down loft meaning the bag will be warmer.

And the price for all that? 275 Euro, a bit less than what the big guy's charges for a similar STOCK bag.

After about 4 weeks the bag finally arrived, I was a bit afraid that it would be too tight with my new belay jacket I bought after I ordered the bag and also quite curious how the faceopening modification would turn out. I find it a common problem with sleepingbags that the neck collar is too far away from the opening so when I cinch it tight around my neck it pushes the fabric up over my face where just get's wet from the moisture in the air I exhale.

But I didn't need to worry, the length and width was spot on, tight but not too tight. With my belay jacket inside to boost the warmth there really isn't any deadspace at all. In fact, I probably should have ordered the hips even slimmer. The collar mod also turned out great, finally a bag which doesn't get all wet and soggy around my mouth in sub-zero temperatures!

It came with a 20 gr stuff sack but I always use drybags for my sleeping bags, they are a bit heavier but well worth it to keep them dry during the day. Here it's in a 8 liter Sea to Summit bag, there is quite a bit of space leftover in the drybag so I could probably use a ~6 liter drybag instead but since I already had the 8 liter I haven't bothered getting a smaller one.

The bag weights in at 855 grams without any stuffsack, a bit more than I was hoping for. In comparison Western Mountaineering's UltraLite with 450 grams of down weight 820 grams, RAB Neutrino 400 weights 820 grams and Marmot Hydrogen with 312 grams of down weights 702 grams.

Just a couple of days after I got the bag a friend and I headed of to climb Njupeskär, one of the most majestetic waterfall in Sweden. Keen to try my new bag I jumped on the oppertunity to sleep in a small lodge close to the fall during the weekend. The temperatures got a bit lower that we thought, maybe -10° C and both of us froze our asses of during the two night's. Not the best start for the new bag...

But then I'm probably one of the coldest sleepers out there, in my Mountain Hardwear Phantom 0, with an EN -15°C lower limit rating I can sleep comfortably at -10°C with a standard wool baselayer and hat so I need a warm bag.

On a cold bivvy in northern Norway

The stitching all looks good, no loose ends or anything and the craftmanship overall is great! But some of the solutions is... how should I say? Less elegant than the top player's but that's just visual. For example the tube for the hood drawcord displayed below. It's simply sewn-on on the outside of the other fabric layers, on my other sleepingbags stuff like this would be "integrated".

I don't care at all about this stuff, in fact, simple solutions is often better if you ask me.

Summary:

So another 4-star review. The fact that you can get a fully customized sleeping bag using top of the line materials for less than a stock bag is pretty amazing! I wish I could get more kit made up this way. Unfortunately it's a bit heavier than some of the other bags out there which is why it didn't get the fifth star.

Redefining alpine starts at Østre Lenangstind

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:34:00 +0000

Last Wednesday I headed out again with Kent Hugo for some shenanigans in the mountains. We had our sight set on Østre Lenangstind in northern Lyngen. At 1575 m it's one of the highest summit's in Lyngen which requires some snowclimbing and stable snow to reach the top

It was his fourth attempt on this mountain, avalanche hazard, bad snowcondtitions on the final ridge and actually getting cought in a wet avalanche had stopped him before so he was quite psyched to get it done! So after we both had finished work we did the 2.5 hour drive to northeastern Lyngen. It didn't start well when I discovered I had forgotten my skins in Tromsø and it looked like it would have to be a fifth attempt before he would be able to tag the summit. But since I regularly claim to be good at solving technical promblems and stuff I did a quick list in my head of all the stuff I had brought and what could be used as a substitute.

Booting wasn't an option, with a 9 km approach and temperatures above 10° C it would take forever through the soft spring snow. In the end I taped the front pieces of my crampons to the skis and Kent Hugo also suggested I wrap some old socks he had around the skis. A quick test on some small snow patches and we were good to go!

Mohahaha!!!!

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

The spring has finally arrived up here in the far north, but we didn't have to walk more than a few hundred meters before we hit the snow and could put our skis on

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

The first steeper bit and the real test for my homemade, super lightweight skins. Not a disaster but close, the crampons didn't give any traction at all in the soft snow so I had to sidestep my way up most of the time.

Luckily the approach wasn't were steep except for a couple of short sections but I still had to work really hard to keep a normal pace. But once we got to about 800 meters it started to get cold enough for the snow to refreeze and my crampon solution was finally working. I still couldn't slide my skis forward so I had to lift them for every step. good thing I'm on Dynafits and not some Marker the Duke :)

Add caption

Finally we got close enough to take a good look at our objective(the right one!). We were going for the south face which is probably the easiest way to the summit with just some steep snow climbing.

So it was a tired Edvin that arrived at the bottom of the face where we dumped the skis and changed into crampons for the final 400 meters.

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

We took turns kicking steps up the refreezing snow, 100 steps on, 100 steps of. I was really tired from a long day at work and the approach and really dreaded when it was my turn. But when we hit about 1450 meters the angle got steep enough to start daggering and I went from ski-mode to climb-mode. I'm not sure where it came from but all of the sudden I was buzzing with energy and sprinted up the rest of the face with a speed that would make Ueli Steck proud!

Dynafit TLT5 Performance, awesome lightweight ski boots that climb ice pretty good as well!

Me on the crux section right below the summit ridge. We were lucky enough to find a spot with no cornice right where the angle where the least, about 60 degrees but it's definitely a "no-fall" zone since we traversed in over a much steeper gully than the 45 degree snow face we had climbed.

And Kent Hugo coming up right after me

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

Just some 50 meters of easy but exposed ridge traversing before...

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

...we finally hit the summit at 30 minutes past midnight, 4.5 hours after we left the car. The sun was just about to set and the whole Lyngen alps were bathing in alpenglow

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

So after having admired the view, eating some snack's and taken the obligatory summitphoto's it was time to head down. I wasn't really looking forward to the downclimb but it actually felt really secure the whole way.

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

I had left the wet socks on my skis and when we got back down they were frozen solid. Took quite a bit of effort to get them loose before I finally could click into the bindings and start to head down.

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

The snow had refrozen but didn't get icy at all, it more resembled a newly groomed run and despite the mellow angle it provided some really nice skiing in the now rising sun!

Skiing down the last section of Strupbréen, the largest glacier in Lyngen

As we got lower(and warmer) the snow first turned into breaking crust and then wet corn before we finally got back to the car and got to view the beautiful sunrise over the Lyngenfjord. A perfect ending to an almost perfect trip :)

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

After packing the car and driving back home to Tromsø I finally got into bed shortly after 5 o'clock in the morning for a few hours of sleep before it was time for some rock climbing action. "Sleep fast", like Kent Hugo said!

Also check Kent Hugo site for hi's report :) http://kugo.no/2012/05/%C3%B8stre-lenangstinden-1575-moh/

Stortinden 1512 m, Lyngenalps

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:09:00 +0000

Two weeks ago I teamed up with Kent Hugo Norheim to try one of Lyngens many "Stortinden"(meaning Bigpeak and is a quite common name on norwegian mountains)or Garjelgaise as this one's called in the Sami-language.

Kent Hugo's got a quite ambitious peak bagging project, he's going to ascend all summits over 1000 meter in Troms county. In total there is 666 of them and so far he's managed a bit over 300. His site kugo.no is a wealth of information with trip reports from all the mountains he's tagged so far. Good reading if you're interested in skiing, climbing or hiking any of them.

You can also find his account of the day HERE Check it out!

Stortinden from the west, our route went up the glacier in the valley to the left, then heading up a wide couloir(not visible) on the north face to the obvious col 200 metres
below the summit before climbing some steep snow to get to the summit.

From the parking we first had to ski about 5 kilometres before the going got steep(and fun!)

Kent Hugo at the beginning of the glacier just after the first steeper section

Starting up the wide couloir on the north face

There was some hard and icy avalanche debris at the bottom of the couloir and we decided to leave our skis there, stupid decision since the snow turned back into powder after just 100 meters or so. It would have been quite steep to ski but super fun!

Luckily we found a track from a solo skier heading up the couloir. It was filled-in in some places but definitely saved us some energy.

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

From just above the col at 1300 meters, the first ascensionists followed this ridge and had a bit of a nightmare trying to get down from this fore peak to the col. You can read about it HERE

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

The crux on the route, steep snow with some ice under neath. I had climbed the big couloir with one pole and one ice axe and it didn't look that steep from below so I just let the pole dangle from my wrist. Once I hit the ice I realized my mistake but then it was too late.

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

Luckily there was a big ledge a little bit further up where I left my pole and took out my other ice axe before the last steep bit before the angle decreased up towards the summit

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

Another summit Splattski

A small part of the Lyngenalps

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

The summit reward, chocolate!

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

Starting the long descent

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

Me @ the col

Enjoying some corn on our way out.

Photo: Kent Hugo Norheim

Once we hit the "flats" With the wet snow, low angle and tight forest it was impossible to get any speed before we finally hit the forest road where we could skate the last kilometers back to the car. Car-to-car took us about 6.5 hour

Hamperokken, skimountaineering in the far north

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:34:00 +0000

Since I moved up to Tromsø a two and a half month ago I done a bit of ice climbing but mostly I been focusing on skiing. The back country skiing up here is simply amazing, the mountains isn't super high, most of the classic ones are 800-1600 m but since you(literary) start at sea level for most of them you still get quite a few vertical meters.

So here are a few pictures from a trip up Hamperokken, a pretty cool looking mountain about 45 minutes drive southeast of Tromsø with a long and narrow ridge leading up to a jagged summit at 1404 meters!

In the summer it's a quite popular trekking peak which, unbelievably, only requires a bit of scrambling to get to the very top. So even if the ridge is quite exposed you don't need to be a climber to get up. In winter is slightly more serious and ice axe and crampons are definitely required.

Breaking trail up the initial slope up to where the ridge starts went surprisingly easy even with almost a foot of loose powder and it didn't take long until we were at just below 1000 metres
. Here we donned crampons and left our skis.

Photo: Kristin Bye

The ridge starts quite wide but quickly narrows down

Photo: Kristin Bye

With a lot of loose snow it was sometimes quite tricky to tell what was rock and what was just snow so we had to get down on all four a few times to brush some of it of.

Once the ridge narrows down we stayed mostly on the south side and had to traverse some quite steep snow gullies(50-60° max maybe) which felt a bit scary in burning sun but a couple of quick snow tests calmed me down.

After 2 hours of trail breaking-nightmare along the ridge we were finally approaching the summit, we traversed a little bit to the right into a snow gully which took us almost all the way to the top.

Me standing on the summit looking down at Kristin. The last bit up to the summit was a bit scary with steep snow climbing(which I'm really scared of!) and then some loose rock under a lot of unconsolidated snow. I felt pretty fine but a rope would have been nice as a backup...

The obligatory Splattski on the summit looking north-west towards the Lyngen peninsula

Photo: Kristin Bye

Looking back at the summit from the start of the ridge

When we got back to our skis we found that several other parties had put good use of our skintrack and enjoyed the perfect powder conditions.

I'm definitely coming back here in a month or two when the snow has melted to run this incredibly ridge. It will probably go quite a bit faster without the post-holing along the ridge but the descent won't be as fun :(

Hmm.. I might be able to time it with a bare ridge but with some snow on the slope leading up so I get to enjoy the awesome skiing again?

Cogne, iceclimbing Miniguide

noreply@blogger.com (Edvin Mellergård) — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:56:00 +0000

This is the first in a series of miniguides I intend to produce to give a short introduction to various climbing destinations I've visited. It will cover the basics of how to get there, where to stay, climbing areas, guidebooks and some other tips and tricks!

Cogne

The Cogne valley in northwestern Italy is one of the main ice climbing venues in the alps, long season, 200+ routes at all grades and beautiful surroundings makes it a very popular place. It lies just on the border to the Gran Paradiso Nationalpark and except for the iceclimbing there is alot of people coming here for cross country skiing in the winter or hiking in the summer.

The climbing

The climbing is split between the two valleys Lillaz and Valnotney 10 minutes drive from the main village Cogne. Approaches wary from 30 minutes to over 3 hours but most of the popular falls(where all the crowds are) can be reached in under an hour.
Because of it's popularity paths to most of the routes form quickly after snowfall and there are even some pisted snowshoeing tracks(lol!) to follow part of the ways. Just stay out of the cross country tracks and if you absolutely have to follow them, walk on the side. Walking in the tracks and thereby destroying them is extremely rude and just as bad as bolting cracks, stealing lower offs or chipping holds!

There are over 150 waterfall routes at all grades as well as several mixed or drytooling routes raging from M2 to M7 and continuing up to (i)M-possible :) so finding something to keep you entertained for a week shouldn't be a problem :) There are a few singelpitch routes but most are multipitch, about 3-6 pitches, usually a bit broken up with short snowfields separating the icesteps.

Almost all the belays on the popular falls are all fixed. Usually bolts or pins but sometimes slings around trees. But bring an abalakov-threader and some spare cord anyway since the ice forms different every year so sometimes the bolts end-up 2 meters up on a blank rock wall or hidden from sight under the snow.

The rock is pretty loose and chossy and tend to form big impressive overhangs so many of the routes features freestanding icicles in a quite cool surroundings.

A couple of "must-do" routes:

Lillaz Gully M4/WI4 200 m A long gully overlooking the village Lillaz, extremely busy. We had 6 pareties in front of us :) Start early and don't even think about clmbing it on a weekend.

Tuborg WI4+/5 300 m An other long climb, think we did something like 8 pitches and a couple of hundred metres of snowplodding to get to the final pitch at the very top

Candelabro del Coyote WI4+/5 180 m Most people only climb the first 3 pitches of this one although you can continue for another two up easier terrain

Sogno di Patagonia WI4+/WI5 200m Start up a freestanding icicle, head up some easier terrain before finishing through a deep gully

Repentance Super WI6 200m Steep, long and steep :)

At the trailhead in Lillaz Village. Lillaz Gully can be seen up to the left

Guidebook

There are two guides covering this area, "Cascades autour du Mont-Blanc: Tome II, Valdigne, Val de Cogne" by Francis Damilano and Godefroy Perroux is the main one. It's in Italian but quite understandable anyway thanks to it's many pictures and short and clear descriptions. But it's getting quite old so all the routes are not in it and the maps are VERY basic.

Luckily though, the local tourist authority has produced a brochure called "Cogne - Emozioni di fondovalle" (Cogne - Feelings in the valley) with a much more detailed map of the area including most of the icefalls, cross country skiing tracks, hiking trails and other places of interest. It's free and you can get it in various places in Cogne village, we got our from one of the gear shops close to the main square. You can also download it HERE from the national Italian Tourist information.

Map of the icefalls from the "Cogne - Emozioni di fondovalle" brochure

I wouldn't recommend getting just the brochure since there aren't any route descriptions in it, just a grade and a line on the map where it is but together with the guidebook you really shouldn't have any problem finding your way around the valleys.

Season and climate

Since the main village Cogne sits quite high at 1500 metres and the trails heads in both Lillaz and Valnotney start at about 1700 meters the season in Cogne is quite long. The first ice falls usually come into condition in early December and some of the more sheltered ones usually last until the end of March. But it varies fro mseason to season, when I visited in February 2012 we had about -10° C in the beginning of the week and +10° C in the sun the last two days. Needless to say, everything was dripping and the season finished early in the middle of March.

The weather is usually quite settled with the Mont Blanc massif to the west catching most of the storms but Cogne can still get quite a bit of snow and some of the popular icefalls are very avalanche exposed so watch out!

Where to stay and how to get there

The closest international airport is in Turin, from there rent a car and drive the 150 km to Cogne in about 2 hours. Stop for food in Aosta before heading up into the mountains. I have marked a good supermarket called Gros Cidac on a map HERE. There are a couple of small supermarkets in Cogne but they are quite expensive and not very big.

Once there there are several small hotels, both in Cogne and Lillaz. Two of them, Les Nigritelles in Lillaz and Hotel La Barme in Cogne has marketed themselves towards climbers and both offers small apartments with your own kitchen. La Barme is slightly cheaper but Les Nigritelles offers better rooms and they are also a test center for La Sportiva, Black Diamond and Arc'Teryx so if you're missing some gear you can borrow it there. I've stayed at both and definitely recommend Les Nigritelles unless you're on a serious budget.

There is atleast two small gearshops close to the main square in Cogne which offers some climbing gear and aswell as the test center at Les Nigritelles there is also a Grivel test shop in Lillaz but I' not sure what it's called or how to contact them. Cogne also offers all the basics like restaurants, cash machine, apotheque, tourist information etc.

For online conditions report see: http://www.iceclimbingcogne.com/ An offering from Hotel La Barme. Also see my two previous blog posts for some more pictures. Viva l'Italia, iceclimbing in Cogne and Cogne part II