Saturday, May 26th, 2012

Guides course no2 – Lofoten

I just got home from the last weeks guides course in Lofoten. It was a five-day course with emphasize on rock climbing and short roping.

Our 9 guys strong crew got led and thought by Mike Wright, C-P Engström, Martin Swenson and Daniel Jonsson. The weather was like normally in Lofoten with everything from calm bluebird to rain and hard winds, but we where able to go through everything on the schedule and ended up having a really good course.

On the first day at Kalle we went through the main climbing guidelines for the Swedish Mountain Guide Organization (SBO) (Swedish only) and got tested on our mountain rescue skills.

On Sunday, the second day, we did short rope training in the rain on the Rock N Roll ridge and on the third day we got tested on our rock climbing at the Gandalf wall.

On the fourth day we did a eight pitch route on Råna in big boots and on the last day we had efficiency training in big boots on Piano wall. In the evenings we had theory and dinner together in the climbing Café at Nordnorsk Klatreskole.

It was great to spend more time with the crew and to learn from really good guides and instructors. I´m looking forward to the summer alpine course in Chamonix, France and Valais, Switzerland that´s starting in three weeks.

For more info on how to become a mountain guide on the Scandinavian system, visit www.sbo.nu (Swedish only).

For more info on the UIAGM, check www.ivbv.info/en/

Welcome meeting at the Climbing Café

Instruction at Kalle

Eva

Calle P and Martin

Morgan and HK

Vågakallen

HK climbing up to rescue Morgan, part of our rescue skills test, with examiners Calle P and Daniel (strong man)

The Paradise, colder than normal

Theory at the Climbing Café

On our way to the Rock N Roll ridge

Short roping

The Rock n Roll ridge

Head instructor and mountain guide: Mike Wright

The crew on the top

Jesper leading a team

Calle P is following Sami on Gamle Rev (Old Fox) 6 at Gandalf

Calle P and Sami

Teams on the ground

Sami on one of the cruxes

Sami and Calle P following on Tromsö Expressen 6, at the Gandalf wall

Morgan, Mike and Eva

Daniel and Eva on our way to Råna

At the start of the climb

CH leading me up the lower parts of Råna

Can you find him?

Mike Wright following me over the black slabs

And up the crux, 6- in mountaineering boots.

Mike at the top

Oskar taking Daniel up Pianohandler Lund´s Rute

Sami, Tobias and Mike

Daniel

Oskar and Morgan taking us up in the rain

Finishing meeting

Morgan in the Presten couloir on our Luca Pandolfi mission. No, sorry Luca, we didn’t find your stuff, sorry…

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

Gandalf

Today became a big day out with nothing extraordinary things done other than three rounds on the Gandalf wall and more rescue training (today´s topic was traverse rescue)… Now two days of rest awaits us before the start of the course!

Morgan following on; i don´t remember which route…

Gamle Rev (Old Fox)… We actually saw the old fox at the parking today!

Gandalf´s direct

Tobbe and Oscar on traverse rescue

The boys at dinner…

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Presten

Today we had a great day at Presten (the Priest), a 400m granite wall just outside of Henningsvaer. The west pillar is probably one of the most famous climbs in the whole of Norway and it´s a perfect warm up in the start of every climbing season to get milage on perfect rock!

Tobbe and Oscar reaching storhylla (big ledge), the half way mark on Presten

Morgan sending

Myself taking a snapshot while climbing

Morgan on slanting corner

Tobbe doing some hip belaying

The crew for the day

Tobbe and Eva: The biggest and the smallest persons in our class – wonder why! 🙂

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Mountaineering boot day at Råna

After a rainy rest day yesterday we went to Råna today for some mountaineering boots training. It was a good but very windy day followed by more mountain rescue training. It´s great to be back on the rock after a long winter!

Roadside mountain feel – Råna outside of Svolvaer

Morgan on the first pitch

Oskar and Tobbe

Morgan again

Beautiful Svolvaer

Climbing with ocean ambiance

It was really windy

The crew for the day: Oskar, Tobbe, Morgan and myself

Tobbe rapping

Monday, May 14th, 2012

The Epic TV interview is here

Here is the interview with me at the Epic TV studio in Chamonix the other week… It was awesome to be the first guest in the show and I had a great time together with Trey and the guys in the studio!

Check out more on the Epic TV concept at www.epictv.comor blog.epictv.com!

Sunday, May 13th, 2012

Lofoten – A cold day on the rock

This morning we woke up to a beautiful day with snow covered mountains. Even though it was cold the sun did its work on the south facing rock and we went up climbing in the morning and then practiced rescue skills in the afternoon… Another good day out…

The snowy approach in the morning

Morgan on Fyre Försök

Tobias climbing with Henningsvaer in the backdrop

Oskar climinb Skilöperen, it was really cold and wet

Morgan on Lundeklubben

Morgan on another belay

Beautiful Henningsvaer

Oskar and Tobias training

The boys working hard

Saturday, May 12th, 2012

A ride to Lofoten

It felt weird to drive north in May without skis, but now its time for guide courses in Henningsvaer, Lofoten, Norway…. Rain and snow awaited me here, and its pretty far from optimal climbing conditions, but we are not really worried. One day of ok weather will dry the rock in no time. On the way up I stopped by at Riksgränsen for a short meeting with the Haglöfs crew…