Sterling Adventures

The last three days of our Lofoten Island rock climbing trip were the most amazing of the trip…

Paradiset

Laetitia on the Paradiset beach

Richard and Laetitia led the very fine and un-protected slab pitch of By the Dashboard Light

Then it rained! So we went to Svolvaer for coffee, cakes, and ice-cream. Richard wanted to go back every day after that for more Royal ice-cream!

Vestpillaren, take-1 and Store Festvag
Friday’s forecast was awesome, sunny, warm, and no (arctic) wind. Richard and I planned an ascent of Vestpillaren. According to the guidebook, it is the MUST DO route of the Lofoten Islands. Vestpillaren is nearly 500m long – a 12 pitch monster of a rock climb!

The only problem was that everyone else thought the same about the weather. We arrived at 10am (no rush with 24 hours of daylight) and were still waiting in line at 11am. The (British) team in front had taken over an hour for the leader to do the first pitch. When the second then decided to take a pee before starting to climb, followed by falling from the first move of the pitch we realised we were behind a seriously slow team! Plus there were at least ten more people above them on the route already – traffic jams were guaranteed. All that with a minimum of eight hours climbing with a clear route and two hours descending after that looked bad. We decided to come back on Saturday, and join Paul and Laetitia at Store Festvag…

What an awesome place. Perhaps some of the best pitches of climbing of the holiday.

Pete at the top of the 3rd pitch of Lundeklubben

Paul following Laetitia on the last pitch of Lundeklubben

Richard at the top of Lundeklubben with Henningsvaer behind.
The slab is much steeper than it looks in this ultra-wide-angle shot.

Laetitia on the crux of Gaukerisset

We resolved to get up at 6am to be first on Vestpillaren on our second attempt; our last opportunity before leaving the islands. Unfortunately, Friday night is party night in Henningsvaer! At 10pm we went to bed. At midnight the party started! It was loud! Richard declared that there was no chance of getting up early and climbing a 12 pitch route with no sleep, and a headache. So we turned our alarms off and got what sleep we could.

Vestpillaren, take 2
At 11am on our last day we drove below Vestpillaren to dream of what might have been. Amazingly with the help of Paul’s binoculars we could see that there wasn’t a single party on the whole line! Game on. Unfortunately Richard was wasted – his and Paul’s room was directly next to the bar where the party had been the night before. However, luckily for me Laetitia was up for it, and after some fast re-packing we set off…

Vestpillaren
If you know where to look there's a couple of pin-prick dots high on the face; that's us!

Laetitia on the 3rd pitch

The crux, the Slanting Corner, was fantastic. And a relief to get behind us as, excepting the long descent walk, was the last difficulty. The corner itself can just be seen as the lower of two features near the top on the right hand side of the mountain shot above.

The crux 9th pitch, the Slanting Corner

Seriously knackered at the top, with gathering clouds!

What a brilliant route! The best end to the holiday!

That night we enjoyed the party atmosphere in the bar ourselves, this time not cursing the noise!

Excellent live Norwegian entertainment

Kalle
While we climbed Vestpillaren, Paul and Richard went round to Kalle and climbed the Puffrisset… A desperately thin main slab pitch followed by a poor top section. Are those top pitches ever climbed?

… and Finally

We counted up our empty beer cans (and other recyclables) to take back for 1NK each refund! Don't even ask how much this lot cost us!