Death zone

Many years have gone by with the intention of climbing in the Mael ampretheatre, never actually getting there. This year would be different, sat here chilling out after breakfast a day later gives us more time to reflect on our MISSION. Mission it was, it started the day before with OK let's do Mael tomorrow. So Mael it was, set off about 10:30 to the parking spot at the side of the woodland track. The next section is a 3.5km walk in up hill with full kit. Steady walking to prevent to much sweeting was the name of the game. This was a long walk in, hard work.

Still no sun, the sun will never rise here so it can feel a bit weird. 

Wrong way, the picture was of a walker/Trekker not FOOL. HA HA. So we head back up the woods and find a better track in.

Yep this looks like the spot, BIG drop.

Norway is full of trees, usually in the right place, as this one is. This tree grew in the right place for the abseil.

Just rigging the ropes up for a 60m vertical drop.

Looking out across the ampretheatre at the abseil point. The abseil was a set of three 60m runs down the crag face. The first abseil was a vertical drop which ran out into a steady slope to the base. One of the issues with this ab is staying out of the trees to prevent rope snag.

First section.

This is Haugfossen on the 24th January 2016.

Stood at the last abseil spot, short drop into the gorge across a small weird burkshrund thingy. So onto solid ground now, heading up into the narrow part of the gorge. Best moving quick at this point, lots of Avalanche debris all around. This has come down from Haugfossen, Haugfossen is WI6 and very scary, it also talks. The sound of crashing and crunching can be heard most of the time as you ascend the slope below the climbs,eiry.

Blocks as big as cars have fallen from Haugfossen over the past few weeks.

This was a bollackov which was attached to the main ice pillar, not any more.

We headed off left to gain access to Isroser WI3. This was definitely not WI3, we reckon due to the slow start to the season it never got over fat. This left the route steeper than normal, quite a few vertical sections and tricky moves. All in all a fantastic route, but well above the grade set.

Dean looking down off the first stance.

This was an easy section, not to be confused with the main difficulty. 

Looking more like the business.

Belay stance.

Brew stop.

Dean topping out on the last pitch, pitch four. All pitches are good 60m run outs. Make sure you have 60m or it will run into five pitches.

Interesting woodpecker holes on the trees on the way out.

What light we had has gone now, so it's back to the car in the dark.