Saturday 8 February 2014

Vemork bridge assault

After yesterday's forced rest day by the snow, today we decided to head up to the Vemork bridge area. The two routes we want to do were vemorkbrufoss vest and øst, on arriving we found a team of 4 on øst and only 2 on vest, so vest it was. Once we had glisaided down the steep track to the base of the gorge there was a nice well trodden and solid path leading to the base of all the routes.

It was my lead so after letting cliff sort all the ropes out for me whilst I sorted my gopro out I set of up the first pitch of the route. The first pitch was nice climbing, not to steep but steep enough to keep you interested. On arriving to the belay stance I met one half of the two person team who were on the route before us, after a brief chat I found out she was 73 and had only started ice climbing at the age of 62. ( there's hope for us all) and her partner who was doing all the leading was 65, legend. 

Once cliffs had dragged his ass up to meet me he set of up the final short pitch, which was nice climbing in beautiful surroundings. At the top we decided to walk round as Ed was going to do the climb behind us. 


Now all that was left to do was vemorkbrufoss øst, this route wasn't as steep and had a lot of big pillows and changes in angle. I climbed up to the first belay to find a lad sat down in a small cave feature about to belay his two friend up the route, I asked him if he was col and he replied with 'yes I'm freezing and I haven't got water proof pants on', why he was even sat down in the first place escapes me but he must of been sat there for about an hour if not more. His nuts must have been freezing. 

Cliff finished the route off, which was a steep pillar start off the belay, good job he didn't fall because he would have landed on my head. I set off and as I got over the steep section the upper part of the route had a crusty layer which gave way under pressure, so axe placements took a few try's. 
On this route we decided to ab down and the snow in places was chest deep, fun fun fun. At the bottom we all decided it was coffe time as jon had had a bit of a nightmare fighting demons in his head, unfortunately he didn't manage to complete any route today but tomorrow is another day. 

Every ones pretty knack erred tonight and I for one can't wait to hit my pit. 





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