After I woke early to pack up for my annual spring alpine climbing trip in Alaska, I went out for a long ride in Fruita. Spring is in full swing here in the Grand Valley and the 3 1/2 hour ride was rewarded with pleasantly warm temperatures, clear skies and desert blooms. I had a great time hammering all the trails Mary’s Loop has to offer. Though, Fruita’s trails may not be as rowdy as those in GJ, it’s the best place around to log high milage: 40 miles of (mostly) single track.
Now I’m ready to step back into winter.

I had a chance to preview this weekend’s Rabbit Valley Rally XC race course and narrowly averted tragedy. It traverses the scenic Western Rim Trail which straddles the Colorado/Utah border west of Fruita.
The near accident occurred when I was on a (mostly) flat section of single track that lies perilously close to the edge of a 80 foot cliff. Hammering out the flats, I came in hot to an unexpected compression and one of my cleats decided to skate out of my clipped pedals. Since I was standing on my pedals, I came down hard on my saddle and snapped one of the titanium rails that attaches it to the seat post. This put me WAY out if control and I momentarily was headed towards the edge. I brought it back the other direction and prepared for stuffing myself in the dirt. I luckily managed to get by with just putting the bike down and staying upright.
That was enough excitement for me for one day. Here’s some photos of that section of the trail from a few perspectives. I hope the race on Sunday goes smoother!

I went to Moab for a quick & easy weekend getaway. Despite the Easter Jeep Safari & rain, I managed to get in a couple of great rides with my wife.
We rode the new Pipe-dream trail, Moab’s FIRST bonafide mountain bike trail. By that, I mean non-motorized & single track. It’s a 4.5 mile, mostly flat with the occasional short hill, out an back trail. It’s short, mostly easy, has its fun moments (if only in fits and starts) and the scenery is ok and did make for some good photos as long as you look away from HWY 191. Certainly, it is not the best Moab has to offer.
A little unsatiated, we headed over to the Amasa Back trail. While this is open to motorized vehicles, it is truly a world class ride and certainly one of the reasons Moab is famous for mountain biking. It is short, steep and very technical making for a super strenuous climb up and a fast and wild descent. The scenery on this trail, especially at the top is breath taking.

Today, on day four of the AMGA Ski Guides Exam on Rogers Pass, BC we skied the ultra classic Forever Young Couloir on Young’s Peak.
This fantastic 50 degree chute was over 1,000 feet in length and has 4,500 feet for the whole descent. The snow was soft and the turns on the apron were smooth, high speed, leg burners!

A broken top tube on my beloved SS mountain bike & much office work has left me with the difficult decision to go for early morning road rides on the Colorado National Monument the past few days. Here’s a couple of photos from the same place on two different days with different weather. As you can see, it could be worse.

Another day of sick skiing with Marc Beverly! Today; the Upper Chattanooga Chutes on Red Mountain Pass.

I skied the Heaven’s Eleven Chute today with a posse of five. It’s located on the North Face of Ballard Peak across from the Telluride ski area. It was a classic, narrow, steep couloir & still had good soft snow! It was a little hairy but fun.
It’s the obvious line just right of center in the photo.

I just returned from a wonderful 9 day trip to Norway. It was my second trip there, my first was back in ’07. As with the last time, this one, too, exceeded my expectations! The ice climbing there is so good, it’s on an entirely different scale of magnitude that anywhere else. After my first trip, I thought we must have just been there during a freak, once-in-a-lifetime event of unusually fat ice conditions. I was wrong. There is world class ice routes up there every year. From what we were told by the local ice climbers (something of which there seems to be a shortage of up there), this was a lean year and not many things were in. Well, there was enough in to keep us very entertained for the week of climbing we had. We could have climbed every day for three weeks and still not have run out of great objectives.

Who needs the Stanley Headwall with a place like this? Ice above Gudwangen. Into the Wild (900 m) is the obvious line on the left.

We spent the first half of our trip in Rjukan, which could easily be compared to the Ouray of Norway. There is even a small gorge, much like the Ouray Ice Park, in which there are numerous single pitch flows and mixed climbs to practice on. There is also a number of other 2-4 pitch routes in the area, most of which were within easy walking distance of the Climb Inn, a fantastic climbers hostel where we stayed. Rjukan is probably more famous for the infamous Norwegian Heavy Water Sabotage of 1943, where elite Norwegian special force members executed a daring sabotage mission in the heart of winter of a then Nazi occupied hydroelectric plant where nuclear weaponry was being developed. Rjukan is a popular spot for English ice climbers as it is a short flight over for them.There is an awesome, grass routes style ice festival here in Rjukan which we were lucky enough to be part of. It is a very laid back and unpretentious ice climbing scene here and access to the ice could not be much easier.

Haugsfossen near Rjukan

From here, we ventured on to the bigger climbs found in the western Fjords. In 2007 I visited Eidfjord and struck gold with the dozens (no joke) of unclimbed ice routes that I found there. This time, we headed to Lærdal, which is in the Sogn og Fjord (supposedly, the longest fjord in the world). Though lonely, there was plenty of ice to climb here: you could easily spend a week climbing the obvious 1,000 foot plus routes. You could spend a few more going after the other, less obvious ones.

The small village of Lærdal, Norway.

We started out with a local classic, the Kjørlifossen, which was a 1,500 foot monster of an ice climb. The upper 1,000 feet was sustained WI 5 and over 200 feet wide. Its as big a piece of water ice as anything you find in the Western Hemisphere other than a lake.

After our 1o hour day climbing the Kjørlifossen, we took a rest day and drove through the 14 mile long tunnel south of town (also reported to be the longest in the world) to the even smaller village of Gudwangen to take a look at the routes Into the Wild (2,600 feet long) and Fosslimonster (3,000 feet long!), which are some of the longest water ice climbs in the world (I know, the superlatives are are a bit too much here!) It was warming, so the bottoms of these routes were on their way out, but the upper sections looked awesome, though would be something for us to consider on a future trip. They were beyond our scope for this season´s visit. There was ample potential for new lines there, as well (see photo above). We also drove a short ways up the valley to the village of Borgund to see a 900 year old wooden Stave church, for which Norway is well known.

After rested, we went out for one final route in this valley, another huge, 1,500 foot long sheet of ice, the Seltunfossen, which had 10 minute approach from the car. We harnessed up right at the car and just carried our crampons a short while to the base to start this 8 pitch adventure. It was a touch easier than the Kjørlifossen, but somewhat longer, with more WI 3 terrain.

Seltunfossen

All in all, this was an amazing trip and I’m already excited to return there next season to get after a few more of the big rigs. This place is without question home to THE BEST ICE CLIMBING IN THE WORLD! I’m not the only one who thinks so. Check out what Will Gadd has to say about the place. For me, Norway is the new Canadian Rockies.

See all of my photos from the trip here.

Today we climbed the Seltunfossen, our last climb in Norway as we depart back home to the US tomorrow. This climb, another GIANT, was over 1,500 feet long (about 1,700 if you count the easy bits) and 300 feet wide on the upper headwall, which yielded four sustained pitches of WI 4+ & 5. And, it had a 10 minute approach. Oh yeah, like the others around here, we had if all to ourselves.
This place is unbelievable!

Deep inside the Lærdal valley of southwestern Norway lies the Kjørlifossen, a real Goliath of an ice climb. At over 1,500 feet long an 200 feet wide, this eight pitch WI 5 (half the pitches are WI 5), this is a true world classic and is unsurpassed by any water ice climb in the Western Hemisphere in sheer magnitude and volume of ice. As with most climbs in this remote valley, there was no one else around for miles. Vivek & I had it all to ourselves.
There were dozens of other climbs in this valley, but this was definitely the biggest one. I presume many of the others are still virgin (and this is a lean year, we’ve been told).
Here’s a few pics from the day.