Monthly Archives: March 2010

Oppdal, Norway

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Another job together with writer Magnus Wistrom at Fishcube Media in Oppdal, Norway. We planned the trip to Oppdal in the fall to shoot for the Swedish outdoor magazine Brant, clothing company O’Neill, and backpack manufacturer Ortovox. However, we had a really hard time to find a week that suited our schedule and offered good snow conditions. The winter here in Scandinavia has been weird and very unpredictable.

Norway usually gets loads of snow but the heavy snowfalls have been rare and far between. At the same time, the southwest coast in Sweden offered ice climbers and skiers one of the best winter seasons in a very long time.

We waited as long as we could to get a chance to get good powder conditions but the time seemed to run out on us. The season was coming to an end and we couldn’t wait any longer, so on the 18th of March we packed the car and headed north. We got a few good days up in the norweigan mountains but the snow conditions made us wish for a heavy drop of powder every night. Never the less, we did what we came for. Stay tuned, the article will be in print in a fall issue of Brant.

Oppdal turned out to be a very good place for offpist skiing, at least if you are willing to walk to a little while.

Our guide Torje even called in the local talent team in freestyle skiing to jump in front of my camera for a few hours. Great fun!! These youngsters were so energetic and very talented, really easy to work with.

What’s wrong with a classic 8? Is it really soooo 1980-isch? Joakim Lundberg turning the 8 into a dollar sign…

Fontainebleau, France

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I went to Fontainebleau, just outside of Paris, to do a feature story about the bouldering here for the magazine Brant. You will find it in print in the fall.

In the forrests around the picturesque village of Fontainebleau in France loooms many bouldering areas, mostly known as Font. This is the birthplace for modern bouldering, and people come here year round from all over the world. This was my first trip here, and it just blew me. Amazing. Fantastic.

A typical Font face:

Many royalties have spent considerable time at the huge castle Chateau de Fontainebleau.

The small villages surrounding Fontainebleau are weekend destinations for wealthy Parisians. Driving through the village of Burron Marlotte, you’ll see many mansions like this:

Peter Schön on a 7B with a really sloopy top-out:

Talking about sloopy top-outs, here Erik Heyman shows you what you’ll most likely face if you go climbing in Font:

When we go to the area Franchard Isatis, my friends were extremely close to convince me that I could easily warn up on a nice looking problem they pointed at. Their poker faces weren’t good enough though. The problem they had in mind turned out to be one of the classic really hard ones in Font; Karma 8A+. Here is the dutch climber Enzo Nahumury on Karma:

However, you can definetely find any kind of climbing you like in Font, not only slopers. Excellent dynos, slabs, technical aretes, power-problems…

Muscles ache, the skin is thin and the energy is below the red mark. The day is over.

How many pain chocolat can you eat during a rest day?

Glamour glamour

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The life as a climbing photographer is usually very glamorous. Three course dinners. Oysters and champagne. Going to grand opening parties on the red carpet in your Armani shoes…

Well, not really. Most often there’s a lot of hard work involved in getting into a good shooting position. Usually a lot more time consuming than most people think. Fixing ropes, rappeling, ascending ropes. I thought about this after my last weekend in Norway shooting on Vettisfossen. It might be interesting to share some nerdy statistics of what a typical climbing-photography weekend costs in terms of sweat, lactic acid, and adrenalin.

This is my slimmed gear I brought on the trip. Doesn’t seem to be too much ehh? In spite of all, it’s winter time.

Twelwe hours in the car in hard weather takes a toll on you, especially when the alarm goes off at 4 AM. Since the pillar on Vettisfossen isn’t wide enough for two rope teams, we just had to be first. Not many people climb this route at all, but we didn’t want to take any chances. A quick breakfast on the stove, and then off to hit the approach up to Vettis.

And now to the really nerdy stuff. Below is a photo of all the gear I carried up to Vettisfossen, which is almost every piece of gear I packed in the car. But remember, this was for one single day of climbing.

 

A detailed list of all the gear:

*Camera incl small lenses and camera bag: 5,5 kg
*Tele zoom lens: 2,4 kg
Tripod: 1,7 kg
*Photo chair: 1,2 kg
*Gorilla tripod: 0,25 kg
*Harness: 0,5 kg
*Jumar and carabiners: 1,5 kg
*Crampons: 1 kg
Ice axes: 1,1 kg
*Grigri: 0,3 kg
*Quickdraws: 0,5 kg
*Slings: 0,1 kg
*Static Rope ca 110m: 6 kg
*Backpack: 3,3 kg
*Down jacket: 1 kg
Down pants: 0,8 kg
Thermos: 0,6 kg
*Extra long sleave function sweater: 0,25 kg
*Water: 1 kg
*Gloves: 0,3 kg
*Helmet: 0,4 kg
Small backpack: 1,5 kg
Sandwiches: 0,3 kg
*Walki talkies: 0,2 kg
*Phone: 0,2 kg
*Goretex jacket: 0,8 kg
*Headlamps: 0,12 kg
*Hand heaters: 0,08 kg
*Knive: 0,08 kg
*First aid kit: 0,2 kg
*Extra gloves: 0,06 kg
*Kneepads: 0,05 kg

Total weight: 33,3 kg (* = 27,3 kg)

I carried all this on the two hour approach to the base of the climb. Items marked with * is what I carried from the base of the canyon to the top of the fjell, which was a very hard walk of about 300 vertical meters in kneedeep powder. Since I was in a hurry to get up to the top of the ice fall in good time to rig my static rope, this turned out to be one of the most physically hardest things I have ever done.

Was it worth it? Yes, it definetely was. While sweating, swearing and getting pumped with lactic acid I had a great time, and enjoyed every second of it!!!

Over & out.