The profile wall of Jøssingfjord

Welcome to the steepness. Pete Whittaker working on "The recovery drink"

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of taking photos and filming the Wide Boys during their first ever trip to Norway. Their main climbing objective for the trip was to try the steep crack route "the recovery drink"  free climbed by Nico Favresse in the summer of 2013. The climb is located in the southwestern part of Norway in an area called Jøssingfjord. About 1.5 hours south of Stavanger.

A short film of the Wide Boys efforts will be released sooner or later from the good people of Madskillz Media, but for now I just want to share a couple of pictures from our shoot and some information about the routes currently existing on this wall.

The Profile wall is steep, solid and littered with well protected cracks. Most of the obvious lines have been aid climbed over the years by Norwegian hardmen from BRV during the 90s. The following topo is from the old guidebook and gives you an overview of the aid lines. More information about the trad climbing in this region can be found here in the online trad climbing guidebook of the Rogaland area (Norwegian only).

As of today there are 4 more or less established free routes.

And for the record. The future of hard Norwegian trad climbing is located in this area!

1: Ronny Medelsvensson (8b/+) Erik Massih and Christer Jansson 2014

This route was red pointed up to the second anchor (trad), located in a niche. The rest of the line to the top was free climbed by Erik on a previous trip, but not during the red point ascent. The route follows the old aid line "Heksenatt"

2: "The flying vikings" (7c+) Robert Caspersen 95/96. 

The route was named and climbed(up to the first anchor (trad) by Daniel Jung in 2013. However it has been discovered later that Robert Caspersen already free climbed this pitch back in 1995/96. He describes free climbing past the first anchor (Where Daniel Jung stopped on his redpoint) and straight up a bit before traversing left into the big dihedral. After reaching a bulge in the dihedral he rigged a belay. (Indicated on the topo). He free climbed up to this point in one pitch and estimates the grade to be about 7c+. From here he tried free climbing a second pitch, but had to pull on a lot of the gear. Back then he estimated the grade of the second pitch to be about 8a/8a+. After this easier climbing led to the top of the line. Erik Massih (who also has repeated first pitch up to the first indicated anchor) describes the climbing of the upper dihedral to be around 7c. This line still awaits a complete free ascent linking the two sections together. The old aid route to follow these cracks are "Rockin in the free world".

3: "The recovery drink" (8c/+) Nico Favresse 2013. 

Probably one of the hardest crack climbs in the world. Unrepeated. The route follows the old aid route "Polakkruten"

4: "Firefox" (7c) Leo Houlding & Neil Gresham 1998.

Three pitches to the top. The only established free route that tackles the entire wall and tops out. 

Tom Randall working the moves on "the recovery drink"

Trad anyone?

Did i mention the steepness? Ropes hanging from the anchor of "the recovery drink"

Tom Randall near the top of "the recovery drink"

Just a few more moves. "The recovery drink"

Pete Whittaker pulling the old fuck you mono out of the bag on "the recovery drink"