Ice Climbing in Rjukan, Norway

Spent another great week ice climbing in the Rjukan area of Norway, working for Rob Johnson. The industrial town, set in a deep mountain valley in the south of the country was at the forefront of hydro electricity production development, thanks to the abundance of water and waterfalls. At one time it had the world's largest power plant. A by product of this was the production of heavy water, a component of early nuclear energy. During the Second World War the German's, following occupation of Norway, sought to exploit this to make a nuclear weapon. The Allies were obviously keen to stop this and launched numerous bombing and daring commando raids on the plant. One such raid, Operation Gunnerside, carried out by Norwegian Commandos succeeded in destroying the production facility causing the Germans to cease production in Rjukan. It was described by the British Special Operations Executive as the most successful act of sabotage in all of WW2.

Aside from the great history of the area it is blessed with literally hundreds of easy to access ice climbs - of all grades, single and multi pitch. You can literally put your crampons on at the car and be climbing within 20 minutes. The 3 and a half hour journey from Oslo makes this a popular destination for climbers seeking ice and pretty much guaranteed good conditions.

The weather for our week was very kind, never too cold and blue skies every day - although you'll need to drive up the mountain to get some sunshine! All in a top week.