Blamman 1

Myself and Jacob Cook enjoying another night shift on Blamman’s north face.

Right now I am in arctic Norway with Jacob Cook and Calum Muskett, climbing on Blamman’s north face. I was here 4 years ago on a Gore-Tex Experience Tour trip and made the first free ascent of Bongo Bar (400m, 8a). While I was dangling around on Bongo Bar I remember looking to the right and seeing the aid line of Disco 2000, going through roof after roof of rather blank looking granite. I remember seeing a bolt belay, seemingly in the middle of nowhere on a smooth face between roofs. At that moment,  spark of curiosity was opened in my mind to see if this could make an obviously really hard free route.

And so now we are here, trying it.

The first few days have been a little slow in progress. We have aided through the crux pitches in the first half of the route and done some cleaning and investigating if there are enough holds to make a free ascent possible.

We have done nearly all the moves on the three hardest pitches now, all F8s. But we have also spent a lot of time sitting in the tent, listening to the rain falling. So it’s looking like our time will be too short to free climb so many hard pitches. One of the hard pitches is still dripping wet with seepage too. But we’ll see.

Whether we can or not, so long as we find dry rock, I'm sure we will have a good time and a good workout.