MoskenesØy Island, Ølkontind, east face, It’s all About the Numbers and Looks Can be Deceiving. On July 7 Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, Adam Stack, and I climbed two lines on the previously unclimbed east face of 735m Ølkontind. This peak lies just east of the village of Hamnoy, close to Reine. The 250m wall has two obvious lines. Adam and I climbed the wide central line in six pitches to give It’s all About the Numbers (5.10+), the name a bit of a joke reflecting the “adventurous” nature of the route, with its grassy chimneys and offwidths. Tommy and Beth climbed a line well to the right. It followed a large ramp/dihedral system and was quite adventurous, with vertical grass climbing and bad rock in the wrong places. Not destined to be a classic. The route had four pitches, with the two hardest at 5.10. A further 500m of 4th Class terrain would lead to the top of the peak. Descent follows the south ridge down to the valley to the east.

This general area has loads of potential. Some of the most obvious lines are quite vegetated, but there are dozens of interesting walls with few or no lines to date.

Lofoten has been popular by Norwegian standards since the mid-1990s, but there is now also a steady flow of foreign climbers, and a number of them are putting up new routes. The biggest change over the last few years is that more people are climbing the longer/harder routes. This summer there were many occasions when more than 10 parties could be seen on Presten. This would have been unheard of 10 years ago.

Odd-Roar Wiik, Norway