In March, Maciej Janczar and Tomasz Klimczak (Poland), based at the Lyngen Outdoor Center, added another winter route to the east face of Uløytinden (1,115m) in the south of Uløya Island. Their 500m line climbs relatively straightforward snow and ice at WI3/4 to the plateau summit, where the cornices were small. Depending on conditions, the climbers stated, the route could be climbed in five or six hours. They found unconsolidated snow and belayed on rock outcrops using knifeblades. There was also plenty of strenuous digging, leading to the route name NordFit. 

This is the third known route on Uløytinden. The second, Starless Spur, to the left of NordFit, was climbed in 2016 by Marcin Chmielinski, Klimczak, and me, but terminated below a huge summit cornice (AAJ 2017). I only found out about the first route up the east face recently.

About 15 years ago, Ståle Selnes Bjørkestøl, who lives in Oslo but has family in the Uløya region, set off in summer, together with a friend, for Skjelettinden (also knows as Kua), the 930m rounded summit on the long east ridge of Uløytinden. They reached the top via the south flank above Isvannet Lake. The two continued along Uløytinden's east ridge until it steepened, where they made a long traverse onto the left flank before climbing a depression steeply back right to the summit plateau. Bjørkestøl also found some interesting bouldering on the island.

To the northeast of Uløya lies the island of Kägen. Near the southwest corner, at the back of a southeast-facing cwm, lie large northeast-facing rock walls that have been dubbed Valhalla. These walls rise as high as 500–550m. Again, I thought these were untouched until Bjørkestøl mentioned he had climbed a couple of routes there at a similar time he climbed Uløytinden's east ridge. With typical Norwegian reticence, Bjørkestøl noted that any detailed topos he made are long gone, but remembers that the climbs were Norwegian 5 and 6, belay ledges and anchors were easy to find, the views from both the wall and the top were awesome, and that there are definite possibilities for both easier and harder routes in this area.

Farther to the east of Uløya and Kägen, on the peninsula north of Oksfjordhamn, is an impressive toothed ridge, which we've dubbed Patagonia. There are no known ascents here either summer or winter.

– Artur Paszczak, Poland