Goksøyra, West Face, Winter in Norway like Summer in Tatry and No Wet, No Fun; Snovasskjerdingan Centraltind, Southwest Face, Tordenruta; Grotterruta
Norway, Møre og Romsdal
Goksøyra (1,330m, 62°38'33.31"N, 8°8'41.59"E) lies close to the village of Eresfjord, northeast of Andelsnes and Romsdal. On February 26, Michal Czech and Kacper Tekieli (Poland) climbed the west face to the right of Midnattsol (600m, VII, Ibanez-Metal-Oie-Pie, May 1988) to create Winter in Norway like Summer in Tatry. According to the calendar, this was a winter ascent, but they climbed it in rock shoes, hence the name.
The Polish line joined Midnattsol after around 600m of climbing, with two pitches of Norwegian VII-. A further 400m of unroped climbing and scrambling led to the summit. They descended on the opposite side of the mountain. The main difficulties were completed in 8.5 hours, another one hour was needed to gain the summit, and the route completed in a 15-hour round trip from the valley. Czech is a strong 23-year-old rock climber with routes such as Freerider on El Capitan under his belt.
Tekieli returned to Goksøyra on March 1 with Jan Kuczera. The far right side of the west face is much lower and has its own "summit." This sector has two parallel routes on its left side: Ice Forest (450m, WI4 M5+, Kuczera-Ksiezak, 2013) and Vertical Garden (450m, WI4 M6+, Cholewa-Soszynski, 2013). Over to the right from these routes, Kuczera and Tekieli climbed No Wet, No Fun (500m, M7+). Each pitch was climbed onsight, the ascent took 12 hours, and descent by the south face another three hours. Conditions were far from ideal, and wetness was ubiquitous. However, the climbing is top quality, with relatively good belays; Camalots number 4 and 5 are useful. Kuczera saw this line while climbing Ice Forest in 2013 and feels that if it were in the Tatras it would be a (difficult) megaclassic.
Earlier, on February 25, Kuczera, Wadim Jablonski, and Tekieli made the first ascent of Tordenruta on the southwest face of Snovasskjerdingan Centraltind (1,520m, approximately 62°37'11.30"N, 8°57'11.72"E) in the Sunndalen region. The 450m route climbs under a formation known as the Diamond Wall, slants up left, then makes a hard and run-out leftward traverse (70m) to gain a final couloir. The difficulties were M7 WI3 R, and all pitches were climbed onsight. Twelve hours were needed to make the ascent, and the team returned to the valley after a 16.5-hour day.
On the same day, Prezmek Cholewa, Tomasz Kujawski, and Lukasz Stempek climbed a partial new route left of the previous line, following the 2018 route Alpine Kjensler (700m, WI5 M4 50° snow, Hugaas-Nierinck), then branching right to reach the upper couloir of Tordenruta directly. Their route, Grotterruta (M6+ WI4), was completed in 11 hours.
There are a number of existing Norwegian lines on this face of Snovasskjerdingan Centraltind, generally put up in the period 2011–2014. The two new Polish routes lie left of Forskerforbundet (600m, WI5 M7+, Grynning-Mosti, 2014), and Tordenruta appears to share common ground with this for the first three pitches.
– Information from Kacper Tekieli, Poland