Through a decade of Lofoten winters, I’ve come to appreciate the pattern: Climb something, gape awestruck at all the other things yet unclimbed, and wait for the chance to chase another one. Thus, on March 10, Stian Bruvoll and I once again found ourselves heading westward across the archipelago by road and ferry, until we made our way to an empty dock at Kjerkfjorden. After the boatman left us, uttering disapproving admonitions about idiocy and helicopter rescues, we hiked through the snow-covered heather to set camp by a frozen stream less than half an hour away. 

As usual, Stian, a full-time citizen of the islands, had warned me conditions were terrible. In the past he’d been delightfully wrong, but this time he was annoyingly right. Temperatures were just barely cold enough for winter climbing, so we decided to temper our ambitions. Still, we couldn’t pass the afternoon idly, so we set out toward the east face of Breiflogtinden. 

We had envisioned a king line right up the middle of the face but instead settled for the more reasonable left gully. We were rewarded with a soft, wet, and slightly falling-apart climb that was nonetheless excellent: No Helicopter (450m, M5). We reached the top under a night sky so clear and bright that every crashing wave, moonlit beach, and sweep of stone was illuminated in all directions. We descended southward and arrived at camp shortly before midnight. 

The next morning, we followed our tracks back over the pass and turned rightward toward the northwest face of the north summit of Kråkhammartinden, where we again found a surprisingly good and moderate line up a gully that led to an exceptional flow of ice. Higher, we traversed hard left across a snowfield and up to the summit via classic Lofoten mixed terrain, replete with a frozen cairn for our final belay: Follow the Rabbit (400m, WI4 M5).

This time we reached the top with daylight to spare and descended easily to the south, slipping through the gap between the main summit of Kråkhammartinden and Manntinden. We left on the morning boat. On the ride out, we added yet more ideas to our collection, to be investigated next season, conditions permitting. [Bruvoll and Wright climbed two other routes in this general area in 2023; see AAJ 2024.] 

—Chris Wright, USA