Iceland Escapades
Story by Audrey Gariépy
Kaldakinn in the North of Iceland (Rainer Eder)
When I first heard about the possibility of going on a two week ice climbing trip in Iceland with a bunch of my German and Austrian ice climbing heroes; I got really excited!! I had to take a look at my world atlas to know where it was!! I was pretty surprised to see how far north it is... I thought it would be really cold up there, but after a month of ice climbing in Québec I was sure I was ready to climb in the cold!!
Pete (left), the farmer at Kaldakinn (Rainer Eder)
Iceland is a wonderful country. There are 300, 000 inhabitants living on the island, (60% of them live in Reykjavík, the capital). Their winter is pretty warm because they get the influence from the warm air currents (the Gulf Stream) coming from the South. The people are really nice and so proud of their country. They always wanted to tell us more about their traditions and all of the nice resources they have.
Audrey ice climbing by the sea
in Kaldakinn (Rainer Eder)
So... let's talk about climbing now!! I went there with Ines Papert of Germany, Albert Leichtfried. , Marcus Bendler, Rainer Eder and Hermann Erber from Austria. The trip started with an Ice Climbing Festival in Kaldakinn, in the northern part of Iceland. The event was so fun. It was a huge gathering of climbers. We stayed in a farm-house, called a Björg just beside the climbing area. We climbed right next to the sea for the whole weekend with 25 other Icelandic ice climbers. Yeah, that's right, there are only 25 ice climbers in Iceland!!
"Wish you were here" WI 6+, 90m.(Audrey Gariépy)
I saw this wall right next to the water with all these perfect lines right beside each other; I thought I was still dreaming. But when they told me that the harder lines were still open projects, I got a wake up call... no time to sleep, I was ready to climb them all!! Ines and I opened up three new ice lines during the weekend. The first followed big ice daggers in a roof, a really cool route. We called it "Wish you were here" in memory of Hari Berger. WI6+, 90m. The two others were both beautiful pillars, one called "Flowers and Puffains" and "Swimming in a Burning Soup." WI6.
On Monday, after all the locals went back home and all the ice lines were free. Ines and I aimed to climb 1000 meters of vertical ice in a day. Really excited about the project, we started the first route with our headlamps on. We both had a really good speed on the climbing part, but we got unlucky with the ropes and lost some time in transitions. When the sun had set, we had climbed only 550 meters and we were so mentally exhausted that we agreed that, that was enough for the day.
"Wish you were here" WI 6+, 90m.(Audrey Gariépy)
Tuesday... ahh, resting!! We moved east, and followed the fjords looking for a nice place to climb for the next few days. We found a nice little place with steep rock and daggers in Breiddalur's area. Perfect to bolt something new.
"Chocolat Chaud" (Rainer Eder)
We opened a new mixed line "Chocolat Chaud" M10, 35 meters. It was a great experience for me to bolt a new line. Ines bolted it from the ground; it was really impressive to watch her.
Ines bolting "Chaucolat Chaud" (Rainer Eder)
Back to the northern region for the end of the trip, Ines and I both did 1000 meters of vertical ice climbing. We had learned a little more about how to save time. We climbed 9 routes of 120 meters on average. I was really surprised about how mentally tiring it was. In the afternoon, my brain was moving really slow, and it was hard to even think and make decisions. Our team energy stayed high and positive though, and we both encouraged each other to keep on climbing….it was really a great day.
Audrey, Rainer, Ines driving back to Rekjavik (Audrey Gariépy)
Driving back to Rekjavik on the last night, we got stuck in the biggest blowing snow-storm ever! We were driving at 20 km/h with the others helping the driver to just stay on the road!! They would give advice like: "little bit more to the left….no right…..ok straight now!!" We passed so many cars that were stuck on the side of the road but when we tried to help them, the wind was just taking us away sliding on the icy road!! All the while singing, "Country road, bring me home." We kept smiles on our faces to get through the last adrenaline adventure of this perfect trip.
Audrey and Ines (Rainer Eder)