Whilst we can cater for all levels from beginner to more experienced climbers looking to lead climb or be guided up tougher routes, it’s useful to have some climbing and winter experience before joining this trip.

Climbing Skills – being competent in lead belaying, and having experience of seconding routes outdoors means you can hit the ground running and focus on adapting to the winter environment; doing everything in gloves and dealing with ice screws. Our Rock Skills Intermediate course is ideal for people looking to develop summer climbing skills.

Winter Skills – it’s useful to have a little experience in UK winter conditions, walking with ice & crampons and dialling in clothing systems. A bit of Scottish Winter climbing experience is also great prep and certainly builds appreciation for the convenience and reliability on offer when ice climbing in Norway!

A 1:2 ratio & planned rest day allows for adaptability, below is the format for the week.

Travel Out

Day 1

Fly - fly into Olso Torp airport which is well served by UK airports.

Drive to accommodation - we'll meet in the airport, grab the hire car and drive West for around 2hrs.

Food Shopping - depending on time we'll do a food shop for the week en-route or the following day.

Evening Brief - meet your instructor team, we'll chat about safety for the week, your aspirations, check equipment and come up with a plan for the next day.

Ice Climbing

Day 2

Our first day climbing. Guided by your experience levels & your instructor. Typically a cragging style venue to focus on technique and coach movement skills in a friendly environment to get into the swing of things.

Ice Climbing

Day 3

Very much tailored to your needs. This could be climbing harder routes, an adventurous multipitch route or developing the skills for leading on ice.

Ice Climbing

Day 4

Go big! Typically with a rest day to follow this'll be a bigger objective kind of day!

Rest Day

Day 5

A rest day for you & your instructor! This may move a day either side for flexibility with weather/climbing conditions.

There's plenty of active stuff to do if you still have energy such as skiing at Gausta, or use the snowshoes to go for a walk locally.

The Vemork Norwegian Industrial Workers Museum is well worth checking out, the area is a UNESCO world heritage site owing to the revolutionary hydroelectric production in the area. Rjukan also had an interesting part in WWII history being the centre of Germany's efforts to produce Heavy Water for their nuclear weapon program which were sabotaged in daring raids deep in Norwegian winter.

Ice Climbing

Day 6

Recharged after a rest day it's back to climbing amazing ice routes and visiting more of the unique venues on offer here in the region.

Ice Climbing

Day 7

Final Day Climbing - we'll bag one more memorable day of climbing in this stunning area. A culmination of the trip, for those learning the skills to lead this is typically where you'll get on the sharp end!

Evening Meal - optionally we often head out for a celebratory final meal out to cap the week and recount adventure stories.

Pack - typically it's an early drive the following morning, so bags packed ready for an alpine start.

Travel Home

Day 8

Drive to Airport - roughly a 2.5hr drive back South to Oslo Torp

Flight Home - flights home.

Or...... - for those who can afford the additional time off why not bolt on a few more days travel to the end of the trip to explore Oslo or a few days skiing? Or even join us for another week of ice climbing in Lillehammer!

We love running these trips, our philosophy is to price them as to pay fair rates to instructors and their travel costs, alongside the additional admin in organising the trip, flying out group kit like snowshoes, ice axes etc. We don’t offer a flat, all-inclusive fee – we’re not in the business of profiteering from taking a margin on accommodation or hire car bookings. As such these costs aren’t fixed beforehand, but does mean you’ll pay the going rate and no upcharge. The sooner flights and car hire are booked, the cheaper these costs typically are.

The costs here include –

• Your AMI qualified and experienced instructor’s time at a 1:2 ratio for 5 days of instruction split across the 8 day trip and their travel out.
• The loan of any equipment, and use of the instructor’s kit for the trip.
• The logistical support of us organising the trip for the team.

The costs do not include –

• Flights – you’ll be responsible for booking your own flights to Oslo Gardermoen airport. Budget around £150-£200.
• Car hire – we’ll hire one vehicle for each team split between the 2 clients, and take out a separate excess premium. A medium/large car is preferable for stability driving on snow. Budget around £100-150 each.
• Fuel and Tolls – fuel is paid by clients whilst out in Norway. Tolls are tallied automatically and paid by clients on return to the UK. As a guide, our last 2 trips average total costs for fuel were £50 each & tolls £20 each.
• Accommodation – is split by the clients. We typically find somewhere basic and self-catered but with a bit of space for kit. This is where as a group it often works out cheaper staying somewhere as a larger team. Typically we’ll book this a few months before the trip once numbers are firmed up. The cost is more variable as it really depends on what’s available for our group numbers. Budget between £175 – £300 each.
• Food – food is split evenly between everyone. We’ll stay in self-catered accommodation and the plan is to cook as a group. Food is a bit more expensive than in the UK, but we’ll cook basic hearty evening meals. Bringing your own snack bars from the UK helps to keep costs down a bit. We often head out for a final evening meal but this is optional.
• Insurance – clients should take out travel insurance that covers ice climbing as an activity. The BMC, Snowcard and Dogtag are all companies that offer policies. Budget around £80-£100.

There are a few outfits running trips to Norway ice climbing destinations, so why book with us?

Experience – all trips are run by myself, Stu Lade. I’ve worked a couple of full seasons in Norway based out of Rjukan, and have worked on numerous ice climbing trips to Norway for other companies over the years, as well as many winters instructing in Scotland. I carefully select the other instructors who work alongside me on these trips such that as well as being suitably qualified (WMCI) and professional (AMI members), that they also have suitable experience working in these environments and teaching / guiding ice climbing at a high level. I’ve also worked extensively in this area for a number of months now.

Snowshoes – we have invested in multiple sets of snowshoes for these trips which are part of the package at no extra cost. Whilst they’re not always required, on the days they are it makes a huge difference! It means it’s possible to walk-in to some of the more remote venues even under heavy snow. The snow shoes can also be used by clients on the planned rest day free of charge.

Spare Kit – hopefully no-one experiences a kit failure, or loses anything important, but we carry a spare pair of ice axes and crampons just in case, and a well stocked repair kit. For a trip like this it would be extremely annoying to miss out on climbing due to kit mishaps!

Individual Bookings – to run at these costs we require 2 clients per instructor similar to many companies, though for an increased fee we can run at 1:1. We do often play matchmaker pairing folk up on our open courses to make it happen and the same goes for these trips. We find roughly half of clients book as pairs and half book as individuals which we then match up. If you book as an individual we recommend holding off booking flights and such until we can confirm we have another booking to partner you with. In these instances booking refundable flights can be worthwhile.

Trip Length – we run our trip over 8 days with 5 days climbing and 1 rest day whereas some do 7 days overall with 4 days climbing and 1 rest day. We like to maximise the length of the trip for the travel cost, both in terms of time and carbon; and we find most folk are pretty tired after 5 days of climbing and ready for a break by the end of a trip. It also makes the work more appealing so we can attract the best instructors, being able to offer 5 days of paid work over an 8 day period vs 4 days over a seven day period.