The Midnight Sun

This was not a climbing trip, yet I did one of the best long routes I have ever done.

I had never heard of Lofoten, until about 2 weeks before hitching along the island chain.

I do like surprises!

Nordic summer

Sunset-less days in the Arctic Circle. Midnight soloing without a headlamp. Overhanging granite with pockets. A Marilyn Manson concert, for free, in an amusement park. A few of the novelties now in my memory bank, that I can’t really claim credit for experiencing. Granted, I grabbed the chance, but I certainly did not orchestrate it being there for the taking.

Overlooking Henningsvaer: bridge heaven

We have calendars, we make lists, we dream, we plot, we plan, we sacrifice, we invest, we wait. I have no quarrel here, it usually requires dedication to achieve goals. Yet, despite all attempts to maximise our lives, how firmly do we actually hold the reigns? Furthermore, how much in control do we really want to be? Some of the best things I have done required hard graft and preparation. However, just as many fantastic opportunities literally flopped out of the ether and required no more than a little courage to pick them up before they wriggled off. 

Reine and surrounds, it is hard to take a bad photo, even for me

Let me elaborate. I had planned to go back to Australia for another dirtbag stint. It had been a rough few months and I just wanted drop off the radar. I knew the drill, it was a safe option. Low risk, high reward. For years I have been wanting to return to do some of the spectacular routes at the Eureka Wall in the Grampians. I had unfinished projects at Arapiles. Flights booked way ahead, friends contacted months in advance, tick lists scribbled. I was in conductor mode and the orchestra seemed set to play.

Then the unexpected: I met a great travel companion, I ended up in ICU, had a heart operation, planned a trip to Turkey, another visit to an emergency room, cancelled the Istanbul tickets, had further tikker surgery, jetted to Stockholm, took a train to a starless wonderland, got a gap in the rain, tagged with a partner-less climber, romped up a 500m cliff and witnessed a spectacular mixing of orange rays and turquoise waters at the witching hour.

Not bad for an opportunist. If things don’t go according to plan, just enjoy the flow, you never know where it will take you…

The Midight Sun

For those who like the granular detail:

I have a certain penchant for novelty. The unusual. The quizzical. For example, the Big Baobab boasts a pub inside its trunk. Barely functional but vastly quirky, and certainly worth the effort. If you like the odd. Several years ago, I saw images of 3am-bouldering dappled with Nordic sunlight. While not consciously, the idea-seed of climbing under a midnight sun had been planted. By luck, some dominoes fell right and I ended up at the base of Vespillaren with Megan at 4pm. Combined with a fortuitous break in the rain, this also happened to be one of the best long routes of its grade in the Northern Hemisphere. Minimal planning, maximum benefit. Not only did I get to top out at 11:55pm in the sun, but above 12 pitches of absolutely sublime granite cracks. A truly world class line that I had never really planned to do. I don’t know about brave, but fortune does seem to favour those who put themselves in a position to be favoured.

Approaching Vespillaren. Photo: Megan Beaumont

The first of many great pitches

One of the many great pitches

The perpetual light also got me mulling over that most puzzling of entities. Time.

We have clocks everywhere. On cell phones, computers, church towers, kitchen walls, train stations, car dashboards, radios, TV, neck pendants, microwave ovens and old school ovens. Hours and minutes are shoved at you with metronomic regularity. The rhythm of the calendar, the beat of the diary. The scheduled life: back-to-back appointments while running errands during lunch. We are the robots telling ourselves when we can and can’t be free, and yet, when finally we stumble across that most Holy Grail of ‘time to ourselves’, we are completely exhausted, and slump down in front of yet another screen, that will invariably, be telling us the time. Tick Tock.

Nature is timeless. Photo: Laleh Akbaynoor

So the grand irony plays out, when after months of slaving away, Mr Everyman finally gets his allocated amount of holiday, where time is finally his own. As if it never was in the first place. 

Our week of constant daylight whittled the significance of clock time. 9am was just like 15:36pm which could equally be 1:42am. The glowing orb simply bobbing along the horizon, not a care in the universe, while we had not a care in Norway. Time will march on ad infinitum, but we are not beholden: the only shackles we have are self-imposed. In a place like Loften it is easier to feel this freedom, but it exists everywhere. 

Don’t worry about time, it sure isn’t worrying about you.

Feeling free while sport climbing at Eggum. Photo: Laleh Akbarynoor 

On the way back from the bizzare granite bowl of Eggum, I caught a ride with an elderly local. Laleh and Megan got a lift with his wife in the decidedly more fancy of the two cars. He spoke very little English, and my Norwegian is as existent as political integrity. We gesticulated about the weather, and other topics of small talk, but without the talk. As the rusted, russet van rattled on, the scenery was nearly giving my retinas an orgasm. I smiled. The radio was probably twice my age, with both tiny and tinny speakers. The next song was ‘Nothing Else Matters’. Indeed, at that moment in time, those words were the truest that could be said, thought or just accepted.

How you got to where you are is just history, planned or otherwise. Luck, fate, chance, destiny - does it matter?

Not to me. 

The joy of where you are, what you are doing, and who you are there with, is all that really matters.

Nothing else.  

Midnight solo on the Rock and Roll Ridge

Yet another great pitch!

Not your stereotypical island paradise. Photo: Megan Beaumont

A stiff warm up. Photo: Laleh Akbarynoor

In winter skiing is a big thing, apparently.

Like 24hr daylight, a free Marilyn Manson concert in a kiddies playground, was somewhat novel.

The best things may be a surprise, so you might as well act surprised.

Huge thanks to Laleh for an amazing trip, to Megan for some great climbing, to Jim, Dave and Tanja for fun while hanging at Bobil Camping and to all the cool folks I met in Stockholm. Oh, and to all the many strangers we hitchhiked with :)

Big up to Outward Ventures for supporting my adventures.

Photo: Laleh Akbarynoor