Every winter the industrial town of Rjukan turns into one of Europe's densest ice-climbing venues, its valley walls hung with hundreds of frozen falls.
Rjukan owes its ice to geography rather than luck — a narrow valley in Telemark that gets so little direct winter sun that its waterfalls freeze solid and stay that way for months, giving climbers several hundred routes within a short drive of town, from beginner-friendly curtains to overhanging test-pieces.
A first day on the ice usually starts on something forgiving like the routes above the Krokan campsite, learning to trust two ice axes and crampon front-points on a medium you can't read the way you can rock, with a guide calling out where the ice is honeycombed or thin.
Rent boots, crampons and axes locally rather than travelling with your own if this is a first attempt, dress in layers you can shed on the walk-in and add back on belay, and check current conditions with a local guiding outfit — some of Rjukan's best-known falls form later or thinner in a mild winter.
