UKH

I just got my hands on a copy of "The Lyngen Alps" by Sjur Nesheim & Eivind Smeland, and am extremely impressed.

Descriptions are short but to the point, with almost every each pages containing high quality photos & topos, including several which I have been trying on and off to get decent info about for around 5 years.

The main downside is that it is not a pocket guide due to format and hard cover. It won't be getting carried up any hills but considering that the previous best info I had available was the ancient west col "Scandinavian Mountains" complemented by pics from the ski touring book I am quite prepared to forgive that.

Short version: I would have given my climbing partners right arm for a book this good when I was there in 2013!

Got my copy from Climb Europe.

In reply to davidbeynon:

My favourite bit was in the ice climbing section where they say in slightly more diplomatic words: "Oi! Foreigners, coming over here with your sponsored athletes and photographers in tow, calling everything you climb a first ascent?! Well it wasn't. We did them all yonks ago! Suckers..." https://twitter.com/TobyinHelsinki/status/632190948177481728 What made this even better was that then a couple of pages onward they show an ice climb and credit it to some Norwegian sounding chaps in 2012 when I did it in 2008 and know plenty of Finnish teams had done it previous to that.

In reply to TobyA:

Brilliant. I'm going to have to go and look for it now.

How would you rate the accuracy & grading overall? That's one thing I can't evaluate without spending a lot more time up there.

In reply to davidbeynon:

No idea really - I've only ice climbed in places that don't use WI grades, or where the climbing style is not really suited for WI grades, so can't say whether the routes we did there are really WI2 or 3 or 4. I suspect the lack of traffic and size (width as much as length) of the routes up there makes them fairly unique. As the guide says, you can see most of them from the road, so you sort of have a fair idea of what you are letting yourself in for before you slog up to the falls. I'm normally pretty unconvinced by the hippy "it's not about the grade, man!" sort of stuff - it often is! We all want to challenge ourselves and progress. But in Lyngen there is so much else to think about, whether the route deserves WI3 or 4 really doesn't seem so important!

In reply to TobyA:

I was more thinking of it from the other angle - limited time and money for trips mean I want to try and climb good mountain routes. The grading for me is there to find things that are challenging but not impossible - consistency rather than flattery.

Adventurous? Not particularly but if I'm pushing my grade I prefer to do it closer to home so I'm not wasting valuable holiday.