Sukkertoppen - second attempt...

well - who could believe it! Our first attempt to the mountain which is right in town ended fairly fast since there was a strong wind blowing at the mountain which took away all snow and left nothing but ice. Neither Vegard nor I had crampons with us, so we had to give up fairly fast. Nevertheless we sat down and had a good, warm "toddy" before sliding down the hill (at least Vegard... my pants designed for ice climbing don't allow fun like that and won't slide at all..)

So on Saturday - after brewing beer of course - we decided to make a second attempt (keep in mind this is really the probably simplest mountain you can find around here :S) - armed with crampons and ice axes (and of course toddy) we were convinced to conquer the mountain. The weather was beautiful - no wind and not too many clouds.

Some impressions from the starting point at the end of the road in Gruvedalen.

For some reason, my crampons never stayed on and I had great trouble keeping them on my feet. This became an increasingly big problem the further up we got as it was getting increasingly icy and steep, so once more, not even far from the top we had to throw in the towel. Vegard had even tried to "fix" my crampons with a piece of rope from his pocket knife, but it did not work sufficiently. So we sat down to enjoy the view and had a hot toddy.

View of Adventdalen from where we sat

The remaining bit to the top

View of Longyear and the fjord

Me

Vegard

Me again

We managed to get well down again, and when I took of my crampons we saw what we had done wrong: We had not properly managed to lock the crampons on the bottom... I still can't believe we did not see this before... Embarrassing... We had a BIG laugh at how stupid one can be and how we still were these typical city-people who just can't use their equipment properly :D It was a great trip though, and to be honest I am looking forward to attempt No. 3. Maybe we should try cross country skies with the skins mounted in the wrong direction or climbing in high heels with miniskirts??

Stay tune - WE'LL BE BACK!