Rjukan, Norway

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MCS AlexClimb Club and Ice Climbing School
My iceclimbing training program in Rjukan

History is not just a collection of facts from the past.

However, everyone has his own right to understand and relate to this issue. Regarding myself, I can say that at school I sharply hated history as a subject of education.

Nobody taught us history at school. They just forced us to cram dates that no one needed muttering indistinctly outdated political cliches. I abandoned my school studies during the “era of change in Russia” - in the 1990's.

Soviet manual of History of USSR - a book of boring fairy tales from my childhood

I understood the meaning and importance of studying history much later, partly thanks to how crookedly and ineptly they tried to feed us rotten propaganda during my school years. Fortunately, as a child I had an acute form of belching to stupidity. Thanks to it, I avoided the formation of compost in my brain and retained the need to develop myself.

Having travelled a lot around the world, I learned foreign languages and got the opportunity to directly communicate with completely different people outside of political denominations. So I realized the importance of some fundamental values.

Among them there is the value of independent study and analysis of the history, especially the modern history.

Failure to draw conclusions from the recent historical events leads to their repetition

The basis of my understanding of history is that all processes in this world are repeated solely because the crimes and mistakes of the past were cleverly hidden in the distorted versions of historical events.

Stalin Museum, Gori, Georgia - that is clear example of selective demonstration and manipulation of historical facts - common tool of political propaganda

Excuse me for this long introduction before I move on to my story about the town of Rjukan in Norway, its importance for iceclimbing and the "Old School". Actually, this was my initial premise for writing this text.

In appearance, Rjukan is a completely dull, boring and unsuitable place for human life. However, the interweaving of the historical events with the conditions of modern reality has made this corner of Norway unique and even attractive in its own way.

That is for this reason that I began my story with an indentation about history.

Rjukan, Norway

I would say that the story of Rjukan - it is a story of how care, mutual respect and a careful attitude to the modern history can create coziness and comfort, even in the harshest and bleak conditions of the north of Norway.

In the history of Norway there was also a period of communist fever, but this country was not infected with lame ideology and chose a different way of self-development

..........Unfortunately, I cannot deny the fact that I know another country in which I have seen many places incomparably more beautiful and blessed than Rjukan... But, the people in this country managed to turn these places into a branch of hell. I will not touch upon this topic further here.

The tiny town of Rjukan (59.879381, 8.596944) is located deep in the long and narrow Vestfjorddallen gorge in the Norwegian mountains, 177 kilometers northwest of the Norwegian capital Oslo. This place received town status quite recently, in 1996. Before this, Rjukan was just a provincial village in Tinn County (Norway has such a territorial entity). Only about 3,000 people now live in this very small town.

The town of Rjukan, hidden deep in the mountain gorge

The history of Rjukan is inextricably linked with very recent historical (dramatic) events in world history. Actually, its very appearance in such an unfortunate and dull place is due to a series of events during the Second World War or a little earlier.

Construction of a hydroelectric power station at Rjukan waterfall in 1920s

At that time, Rjukan was a workers' village, the main population of which consisted of personnel from the Hydroelectric Power Plant, built 30 years before the Second World War at the Rjukan Waterfalls. During the German occupation of Norway, serious research was carried out at the power plant on the "heavy water" - a component that, according to scientists of that time, was a critical element for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

At the Heavy Water Museum in Rjukan

Due to the importance and secrecy of the research that being carried out there, the town of Rjukan was located in a secluded and inaccessible place, under the protection of the powerful rock walls of the deep Vestfjorddallen gorge.

The strategic location of Rjukan cost the comfort to its residents. To this day, the consequences of the events of almost 80 years ago are felt in the extremely specific and even depressive atmosphere that fills this town from edge to edge.

But in this atmosphere there is a bright spot that has made Rjukan a unique place in the world.

Vestfjorddallen gorge near the town of Rjukan

The fact is that due to the secretive location of the town, the sun does not come to Rjukan for almost half a year. The low sun of Norway in winter does not rise high above the horizon and its rays cannot shine into the depths of the rocky gorge. For the people of Rjukan, this means six months of darkness and the cold gloom of the northern winter.

The first impression of Rjukan is harsh winter melancholy

Here it is necessary to say a few words about Norway as a country.

Norway is a country where the government builds a new road bridge to the mainland for the residents of a poor fishing village of 5 houses.

Norway is a country where the government buys products from its farmers at a higher price than is on the market. And so on.

For me, the history of Rjukan is a fact from the same chain.

Road bridges in Northern Norway connect numerous islands of the Lofoten archipelago

The sun does not get to Rjukan. It is bad for people to live without sunlight. This problem in Rjukan was partially resolved at the level of the government. In 2013, a special project was implemented to deliver sunlight deep into the Vestfjorddallen gorge, especially for the residents of Rjukan.

At the top of Mount Gaustaoppen, a complex of several mirrors controlled by a special computer was built. These mirrors reflect the sun and create a giant sun beam over the entire central part of Rjukan.

Rjukan's artificial sun - a construction made of rotating mirrors to reflect sunlight into the center of Rjukan

It sounds really fantastic. When I heard about the "Rjukan mirrors" for the first time, I couldn't believe my ears.

Later, when my ice climbing adventures brought me to Rjukan, I saw this miracle with my own eyes. At the top of the mountain, indeed, a small sun is shining, and the city becomes warmer and more comfortable - in every sense. The central square comes to life, people go for walks, children play in the snow.

Thanks to Rjukan's mirror, the town becomes brighter and more comfortable to live

The walls of discreet, but neat Norwegian houses painted in surprisingly soft tints play with fresh colors. The “Mirror of Rjukan” changed the entire external and even internal appearance of this place.

Rjukan is Norway's most popular ice climbing area.

A well-known fact is that Norway is a country of fjords and waterfalls. But the concentration of waterfalls in the Rjukan area makes this place doubly waterfall, even by Norwegian standards.

Ice climbing at the Rjukan Cascades

On all the slopes, in the depths and at the heights of the Vestfjorddallen gorge, there are cascades of very different lengths, widths and heights. They rustle and sparkle in summer and shine with blue ice in winter. It is this abundance that makes Rjukan the ice climbing capital of Norway.

Ice climbing at the Rjukan Cascades

Much like Kalymnos island, which has become a magnet for rockclimbers from all over Europe, Rjukan, every winter, attracts a wide international community of the “lovers of crampons and ice axes”.

A special seasonal guidebook has even been published on the ice climbing routes of Rjukan. Only two regions in Norway have received this honor - Rjukan and Hemsedal.

This is the second edition of the guide to ice climbing routes in the Rjukan region

Regarding the second location - Hemsedal, I will tell you in other article - as these places are too different from each other, they have too many individual and unique features to be described separately.

Maybe you even think that all the waterfalls in Norway are similar to each other?! This is the deepest mistake, even deeper than the Vestfjorddallen gorge.

Ice climbing in the Gol area, Hemsedal district

Besides the Mirrors, Rjukan has another unique attraction. That is something known only among the iceclimbing community. But within this community, the fame of the fact knows no bounds. I'm talking about "Rjukan Old School".

In fact, this is not a school at all - but its story can teach you a lot. "Old School in Rjukan" is the only hostel in the world created exclusively for iceclimbers.

Old School in Rjukan - looks not much like a hostel from the outside

The two-story building of an old abandoned school in Rjukan was bought (with the help of a government loan) by a guy from Rjukan, fanatical mountaineer and ice climber Jakob Fink. Over the course of 10 years, with his own hands and with the help of the enthusiasts from all over the world, he turned the Old School into an atmospheric, comfortable and extremely friendly iceclimbing center.

Hundreds of amateurs and professionals of this type of climbing activity come in winter to the Old School in Rjukan to enjoy their favorite sport - iceclimbing.

Breakfast before going out for iceclimbing training at the Rjukan Old School. In overalls - the iceclimbing hostel owner Jakob Fink

The Old School in Rjukan is not just a hostel. This is not only a popular and the only real iceclimbing center in Norway, where there is everything necessary for an ice climbing people: comfortable inexpensive accommodation, a canteen, sauna, gym, laundry, a drying room and even a small climbing wall.

Accommodation at Old School Rjukan - not luxury, but very clean, high quality and comfortabe

In addition to all this, the Old School in Rjukan is an excellent example of how, using your own passion, practically from scratch, you can create, albeit small, but bright, beautiful and very useful business.

Useful both for iceclimbers and for the entire Rjukan community as well, which received a new flow of tourists.

Screen of the ultra-modern autonomous heating system of the Old School of Rjukan

I included Rjukan, in the form of an iceclimbing training program, to my collection just a few years ago. Before that for over 10 years I had been exploring the iceclimbing opportunities in Hemsedal and the Lofoten Islands.

However, finally my Norwegian friends convinced me that it was necessary to expand the iceclimbing geography to Rjukan region as well. Having visited this area, I was deeply impressed.

Iceclimbing training at Rjukan Cascades, Norway

An almost endless variety of iceclimbing sectors and routes, compact and convenient infrastructure, fantastically interesting museum of the Hydroelectric Power Plant and “Heavy Water”. From these components it was possible to compose an interesting iceclimbing program, more accessible to the beginners than my iceclimbing programs in Hemsedal.

The Heavy Water Museum in Rjukan has a very interesting local history exhibition, a detailed and (most importantly) politically neutral presentation of the recent historical events

The fact is that most of the Rjukan cascades are not technically difficult, without steep verticals and ice overhangs.

This is the main feature of the Rjukan area, which makes it possible to learn the iceclimbing literally from zero level, without any sporting ambitions or prior preparation.

Iceclimbing training at the Rjukan Cascades, Norway

Hemsedal, in this regard, is a more advanced training location and it is more demanding in the terms of initial physical fitness.

Author of texts and photographs - Alex Trubachev
Your professional mountaineering, rockclimbing and iceclimbing guide in Norway

MCS EDIT 2024