Rock Climbing in Norway

Norway has many rock climbing areas throughout the country with many of these areas offering long multi-pitch big wall climbing often on good quality granite rock. The style and the lengths of the climbs, coupled with travelling distances involved make Norway a great adventure rock climbing holiday destination.

Romsdal is arguably Norway’s most famous climbing area, and is home to Europe’s tallest vertical rock face - the Troll Wall, at over 1,000m high. The climbing is located around the small town of Åndalsnes, which is easily accessible from Oslo by train. The Romsdal area is great for all types of rock climbing, mountaineering, ski touring and ice climbing on good quality granite rock. The mountain of Romsdalshorn offers many classic routes, with the north wall route being one of the most popular.  The Crag Climbing in Romsdal Guidebook covers around 750 trad and sport routes across a wide range of grades.  It covers an area along the Romsdal valley and around Åndalsnes, the Molde region, and Eresfjord.

The Lofoten Islands are located off the west coast of Norway, around 200km north of the Arctic Circle, and are made up of five large and five small islands. On these islands, rising from the sea, are a range of granite peaks that rise over 1,000m high and provide many excellent multi-pitch traditional routes, up to 500m long. These granite mountains offer some of the most scenic and spectacular rock climbing in Norway. The climbing is centred on the village of Henningsvaer, which provides some of the most popular and well developed crags at Lofoten. Here many climbers are inspired to climb the big wall routes at places such as the Preston and Pillaren walls. Find out more...

There are many sport climbing areas in Norway, particularly between Oslo and Bergen in the south of the country. In fact there are 19 major sport climbing areas between these southern cities, making them very accessible from the rest of Europe. The climbing is very varied with routes available across a wide range of grades. The vast majority of the routes being single pitch sport routes, though there are a few traditional routes and short multi-pitch routes.  The Climb Norway Sport Climbing Guidebook covers 34 separate sport climbing areas, including the famous Hanshallaren crag, describing many 1,000’s of routes. Buy this Climb Norway Sport Climbing guidebook from our shop.

The Vestfold area is located just to the south of Oslo where there are many granite crags. The climbing is typically single pitch sport routes as well as some bouldering at places such as Hvasser. The Selected climbs in Vestfold Guidebook describes 20 crags in this area, many of which are close to the coast.  This makes Vestfold an excellent holiday destination to combine climbing and family activities by the sea.

Stetind is Norway’s National Mountain, and is a great place for rock climbers and Alpinists. This granite peak that is often likened to a smaller version of the Matterhorn has sweeping ridges rising straight from the fjord to a height of 1,392m. The style of climbing on Stetind is very much on long alpine style, multi-pitch routes up to 20-pitches long. Find out more... 

In the general Narvik area there are plenty of other long multi-pitch routes, at places such as Hamarøyskaftet on the island of Hamarøy, large granite walls near Efjord, and Skjomen fjord. Plus there are numerous easily accessible sport crags at Skjomen and around Narvik. 

The Setesdal valley is located in southern Norway, southwest of Oslo, and is one of Norway’s most accessible climbing areas from the rest of Europe.  The climbing is centred on the town of Valle and has excellent slab, wall and crack climbing, ranging from single pitch to multi-pitch routes up to 18 pitches long. The climbing is spread across a wide range of grades with lots of routes between Norwegian 5 to 7 (English VS to E2/3 or French 4+ to 6c). There is also a mixture of traditional and sport routes with many of the belays bolted on good quality granite rock. Find out more...

Hægefjell is a magnificent granite dome, close to Setesdal, offering both bouldering and long multi-pitch climbing up to 500m long on excellent granite rock.  At Hægefjell there are over 180 boulder problems across a wide range of grades from Fb 3 to Fb 8a, and over 50 long multi-pitch routes.  Find out more...

Kvam is located in the Sogn Fjord on the west coast of Norway, near the town of Sogndal. This granite crag is almost 2km long with a mixture of sport and trad routes, and is situated on the coast of this stunning Fjord. There are over 400 routes at Kvam spread across a wide range grades, with the vast majority of these routes being single pitch. The crag is very accessible in being only 3.5km from Sogndal with an approach time from the car of between 1 and 20 minutes. There are a further 18 granite crags in the Sign Fjord that are smaller than Kvam, but are situated in equally stunning locations. 

The easily accessible and reliable ice found at Rjukan and around Lillehammer draws climbers from all over the World for a great ice climbing holiday.  Find out more...