3 days underground in Greftkjelen - Norway

francis

New member
After 20 hours on the train I was finally in Bod?!

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(The picture is actually of the train station in Trondheim).

15 Min's later Kenneth, Bea and Andre picked me up at the station - we were off!

It takes just over an hour to get to where you need to start walking. At the car park we met up with Arnt Helge, Andreas and ?sa. They had driven a bit earlier and had allready started getting ready. After getting changed and sorting our gear out we started the walk up the steep slope (pic from our trip to Greftsprekka in January) that leads to the plateau where the cave entrances are. The weather was nice (-5*C) and there was no snow, so the going was fairly easy. However I noticed very quickly that my level of fitness was not as good as it should have been, so I was pretty knackered by the time I got to the top.

When we got to the top, Arnt Helge had started rigging a handline down the first bit of the entrance. There is quite a lot of ice in the entrance, so we all used crampons to make things easier. I have never tried crampons + wellies before, but astonishingly enough it actually worked OK, although it was a tad uncomfortable.

Here are some pictures of the entrance:

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Once you get down the scree the fun starts. First there is a 5m pitch, some ice you need to walk down, and then there are three long pitches which add up to almost 100m.

Some pics:

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When you have descended the entrance series there is quite a bit of walking and several short pitches before you get to the camp. We only concentrated on getting to the camp on Friday, as it was getting late. The camp (Camp David) is a nice, spacious, dry and sandy chamber. There are cooking utensils, carry mats, clothes lines and a tent that lives there for everyone to use. By the time we were all fed and had got ourselves comfy it was getting close to 3 in the morning, so we went straight to bed.

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After a very cold night (our thermometer read 2*C in the cave) we got ourselves ready for a new days caving. We had several trip options, and we decided to go up Himmelstigen. Himmelstigen starts off with three pitches (upwards from the camp) which as far as I remember add up to about 50-60m. After the pitches there is a steep rift that goes upwards you need to climb. At the top of the rift you can chose whether you want to continue up another 80m pitch to get to the highest point in the cave, or if you want to go to a massive chamber called Hall-Eluja.

Here are some pics of the cave above the rift:
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After having a look around we went back to the camp.

The next day we packed our stuff and got ready to exit from the cave. Kenneth and I went to take some pics while the others started on the way out.

Here are some of the pics we took:

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We met up with the others a bit before we got to the entrance series. Things went pretty smoothly, but slowly on the way out as most of us were quite tired after 3 days caving. When we finally got out we were 2.5 hours overdue for our callout, and I was cutting it fine in terms of catching my train.

It turned out that we had a bit more time that we thought, so we stopped for buns and coffee at Arnt Helge's place (Thanks!) before driving to Bod?. We got to the station 5 min's before the train left - Perfect!

We had a great trip, and I'm looking forward to going there again. Hopefully it won't be too long until next time :).

I would like to thank Kenneth and Arnt Helge for inviting me, Arnt Helge's girlfriend for the buns and Andreas and Bea for driving me to and from the station!

All the pictures are ? Francis Dougherty Paulin.

They are taken with a Nikon D80, SB600 flash (CLS when used off camera) and an 18-70mm lense.

I saw on the survey that several English clubs have visited the cave. Perhaps somebody here on the forum has been there? :).

Francis
 

paulf

Member
Great photos  8)
they stop on the 35th one  :unsure:
Is that square light set up home made ? :-\
Cheers Paul
 

menacer

Active member
I love the limestone in Norway, all stripy an stuff.
BTW my pooter wont open anything after this pic
cave-33.jpg

Is it my pooter or summit else.
Does your kit dry at 2 degrees in the cave when you hang it out???
 

francis

New member
Glad you like the pics :), however it's strange that you can't see them all. There should be 37 pics in total I think.

All the pics can be seen on www.arcticsilence.com/gallery/ --> Caving --> Greftkjelen.

I turned my suit inside out to dry, and it did dry. The other guys had cordura suits, and I doubt they dried much. Gloves etc didn't dry. The main reason for hanging things up was to keep them out of the sand.

The light is a homemade light with 10x Cree Q5's. It was BRIGHT!

Francis
 
A

Agrophobic

Guest
10 Q5s  :eek:  :clap: could you give details?
Can you cook your dinner on it?
 

Brains

Well-known member
I can see all the pictures - and they are really good.
The outstanding feature to me is the really strange (to my eyes) rock texture, with its multilayered appearance.
So unusual compared to most of the caves I have done that are mostly in massively bedded limestone.
 

francis

New member
Agrophobic said:
10 Q5s :eek: :clap: could you give details?
Can you cook your dinner on it?

AFAIK the LED's are in series, driven by one of these drivers. The headset is an old zoom, and the driver sits in the battery case. For batteries he's using 2 x 7.4V battery packs in series. Each battery pack consists of 6 18650 batteries.

Francis
 

ian mckenzie

New member
Brains said:
the really strange (to my eyes) rock texture, with its multilayered appearance.
So unusual compared to most of the caves I have done that are mostly in massively bedded limestone.
Some Norse caves are in marble sandwiched between volcanics.
 
A

Agrophobic

Guest
francis said:
Agrophobic said:
10 Q5s :eek: :clap: could you give details?
Can you cook your dinner on it?

AFAIK the LED's are in series, driven by one of these drivers. The headset is an old zoom, and the driver sits in the battery case. For batteries he's using 2 x 7.4V battery packs in series. Each battery pack consists of 6 18650 batteries.

Francis

Cheers Francis. i'm always keen to know what other folks are doing with home made lights. that's quite a beast.
 
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