Tapio Alhonsuo say how Hans Christian Doseth influenced his escalation.
Doseth’s routes had played a large role in my slow progress in learning the dark art of crack climbing, and I celebrated every time I succeeded with his routes.
I took my first climbing trip to Norway more than ten years ago.
It was a harrowing experience for a hungry young climber from a country that foreigners called “flat.” Like any tourist coming there for the first time, I was amazed by the combination of mountains and fjords, raw nature and seemingly endless possibilities for traditional climbing. When I woke up from my tent that first morning, it felt like my understanding of climbing had already grown 1,000% overnight. There was so much of everything: cracks, cliffs, mountains and more in every direction I looked. I was somewhere that seemed like the exact opposite of where I came from.
Over the next few years, I think I fell a little in love with climbing in Norway. Bad weather and limited climbing information only made it taste better: I wanted my crush to have some edge.
I spent most of my vacation gradually learning how to climb these cracks that I loved and learning what types of lines were my thing. I climbed the classics that I was capable of and discovered lines that I could dream of climbing one day.
As a slow learner, there was a lot to dream about. But as I looked through the guides and took note of lines I’d like to try, I noticed they shared something in common. Most of them were first ascended by the same guy.
One of Doseth’s classics
“Do you want to come here and try this?” the voice above me asked.
“Yeah, sure, I guess I was the one who wanted here in the first place,” I replied, feeling my fingertips sweating at the same time.
We had spent most of the morning hiking through what looked like a jungle on a 60 degree slope, never knowing for sure that we were going in the right direction due to the very limited visibility in the dense bushes. I felt like I had ants under my sweaty t-shirt, ants in my pants, and all kinds of Norwegian flora inside my shoes.
It was all part of a classic that I wanted to experience. Vågarisset, 45 meters wide, stood above the popular bouldering and climbing site called Paradiset, which may seem a bit of an exaggeration but is not. Although Vågarisset is easy to spot from below, its approach is far from easy. After hours of clearing brush, my partner Riku Lavia was now faced with the introductory pitch, a slightly graduated handclap that proved that none of the Hans Christian DosethThe routes were “a walk in the park”.
What did he have with this guy? He appears to have made a number of beautiful and difficult first ascents in Norway and Sweden before he was even 22 years old. All of his routes, which I had the opportunity to try, were of the highest quality of climbing I have ever experienced. And his lines certainly had an edge, as if they all hid some kind of secret that wouldn’t reveal itself until you were fully committed to the climb.
We changed heads, and half an hour later I anchored a pitch higher, just below the wild, wide width we were looking for. As I put Riku down, I heard him talking to himself, now with the safety of the reel: “This pitch is good! This is surprisingly good, considering this is the approach terrain!“
“Yeah, I know, Doseth’s name is everywhere!”
I responded and went on to say that in my book that meant a guarantee of quality. Over the past few years, this is something I’ve learned the hard way: his lines were never illogical, nor anything other than high-quality crack climbing. They always found the most beautiful features and cracks, and never disappointed me. Even if successes were rare, I returned to the campsite always with a big smile on my face.
The Rise of Doseth
Doseth’s climbs were easy to find in guidebooks, but it was more difficult to find more in-depth information about this particular climber in English. I knew that he was born in 1958 in Romsdal, Norway, and that he had been killed with his climbing partner Finn Dæhli, during an expedition with Stein P. Aasheim and Dag Kolsrud on the Great Trango Tower ( 6286 m) in the Karakoram. Together they established the Norwegian buttressthe first route to climb the immense east face of the mountain.
Before he was 23, Doseth had already made several first ascents of Trollveggen, the great north-facing wall of Romsdal, and had introduced new levels of difficulty in climbing in Norway and Sweden. In the early 1980s he visited the northern tip of Norway and established lines that would later inspire me for years.
It’s a little hard to imagine someone solely climbing routes that apparently attracted him, but one thing I was sure of was that he had a sense of beauty. Doseth’s routes had played a large role in my slow progress in learning the dark art of crack climbing, and I celebrated every time I succeeded with his routes.
Epic Climb
As Riku joined me at the belay, we took a moment to observe the monster growing above us.
“Damn, that looks scary!” I said, even more aware of my limitations as an off-width climber. My pre-climb Google search didn’t have the calming effect on my nerves that I was hoping for, with alarming descriptions surfacing such as “The most beautiful sandbag in Norway“, and approximations of grades ranging from 6+ to 7+.
Even though I had one of Doseth’s 7+ under my belt, the ThanatosI was now almost sure that the handjamming I had then experienced had nothing in common with the fight in which I was about to participate.
I pinned my hopes on modern technology and attached several hundred euros’ worth of camalots to my harness.
“If things get spicy, I’ll just mix it up and climb on a third rope, right?»
I said, knowing that Riku would say yes just to calm me down.
“Yes” he said, and I started to climb and felt a little relaxed after all the anxiety before the climb. The crack wasn’t much bigger than a number four C4, and because of the gentle angle, I could imagine myself mastering the skills needed for this width. After a while of grunting and punching, I reached for a very old bolt, cut it with a cry and. I continued to feel positively surprised.”It looks good! Go get it“, I heard Riku clap, and I thought for a second that maybe, after all, it might be possible for me to really send that much-loved piece of rock.
I reached for a hold, hung it up with a big nylon sling, and stuck on it for a quick break. I assumed the hold had been the last piece of protection when Doseth had scaled it, and I wondered in amazement how brave the man was.
You see, I knew the ledge was waiting there, 50 feet or something above me, and I knew it could be climbed, and I now had a Camalot #5 in front of my face. But Doseth, 36 years ago, in this same place, had walked into the unknown, probably very aware that he would have no protection there because of the width. I felt small.
And I felt even smaller when I tried to continue. After trying every trick I knew to make progress on the steep crack, I could hear myself thinking, “Shit, you’ll have to relax“. It was the only thing left in my bag of tricks, and I certainly didn’t want to do it again.
room for that. This would mean the Camalot wouldn’t come up with me, and there was no way I could mix it inside the parallel crack.
Ten minutes later I was hanging on to the rope, the sheath of which now had a slight scratch. I guess my commitment wasn’t the same kind of commitment that crack had witnessed decades ago. To be honest, my commitment meant I had wished my foot would slide better as soon as possible, making the fall more comfortable. How the hell had he climbed that thing with nothing but flint? The leak would have been massive.
After making my way to the top of the field, I marveled at Doseth’s talent. After all, I guess that’s why I loved his routes. Trying to climb them offered me a vision of true skill. I imagined him as a real rock climber, someone whose ability came not from infinite physical abilities but from the skill of maneuvering rock with the least effort. Something I called beauty when I saw it in someone else’s climbing.
Back at the campsite, I felt satisfied. I had experienced this many times before, usually after an initial encounter with Doseth’s route. I knew the crack would stay there and I knew I would come back.
In the meantime, I just had to get better at climbing.
FACTS:
Hans Christian Doseth (December 10, 1958 in Romsdal, Norway – August 6, 1984 in Pakistan) was a Norwegian climber.