New Alpine Mixed Route Above Arctic Circle
Juho Knuuttila returns to his old stomping ground and completes another difficult winter line
On Feb. 14, Finnish alpinist Juho Knuuttila and Sara Skoglund climbed a new route up the north face of Breitind, a mountain above the Arctic Circle in northern Norway. As Knuuttila said, the climbing was “always committing, always bold and full on.”
Knuuttila, who’s established several routes in the area over the years, shared these details, “We had a double rack of cams. We used two. We had ice screws. We ended up climbing 3 cm thick verglas covering slabs. We had nuts and pitons. We were hammering them deeper into icy cracks for safety.”
In 2022, Knuuttila and Sam Modenius made the first ascent of 450-metre Finnjävel on Breitind at M5R. Also in 2022, Knuuttila and Eivind Jacobsen made the first ascent of the 1,000-metre-tall route at WI5+ M6 N5R in Norway – read about it here. In 2023, Knuuttila completed a new M6 WI6 called Polar Vortex on Rånkeipen, north of the Arctic Circle. “I had just lived some of the most intense hours of my life,” he said – read about it here. Also in 2023, Knuuttila and Swede Joda Dolmans made the first ascent of Norther Twilight in Norway at M7 WI6 – read about it here.
Senja Island has long been a destination for the world’s best ice and mixed climbers – see more new from there here.
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