New routes in Russia's Khibini mountain range

At the end of February 2012 Nefedov from Saint Petersburg, Romanov from Moscow and Sotnik from Belogorsk travelled to the beyond the Artic Circle with the intention of forging some massive new winter climbs Khibini mountain range, but prohibitive conditions forced them to concentrate their efforts on a shorter face close to the small village Khibini. Nefedov provides the details.


Murmansk 2012 by Sergey Nefedov

We travelled to Khibini looking for winter climbing similar to that found on Ben Nevis in Scotland and we stayed in a flat with our friends who are freeriders. Skiing is the main attraction here and the close accommodation, shops, transport and climbing in wild mountain cirques is truly amazing.

Because of the masses of snow and the avalanche danger we chose to climb mountain closest to town, the Vudyavr bastion. This ranges in height from 120 - 170m and since visiting climbers usually make long ascents in more remote areas, this bastion had remained untouched until our trip.

We established three new routes, Vera, Visokosnyi den (Leap day) and Headwall attack. All three are circa M4 - M6 and offer mid-grade mixed climbing with natural pro and frozen turf instead of ice.

Vera 135m, 4 pitches
Visokosnyi den, 170m, 5 pitches. Established on 29 February, "Leap Day" is ideal route in bad weather
Headwall attack 120m, 4 pitches. The crux pitch contains some difficult drytooling.