Kjørlifossen (WI5, 400m), Lærdal
We were in Hemsedal because Murilo had been keen to have another go at Midtlinja on Hydnefossen after a couple of failed attempts. A few days ice climbing in the area and Murilo sensed his form wasn't where it needed to be for the route, and I was also a little ambivalent after climbing the line in 2020. With this plan scrapped, a large carrot was immediately dangled in front of my nose via social media. Kjørlifossen had just been climbed and this was apparently a massive classic, despite me never having heard of it before. Despite this icefall potentially being as hard as Midtlinja, the spirit of chasing the ephemeral got the better of us, and the following Sunday morning we were driving over Hemsedalfjellet en route for Lærdal - somewhere I had never climbed before. We were not the only people with this plan, and on the final stretch of the approach we passed a team of three descending French climbers. They were not happy with a horizontal crack at the base of the initial pillar ...