Bryan Heppner leads Rapellruta (Norwegian 5 / HVS 5a) on Svolvaergeita, Lofoten Islands, Norway.

It was about midnight when the five of us pulled our van into a small side street next to a cemetery in the small fishing village of Svolvaer. Weary from the many hours of travel spread over multiple days, we were excited to finally be in the Arctic granite paradise of the Lofoten Islands. To our amazement, the sun was still shining at this late hour, and instead of doing the sane thing and finding a place to bed down, we racked up and started slogging up the grassy slopes to the formation referred to as The Goat. The Lofoten Islands lie well north of the Arctic Circle, and the sun doesn’t sink below the horizon between the beginning of June and the middle of July. Even at 1 a.m. there were several other teams of climbers out. Climbing in the midnight sun is really something special. One team started up a route on the right and Bryan went up the unsexy-sounding ‘rappel line route’ as the shadow moved across the wall, whilst I snapped away from the adjacent hillside. Without knowing it at the time, I captured one of the best photos of the trip on the very first pitch we climbed. 

ANDREW BURR