Lofoten Norway tips suggestions?

Heading to Lofoten in July and looking for any beta from folks that have climbed there.
Recommended rope length 60m plus tag, single 70?
Camping, car rentals, lodging, mosquitos, anything that we might be overlooking? Thanks in advance.

I was there in July-Aug in 2017; it can rain a lot so that should factor into your camping set up. In Norway they say you can 'camp' anywhere. Well that doesn't mean you can 'park' anywhere and we found that to be the crux around Henningsvær. I actually got a charge from hertz about a month after my trip and I initially thought my cc had been stolen but then eventually learned it was for a parking ticket in Henningsvær. Nothing was left on the car but I guess you can't park in the pullouts overnight and they just take your plate down and mail you the ticket.

Regarding the climbing, get the guidebook, it's great. We added Stetind to the the trip and it was an amazing alpine experience. We did Vestveggan to Veteggen (sp) and it was super fun (dancing on devil's dance floor). There's loads to climb in Henningsvær and if we had more time we would have just kept doing routes on Presten since the granite was literally the best I've ever seen (imagine best qualities of Squamish and Yosmite granite). I think we had a tag but never brought it and I'm sure we just climbed with a 70m. Most stuff has walk-offs but if you think you may have to bail a tag would likely be necessary for most of the long routes.

Lodging is expensive but nice to have if you get several days of rain. I think we went 2-3 days of camping for each night in a hostel/airbnb. I stress that it's expensive but you probably know this already. We rented a car in Bodø at the airport and drove to Stetind then down to Henningsvær and spent most of the trip in the southern portion of Lofoten. If I had to do it again I'd spend a bit more money to get a larger vehicle that we could have slept in (we had some ridiculous nissan thing). Since it's light all day it's totally reasonable to start a climb pretty much anytime of day. Thus it's nice to be able to crash for a few hours without needing to breakout a full camping set up.

Definitely hit up the bakery in Å where they still use the original stone oven from the early 1800s.

Kind of a scatter-shot email but feel free to PM me for more details if you'd like.

B

Going to Norway, you are already prepared to spend some money. So just buy the guidebook right away ;) lots of good tourist-information in it as well  !
https://www.rockfax.com/climbing-guides/books/lofoten-climbs/

quick example to answer a couple of your questions:

Thanks for the responses. All great info. I’ve climbed in the Arctic in Alaska a few times so really looking forward to being in the land of midnight sun again. Keep the tips coming. What about a van rental? Any leads there?

this website seems to work : car-hire.net/#/searchcars  for small cars anyway.

roughly the prise for a small car is about 700 USD per week
at least double that for a van.

Thank you. I’ll have to get the guidebook when I get there as I can’t get it in time here. Is that readily available? Where?

In regards to camping, if you are able to bring your own camping gear do so, a three season tent in norge can cost a small fortune, same goes for sleeping bags, and make sure to bring more blankets.
It will be different whether if you are kamping on the northern face of Lofoten or the southern face. The northern side has strong winds and raging waters.. while the southern face is shielded by the mountains. Insects in general are not an issue so you dont have to worry about them.
I would pass on lodging and just stick to camping, allemannsretten is there for a reason.. and if you are going during the beggining of July then you will have the sonn all day making it only more convenient.
Keep in mind that if you are renting a vehicle in lofoten that the roads tend to run only on the edge of the islands between the shore and the mountains.. and if you plan to venture somewhere inland then your feet are your friends. I would suggest to do the hour hike to Kvalvika and swimming in its blue waters. If you do go to Kvalvika try to sleep in the hobbit like hut hidden between the rocks.. its small and cozy and a fun experience.
If you do land in Bodø then I would suggest taking the three hour fifteen minutes ferry from there to Moskenes.
Food is expensive here and we are not known for our skrumptious cuisine. So I would stack up on bean cans and tuna cans and wheat bread for energy food when outdoors. Energy bars are for the weak! Or just buy fish jerky and enjoy a fine vikinger experience.
Good luck.

Contact these guys. If they dont have it in right now, they will surely get it in and you could probably get your name on an example for when you arrive :)

http://www.nordnorskklatreskole.no/shop.html

Contacted them about the book and hopefully they will get back to me.
Definitely planning on camping. Good to hear about not too many bugs.
Keep it coming! Thank you.

Here's the intro to the Rockfax book, a lot of useful information for free:

https://www.rockfax.com/wp-content/uploads/intros/lofoten2017-intro.pdf

I'll be up there in July. Super excited!

Thanks that helps.

I've climbed there extensively (and also put up FAs that should be in the current guide), my advice would be to use half ropes, but a single with a tag line would work too. Any time you need to bail (rain is a common reason there), you'd be leaving gear if you had just a single. Enjoy!!

Thanks. Speaking of rain what’s the best weather forecasting site for the area.

www.yr.no

Figured I would revive this thread rather than start a new one, since this one already contains so much good info. Planning a trip to Lofoten and wondering if anyone has forgone the rental car and hitchhiked their whole trip? 

Neither my partner or I know how to drive manual and we have heard that it's difficult to find a rental that isn't manual. Anyone who rented a car - were you able to find an automatic? We are planning to camp at Henningsvaer, so from what I understand we should be able to access a ton of climbing from there on foot. We would mainly need to hitch into town to get groceries and stuff like that. I'm wondering how do-able that is, or it we are going to make this trip a lot harder for ourselves if we don't have a car? Another factor I'm thinking about is if we are waiting out lots of rain, a car would let us explore some other areas to hike/sightsee, etc. Appreciate any insight!

Driving a manual transmission won’t take you long to figure out at all. I’m sure you could get an automatic transmission with one if the major car rental places too.
i had some friends ghat hitchhiked there a long time ago and while i’m sure it’s possible i think you would be missing out on a lot that Lofoten has to offer. Henningsvar is cool but there is so much more to see and do in the rest of Lofoten. It’s an amazing place and a long way from here you should explore more than just the Henningsvar area.

Feel free to pm me with questions if you want any other beta that we found there.

Thanks Norm - I appreciate your input. I am starting to think that it will be worth it to get the rental. I'll reach out if I think of any other Qs- thanks!

One thing i picked up over there is that it’s much cheaper to rent a vehicle in Sweden. There is a city in northern Sweden (can’t remember the name) that you could fly to and probably save some $$. It would be s cool drive to Lofoten from there and not too far.  A camper van would be nice.

In 2019 my partner and I rented a car from the Tromsø airport. I fully expected to get a manual car (and I would’ve been fine to drive one) but as soon as they learned we were American they swapped it for an automatic car free of charge. I forget which rental car company we used, but it was one of the major international brands (Hertz or similar?) 

One other advantage of having the car is that we were able to do some climbs on the mainland. Stetind and the Kugelhorn were our favorites! 

Thank you David! that is great info

I also vote for getting a car. We rented a car from Bodo and I think it was an automatic (but it was certainly weird). My thinking is; hitching is fine if you're in total dirtbag mode and plan on spending the whole season there and befriending some locals or other travelers. But if you have limited time and can afford it, renting a car is a no brainer. 

And like Norm said, you really really want to be able to see as much of Lofoten as you can. I thought the town of Å and the area around Reine were phenomenal (Narnia-like). You should definitely make your way to Bunesstranden beach if you have time. There's a nice wall right on the beach that Tommy and Beth actually put a route up on (Norwegian Sheep Rancher?).  There was also this amazing looking wall called Segltinden near Kirkefjord that I still think about going back to. It looks like a mini-El Cap and apparently has an amazing looking route that goes up the prow called Hoist the Colours (pictured below)