The Viking?s Shield Wall. Giving Birth to Reason (VI 5.10 A3+, 1280m, Libecki, 2002) is indicated. [Photo] Mike Libecki
It all started with a fantasy, not just about luscious, virgin walls to climb, but of their discovery. Using a magnifying glass, I crouched over Danish military photos of Greenland’s east coast. Several eye-straining hours later I pinpointed four areas that looked to contain rows of steep, massive, virgin granite walls. Sweetness!
Several months later, I was walking in front of the walls that had teased me through the magnifying glass. A wonderful wall that I called the Viking’s Shield was tucked in the back of a fifty-kilometer fjord amongst a family of other granite monoliths. I ascended the wall from August 15 to September 7 via Giving Birth to Reason (VI 5.10 A3+, 1280m). I was solo for over forty days; during that time, I found not only pristine breathtaking wilderness, but some of the most amazing walls and granite towers that I have seen anywhere. From the several-hundred-mile boat ride through iceberg-laden ocean to polar bears, ghost towns, raging arctic storms, not to mention the climbing, the mistakes, and the solo mental madness, this was one very uncertain, very lonely, very intense expedition.
– Mike Libecki, USA