A telephoto of
Istinden´s South face taken from Ura in Kjosen.
Istinden was first
climbed by William Cecil Slingsby and Geoffrey Hastings (UK) in July
1899. The second
ascent was made just days later - on July 20th 1898 - by Elizabeth Main (a.k.a. Aubrey Le Blond)
(UK)
and the Swiss guides Josef and Emil Imboden. They also made a possible
second ascent of Store
Kjostinden on the same day:
Having descended to the saddle, we
looked about for the best
route up the other peak, the Kjostind (actually Istinden). We
first thought of ascending by
the ridge from the saddle, but eventually decided that a better and quicker way
was to cross the glacier,
gain the rock ridge beyond, turn sharp to the left at the
top, and follow it to the
summit of the peak. This plan succeeded admirably, and
the first few feet of the
rocky wall furnished some very pretty scrambling. At 3.30 P.M. we reached the first of
the series of stone
sentinels, which Mr Slingsby's party had placed at intervals all
round the wall of rock which
supports the snow-cap. It led one to think that after a few
hours on a mountain-top the
member of the party who wields neither the camera nor the
plane- table must be glad of
some active employment. We were singularly favoured by the
weather, and sat a long time
on the summit, while
Imboden devised safe and speedy routes up the scores of magnificent peaks which
sur- rounded us. Here, a roky needle
reminded us of the Aiguille
du Dru. There a great rock-ribbed mountain, plastered with
glacier, seemed another Barre
des Ecrins. To the south, the huge snowy mass of the
Yoeggevarre resembled Mont
Blanc. But another feature was present, never seen in
Alpine views. The Lake of
Thun looks exquisitely lovely at early morning from the
Jungfrau. But no lake can
match the heavenly blue of the fjords as they stretch mile after
mile, away amidst
snow-crowned mountains, away to the distant, island-gemmed Arctic
Ocean. Such a view as I saw
from the Kjostind my eyes had never rested on before;
it alone was worth a longer
journey than I had made from England.
It was a beautiful walk over calm, farstretching uplands back to Lyngseidet that
evening, and at 8.30 we were down
there once more.
(Aubrey
Le Blond: Mountaineering In The Land of the Midnight Sun, 1908)
Urdkjerringa
(1399) to the left and Istinden (1495) to the right as
seen from Ura in Kjosen.
