Sila

📚 Sila is also covered in the guidebook "Arctic Circle Bouldering" from Nov. 2019.

🌍 The area is located in a picturesque bay with most of the boulders spread out in a forest on a south-east facing hillside overlooking the bay. The main sectors are found below the cliffs at Rødbergen on the west side of the bay and two separate sectors are located to the north in more open country. Sila has sun most of the day and especially the boulders in the Nysteinan and Skjorta til Supermann sectors to the north dry quickly due to limited vegetation surrounding the boulders. The other sectors are more shaded in a forest.

🧗‍♀️⛰ The bouldering here is mostly on free-standing boulders of high rock quality and the landings are generally good. A lot can be done with one pad but two or more are recommended.

👶 The sectors Nysteinan and to some extend Skjorta til Supermann (as it's a long approach) are very child friendly but you can't bring a stroller. But small kids can easily roam around. The main sectors on the west side of the bay on the other hand are not child friendly as forest around the blocks is quite dense at times and the terrain is rugged.

🛏 For sleeping options there is a small area to park a campervan or pitch some tents by Parking 2 by the sea if you follow a path from the parking. There are also toilet facilities here. If you drive up the road just opposite Parking 2 towards Silavatnet there is a nice little campsite by the lake with room for several tents and hammocks. There might be a small fee to pay. Read the signs.

Up until the late '90s local climbers from the city of Mo i Rana mostly delved in roped climbs. But when Sten Andre Stenkjær took a trip to Fontainbleau in 1999, he discovered the potential for bouldering closer to home in the area of Sila. Until then Sila was only known for its roped climbs at Rødbergan. Spearheaded by Sten armed with wire brushes, ladders made on-site with branches tied together, and a mattress serving as a crash pad, the development of boulders began. Other locals such as Emil Nygaard Nilssen and Tor Erik Sliper, together with some “rockstars” from Bodø and Trondheim joined in and made the area grow. In the first few years, more than 400 boulder problems were put up, mainly of easy to moderate grades. By far most of them were put up by Sten on countless solo trips (up to 30 solo trips in a year). Further development almost ground to a halt when Sten moved to Bodø in 2004. In recent times only a few new lines have been added and traffic has been sparse, though one imagines that the potential for harder lines has not yet been explored thoroughly.