Smiler Cuthbertson - Mountain Guide

It was 1943, imagine twenty, heavily clad heroes crawling quietly through the snow to the Heavy water plant at Rjukan. Laying explosives, they retreated to safety and then ‘BOOM’! The deadly industry was put out of action.

Sixty-five years later, in February this year, a second assault took place. This time, led by wing Commander Smiler Cuthbertson and thirty plus members of the crack CC 2^nd Brigade attachment, the assault was on the extensive array of frozen waterfalls in the deep valley below the heavy water Plant, this now a fine museum. The party was assisted by the arrival of the 10^th Panzer division from Stuttgart East, led by Herr Peter Cuthbertson (aka as Smiler’s kid brother and his German climbing mates!).

Over a nine-day period, the CC meet members and the Germans proceeded to reduce the vertical ice to small chunks suitable for gin and tonics. It was a wonderful time. Access is so straightforward (and easy) into the Rjukan Gorge and the small cabins in the town, providing the accommodation, were cosy and comfortable . The nearby Pizza house provided (a little expensive) big pizzas and (very expensive) bottled beer!

Wing Commander Cuthbertson was also using his presence in Rjukan to do some guiding. Firstly with two pairs of CC members and friends, and then, when the dust(!) had settled and the first wave of troops had retreated to Oslo Torp for the return Ryan air flight to Prestwick, some having a more damaging time on the car journey back compared to the G & T affairs in the Rjukan Gorge, Pete and Chris arrived for ten more days on the ice with Smiler.

Many routes of all standards were climbed throughout the first 20 days of February, the weather and temperature holding cold (down to -15 deg at times) until near the end of the trip, and although it felt it was warming up, it appears that moving further north for a few hours resulted in much colder climate (a thought for next year?).

Talking of next year, some unfinished ‘destruction’ was noted and Wing Commander Cuthbertson (assisted by another squadron of CC members (and probably by the Panzer division as well) will be back next February (1^st – 9^th plus extensions) next year.

Contact Smiler if you would like to be involved in a 2009 assault, but please use Morse code as the home guard at Rjukan might get wind of our arrival (and book the accommodation out).

[Editors Note: In the interest of European harmony we should point out that Smiler isn't fixated by the happenings of '39 - '45 and everyone from all nationalities got on extremely well. Future assaults will probably be made using the Eurofighter as air cover.]

Kjokkentrappa WI4 (Scottish 5), Variation on Ozzimosis - WI5 (Scottish 6), Vemorkbrufoss Vest - WI 5 (Scottish 6), Nye Vemorkfoss – WI5 (Scottish 6)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under European Winter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.