Mugnetinden, Mar 22 2016

Peaks visited:

Peak Height PF Municipality
Mugnetinden 1740m 210m Vang
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Our route from Skredbergi to Mugnetinden

On our last full day at Beitostølen this Easter, Anne wanted to further explore the cross-country tracks around Beitostølen, while Karma and I decided to visit Mugnetinden.

The cold wind was a challenge, but I figured we could easily handle 10-11 m/s as long as we had visibility. I drove to Skredbergi and discovered I had no cash to pay for the parking. The solution was to park up by the quarry.

I walked on foot up to the cabins and skied from there. The road to Lake Fleinsendin had been driven by snow mobiles and the track was easy to follow. I decided to head directly up the mountain and caught up with 3 skiers who told me that there was an element of risk on the normal ascent route along the south ridge, due to hard snow. As I had a dog with me, I was advised to continue to Skavletjernet and ascend from there.

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At Mugnebottjernet, with Mugnetinden above

I followed the advice I had been given and skied almost to Skavletjernet, where I turned right and started my final ascent. This route was perfect, as there were no places where we could risk a long slide.

There was not a lot of snow, and what was left of it was hard as ice. I didn’t look forward to the descent. We arrived at the summit cairn 12:41pm, 2h:20m after heading out from Skredbergi. The vertical ascent was close to 1000 meters. Just as we got there, fog moved in and gave us zero visibility. I prepared mentally for a descent using the GPS.

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Karma at the Mugnetinden cairn

Fortunately, the fog went away just as rapid as it moved in. After signing the visitor register, we moved over to what I thought was the high point. My GPS didn’t give me any answer in terms of which was the higher point.

Then we descended the same route we came up. The skiing was terrible, but at least we had visibility and the mountain seemed to shelter us from the wind.

After passing Lake Mugnebottjernet, I could see a number of skiers heading up the mountain and spoke briefly with a couple of them. The light was quite “flat” by now, so the journey down to Lake Fleinsendin was just horrible. But as soon as we got onto the road to Skredbergi, I could finally enjoy skiing without a horrendous grin on my face.

A shout-out to Karma – my faithful companion. She was dog tired after the nearly 30km trip the day before, but seems only to need an afternoon and a good night sleep to be back in business.

Trip statistics:

17,9km, 1000 vertical meters, 4 hours.

Pictures from the trip:

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