Blåtind & Haddalshornet, Apr 2 2016

It’s the usual mental battle…

Peaks visited:

… every time I wake up to rain and wind and really just want to stay indoors. But then I see the expectation in Karma’s face when she’s wondering where we are heading today. So I looked out the window and told her that today we’re going to Blåtind and Haddalshornet. I can see these two peaks from my house and while it was rainy and windy, it was nowhere near a gale. Karma wagged her tail. She likes Blåtind (the highest point on Hareidlandet island) because of the local hare, which we see almost every time we go there.

The rain has melted a lot of the snow and the route from Indre Haddal and up to 570m was snow-free. We met the local hare just after 15 minutes of hiking. It was just as grey as the weather and Karma had a very strong desire to chase it but was of course not allowed to…

The wind wasn’t too bad and the weather seemed to improve slightly. When I reached the foot of the summit ridge, the interesting question was if the cornices would be an obstacle. But due to the rain, the cornices didn’t give us any problems today.

The main reason why I wanted to take this trip today was to see if the Klyngsgylet route was safe for ascent. This is a route that I discovered some years ago and do frequently when snow has melted. I’ve also done this route in winter and I know there could be some challenges to it. And from what I could see today, I don’t consider this route safe just yet.

When we reached the top of Blåtind, I could see that the weather wasn’t any better further east. This is a great viewpoint towards the Sunnmørsalpane mountain range, albeit not today…

We then moved on towards Haddalshornet. This is a common round trip hike for me. The wet snow was nice to walk on, as it carried most of my weight. By now, it had stopped raining and it was just wonderful to be up there.

After visiting the cairn on Haddalshornet, the interesting question was how the descent from the ridge would be. There is a short section that is a bit steep and if the snow is hard then crampons are needed. It’s such a cool spot; you stand at 580m and see nothing between you and the fjord…

But today, this section didn’t offer any problems. On the contrary; I could slide down for 100 vertical meters! That is always the highlight of this round trip in winter and spring.

Trip statistics:

6,2km, 750 vertical meters, 1h:47m

Pictures from the trip: