An easy ridge walk with astounding views
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Municipality | Location |
| Klokksegga | 944m | 114m | Ørsta | GPX |
| Maudekollen | 1021m | 111m | Ørsta |
During lunch this Thursday, a colleague told me that there was a new path to Klokksegga – a mountain that had been on my to-do list for some time. Actually, I was close to going any time soon, but with this new information made me change the timeframe from “near future” to “this afternoon”.
My colleague told me that they called the route “Urke-egga” (The Urke ridge), which came as no surprise as the hottest thing in the Norwegian mountains these days are ridge walks. Preferably airy like Besseggen and Romsdalseggen, to name some of the most popular. The official opening of this route would take place on Sep 3 2016. So I was quite early…
It had been a gorgeous weather day, but clouds and occasional rain showers moved in during the afternoon. Still, I was determined to see this hike through and took the 4:30pm ferry from Sæbø to Lekneset. I took the mountain road west of Urkeelva river, as I thought it didn’t matter which of the two roads in Urkedalen I took. My colleague said that the new path started near Myrsætra.
The time was 5:09pm when I left the parking at the entrance of Langesæterdalen. I met a family by the bridge that I would have to descend at least 1km on the road on the east side of the river. This was not the start I wanted, and the actual distance was 1,2km.
I found the new path close to the gate at approx. 200m. I had now lost 170 vertical meters and had 750 vertical meters ahead of me before I could stand on top of Kloksegga.
I started out in a fierce pace and paid the price minutes later. My body went into full stop. I was hot, dizzy, thirsty (no, I didn’t bring water for a short trip like this) and had no energy left in my body. I had to sit down and hope things would improve. Very, very unusual…
Fortunately, I had brought a handful of nuts, and they saved the day. A few minutes later, I was back on the path and gradually regained my strengths as we progressed up the forest. It was a hot day for Karma too. I could hear her breathe heavily behind me.
The path was easy to follow. They have done a good job, both in terms of marking and cutting. And it will be gradually better as people come and leave footprints.
Above the forest, the views opened up big time! And while I am very familiar with the mountains in this region, the views were just breathtaking even without sunshine.
We arrived on the 944m trig. point on Kloksegga 6:17pm – 1h:08m after heading out. I could see that there was a higher point 75m further ahead. My GPS waypoints suggested that the high point was 7 meters higher than the trig. point, but I’m not sure how accurate those waypoints are. There is however no doubt that Klokksegga is a little higher than 944m.
After a short break, we continued in the direction of Maudekollen. The ridge down to the saddle was easy to walk. The ridge from the saddle and up to Maudekollen was also easy, but a bit more narrow in a couple of places.
There are two humps on Maudekollen – the one closest to Slogen is the highest (1021m). When we reached the cairn at 6:54pm, it seemed clear that we were on the highest point. even if my GPS map had the 1021m point 120m further southeast.
I didn’t bring my Canon 60D camera on this trip so all pictures were taken with the Iphone. I am more and more impressed with the quality of pictures, especially the panorama pictures.
The ridge towards Slogen looked nice, and if it hadn’t been so late in the afternoon, I would have followed it until the steep wall would have prevented further progress of the non-climbing sort. Instead, we began our desent into Langesæterdalen.
We couldn’t go straight down to Litlevatnet, so we had to maintain a northeast course until we reached the valley floor. The main path between Patchellhytta and Langesætra was on the other side of the river and I didn’t see any point of crossing it. Instead, we got on a marked path that ended up confusing me. It seemed to go back up the mountain, in the direction of Maudekollen’s north ridge.
We descended towards the river and found a vague path that turned into a very visible path when we closed in on the bridge near Langesætra. From the bridge, it was an easy 1,6km walk back to the parking. We were back at the car 7:50pm – 2h:40m after heading out.
Pictures from the trip:
