Mixed ski-trip and hike in Høyanger
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Municipality | GPX |
| Langefjellet | 878m | 275m | Høyanger |
On Saturday evening, Anne and I decided to take the trip to Siplo above Høyanger, and visit Langefjellet. None of us had been up there before. We were not sure if this would be a ski-trip or a hike, but we were prepared for both outcomes.
Sunday was just gorgeous, and the spirit was *real* good when we arrived at Hella, with view towards the shiny white Balestrand mountains.
Finally, we arrived in Høyanger and found the Fjellvegen mountain road to Siplo. We could drive all the way up to the parking at 480m, and saw that we could ski directly from the parking.
Here started a serious of bad calls from my side. For some reason, I said we could leave the crampons and ice-axes in the car. With snow at the parking, we could surely ski all the way up.
1,6km later, we got the Langefjellet in view, and I felt that the ascent route would pose a sliding danger. The snow felt hard as ice! Anne didn’t quite agree, but I had to trust my instincts and I returned to the car to bring ice-axes and crampons for the both us.
Feeling much better, we skied (and walked) across the dam to the foot of the mountain. Here I made my 2nd wrong decision and suggested we should put crampons on and do the rest of the hike on foot.
OK, the ridge was steep and without crampons I felt we would have to secure every step in the upper part, but it felt SO wrong to reach the top of the ridge, with the summit 1,5km away, and – NO skis.
Oh well, no turning back now. And so we took a detour to the east to get a good overview of Høyanger.
Proceeding on foot, the snow carried our weight for the most part, and we really enjoyed the day.
We reached the top 2,5 hours after heading out (which included my return to the trailhead). It was *really* nice to be on a new top again. With my little family, and in gorgeous weather.
We continued to Toppenhytta – an unlocked cabin, less than 200m west of the summit. We took a look inside, but didn’t stay for long.
Back at the steep ridge, we decided to descend without crampons. With poles, that went quite well and my former decisions felt really annoying…
Down by the skis, I noticed that my ice-axe was no longer attached to my backpack. Man!!!! I knew that it was present before we started our descent down the ridge, but where was it now? Did it fall of the mountain or was it down in the valley? Halfway up the ridge, I found it stuck in the snow. Luck!
Back at the lake, we put our skis back on and I looked forward to a speedy ascent. Like normal procedure, Anne held back Karma for 30 secs while I took off. Then it was a matter of if Karma would catch up with me before the parking. She didn’t, but it was close. She sure runs fast!
Oh man, it was a nice trip – despite my bad judgment on a couple of occasions…
Pictures from the trip:
Awesome Trip Beautiful!