Sátan and Kirkjubøreyn, May 20 2017

Faroe Islands, day 3

Peaks visited:

Peak	Height	PF	Location	GPX
Sátan	621m	345m	Streymoy, Faroe Islands	GPX
Kirkjubøreyn	351m	151m	Streymoy, Faroe Islands	GPX

Sátan (621m)

Saturday: day 3 on the Faroe Islands.

We woke up in Tórshavn at Hotel Hafnia in the town centre. The room was in the 3rd floor, was large and the first impression was good. The room price was bordering to painful (the trip to the Faroe Islands was Anne’s birthday gift)

We went to bed the night before, looking forward to a good night’s sleep. I woke up around 3am to a lot of noise. Our room were 3 floors above the hotel entrance, where lots of drunk and loud people had gathered. They left one hour later, only to be replaced with crowds passing up and down the street. All shouting. Alcohol has that effect on people. Things got a bit more quiet around 5am. Morale: consider NOT staying downtown on a Friday or Saturday night. Optionally; get a room not facing the street.

Dinner the night before: We knew that it was recommended to book a table in advance, and as we hadn’t, we thought the hotel restaurant was a safe bet. It wasn’t. Closed for a private party. We checked a couple of other restaurants, but to no avail. But finally, we got a table at the Toscana restaurant. Anne ordered cod, I ordered salmon. Verdict: OK. Time to order, time to get served and service: NOT OK. Morale: book a table in advance.

Today, it was time to finally visit a peak on Streymoy island. The high points on Eysturoy, Kunoy and Vidoy was already “in the bag”, and it so would be natural to go for Kopsenni (739m) – the highest peak on Streymoy. But that would be a longer drive and hike, and Anne wanted to visit some of the Tórshavn stores before they closed.

So we looked for a hike in the region close to Tórshavn, and we we noticed that there was a peak called Sátan, the choice was easy.

We drove the old road – Oyggjarvegur – from Tórshavn. Sátan  is located close to where the old and new road meets, and just east of the tunnel between Vágar and Streymoy. From a distance, the peak looked like a trivial hike to the top.

Just after we started walking, we saw a bus stop and thirty-some hikers headed upwards. A few minutes later, they crossed our “path” and we learned that they were heading for the small village down by Leynarvegur. The guide also told us that Sátan had very little to do with the devil, and that these peaks could be thought of as “haystacks” (såter in Norwegian).

Looking at Skælingur (767m) – the neighbour peak, I was utterly convinced that this peak would NEVER pass as a haystack mountain in Norway.

We took a direct course towards the summit. The weather was OK, but with strong winds. But at least, we didn’t have fog and rain like on yesterday’s hike to Villingadalsfjall on Vidoy.

The summit ridge was indeed a divide; south side: not even a breeze. north side: the wind like a freight train. Our jackets were put to a good test. They passed with flying colors.

We took a slightly different route on the way down and were back at the trailhead 12:05pm – 1h:35m after heading out.

Sornfelli (749m)

Sornfelli is located just south of Skælingur, and has a service road leading to the top. Or, at least we thought it did. Now that we had hiked a proper peak, we figured it was OK to collect a “bonus peak” with minimal effort.

We drove up to the public parking at approx. 650m. Anne decided to sit this one out and enjoy her book. The wind was so strong that I had apply serious force to open and close the car door.

I headed up the service road, only to find it to end below a vertical cliff. There was a ladder to the top, but it was forbidden to use. There was also protection in place to prevent unauthorized people from climbing it. I am of course a law abiding tourist and decided it was a no-go.

But was there another route up? I noticed that there was a steep gully upwards, but I wasn’t sure if it was allowed to go there, and there was a video camera pointing straight at me. I headed down the road until I was out of sight from the camera, then scrambled up to a ledge which I followed back to the gully. There were ropes in place here, which was a bit odd.

Once inside the gully, I scrambled upwards until I came to a point where the gully got really steep. And due to scree, I would have to be very precise in every step I made. Because of the scree and the steepness, this was now beyond scrambling. It was climbing. If I had enough time, I would have spent time in the gully and most likely – made my way to the top of the gully – and hopefully – to the top. But Anne wanted to reach the Tórshavn stores before they closed, and I had promised her that this hike would NOT take long. So I decided to turn around.

Anne had told me that I could go back up after dropping her off in Tórshavn, so I had the option to do this hike later on.

Tórshavn (I)

We drove back to Tórshavn. I felt that I didn’t have a strong urge to go back up to the mountains, and tagged along for shopping.

Tórshavn: lots of cafeterias, souvenir shops and wool sweater stores. And the very cool Tinganes (the old parliament). Apologies for all the other nice places we missed. Anne found her favorite sweater in store #2, and her shopping was done.

Kirkjubøreyn (351m)

We then drove out to Kirkjubømúrurin to see the ruins of the St. Magnus Cathedral. Buses. Lots of tourists. We didn’t stay for long.

Part of the plan was that I could visit Kirkjubøreyn, while Anne made progress on her book. We stopped by the road, west of the summit. There was fog on the top, and I didn’t have a GPS map. I could only *hope* that i would find the summit.

I headed up the mountain and met the fog just below the summit plateau. I knew that I was close to the summit, but didn’t know how it looked or where to find it. I decided to head north until I felt that the terrain was descending, then do a loop back further east. I stopped by a number of “humps” until I came to one with a cairn. The GPS read 365m (way too high, but probably not calibrated well), but it was the highest point I had been to so far.

The loop back further east didn’t take me to any higher point so I concluded that I had been to the high point and returned back to the car.

Tórshavn (II)

Back in Tórshavn and dinner time. Anne had booked a table at the fancy restaurant Barbara Fish House. We enjoyed a 7-course meal which did not come out as a bargain price, but it tasted heavenly…

 

Pictures from the Sátan hike: 

Pictures from Sornfelli hike: 

Pictures from Tórshavn: 

Pictures from the Kirkjubøreyn hike: