Hyllestad, Day 1, May 19 2018

Pentecost peak-bagging in Hyllestad

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Høydalen

Peaks visited:

Peak Height PF Location
Tempelet 398m 160m Hyllestad, Norway
Ramsgrøheia 430m 272m Hyllestad, Norway
Ramsgrønova 590m 337m Hyllestad, Norway
Grønehaugen 585m 62m Hyllestad, Norway
Dyrefjellet 525m 47m Hyllestad, Norway
Flateheia 572m 109m Hyllestad, Norway

While Anne spent Pentecost  in Denmark with friends, I rented a cabin at Øen in Hyllestad – the same cabin that Anne and I rented in 2016. It was nice to see Sonja and Jørgen Øen again, and they could offer me the same cabin as in 2016. I checked in (around 1pm – Sonja and Jørgen had been discussing if I would check in first or after my hiking), and was busy to get on with the primary task – to get myself as many new PF100+ mountain tops as possible. If I should have the slightest chance of meeting my annual goal of 100 NEW tops…

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My excellent base-camp for the weekend

TEMPELET( 398m) & RAMSGRØHEIA (430m)

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Liane

I drove up to Liane, as far as I could drive before parking the car and looked at a) a steep wall and b) juniper bush all around. I’ve been in the hiking business long enough to know that this would NOT get nice. On peakbook.org, I had read (thanks, Knut Sverre) that the terrain was better further west. Still, I decided to hike straight up. I stayed as close to the cliff as possible, hoping there was less bush there. That was … somewhat true.

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Below Tempelet. Not the cutest terrain, but I’ve seen worse…

It didn’t take long to reach the high point and now that I was here, I figured I could hike Ramsgrøheia too. Which was on my to-do list anyway, but possibly along the east ridge. But from what I could see from Tempelet (the Temple), I could probably ascend Ramsgrøheia from the northwest without too much pain (read: bush).

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Ramsgrøheia

Knut Sverre was right, it was less bush further west and I got into the valley without any problems. And the ascent of Ramsgrøheia was also fairly uncomplicated (but far from fun). A deer gave me a good scare when it suddenly took off, just a few meters away from Karma and me. After visiting the high point, we returned the same way down to the valley and followed a path back to the car.

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Tempelet seen from Ramsgrøheia

I returned to the rented cabin to perform some IT stuff, part of the being on duty routine. 30 minutes later, I was done and ready to go again.

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The route

Trip statistics: 4,7km, 450 vertical meters, 1h:25m.

Pictures from the hike:

RAMSGRØNOVA ( 590m) & FLATEHEIA (572m)

 

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Ramsgrønova

Once again, I drove up to lake Ramsgrøvatnet, but now took the turn towards Høydal. Ramsgrønova (aka Hornsnova) was the primary goal. Flateheia was the secondary goal, assuming easy terrain. I met a farmer and asked for trail advice. I probably misunderstood him, and ended up westbound on a tractor road that turned into a deer track. I crossed the creek and headed north, still along the deer track until it didn’t provide any additional service. I was quite happy when I reached Ramsgrønova, as this could have been a terrible hike.

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Karma on Ramsgrønova

Once up, I could see from the GPS that Flateheia was 3,4km away, straight line. That meant at least 4-5km in the terrain. But OK – Flateheia couldn’t be easily reached from any other place either, so I decided to go for it. The plan was to hike across Grønehaugen, Dyrefjellet and to Flateheia, return to south of Grønehaugen and see if I could find the tractor road that I’ve should have taken in the first place.

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Heading towards Flateheia

It wasn’t a fun walk. Not any naked rock to walk on, just turfs, bog, moors, whatever you want to call it. But eventually I reached Flateheia and could go “Yai…” on my 4th top for the day.

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On Flateheia

Returning to Grøneheia was not something I looked forward to, so I sat down and studied the (small) GPS map (old map) for options. None found. Then I looked at the map on the phone, and I could see a forest road far into Høydalsdalen valley. It wouldn’t be far from Flateheia, permitted that the terrain would allow me to pass. It’s some pretty steep cliffs here…

From Flateheia, I headed down to Snømyra, alongside a steep cliff. The descent went fine. Then I got on the ridge towards Mikkalplassen, only to find that a very, very steep cliff separated me from a tractor road. But I soon found the right way down to the tractor road – and eventually the forest road and had an easy jog back to the car.

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Returning to Høydalen

The time was 7:18pm when I returned to the car. Plenty enough time for another hike, but I figured I could call it a day after 4 tops, 1200 vertical meters and 15,5km of hiking. But more importantly, I was a bit bored. I’m enthusiastic, but not addicted. There IS a difference.

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The route

I had a very nice evening in the rented cabin. The only downside was that the dog looked bored. “Was this it? After 4,5 hours in the car to get here?” I promised to make it up to her the next day.

I looked forward to enjoy dinner and watch TV, only to find 30-some German TV-channels where any non-German show was dubbed. I was NOT happy, realizing that most of the people renting these cabins during the summer are Germans, here to fish. I finished dinner in record time and got on with PC work. Maintaining this website is a time-consuming task. When I checked out two days later, I learned that I should have selected “HDMI” to get Norwegian TV. Sigh…

Trip statistics: 10,8km, 735 vertical meters, 2h:45m.

Pictures from the hike:

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