Geitfjellet, Medhatten, July 18 2018

Northern Norway (day 2)

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Grong seen from Geitfjellet

Peaks visited:

Peak Height PF Location
Geitfjellet (Aejrienvaerje) 872m 639m Grong, Norway
Medhatten 183m 55m Brønnøy, Norway

Geitfjellet (872m), July 18 2018

Continued from Ruten

I was on my way to visit my mom in Brønnøysund after hiking Ruten and spending the night on Stav Gjestegård (without sleeping much). The plan was to do a hike on my way to Brønnøysund, to increase my new top 2018 count from 94 to 95, and my choice fell on Geitfjellet near Grong.

When I located the Rønningen trailhead, I looked forward to a nice and easy stroll up the 7,5km mountain service road, leading all the way to the top. And that was just when I realized I had a fairly important conference call with the UK office at noon. Important enough to accept it during my vacation, and important enough to change my plans for hiking today.

That is – unless I could make it to the top and back down before the meeting? The time was 9:15am. 770 vertical meters and 15km in 2h:45m? That sounded quite doable, when I gave it a good thought. But I would have to jog, no question about that. Not exactly the way I had planned to start the day, but …

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The road from Rønningen to Geitfjellet

I headed out 9:20am and my body soon went into “dafuq ??” mode, but eventually I found the rhythm and made steady progress up the mountain road.

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Up the mountain road

I was quite happy when the summit tower came into view, and it gave me inspiration to keep up the pace.

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Summit tower comes into view

Without impressing anyone (myself included), the stopwatch said 1h:08m – 6km/h when I reached the top. At least, I had hoped to reach the top within the hour. But OK, I would at least reach the conference call with good margin.

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Selfie on Geitfjellet

A car passed me on the way up, and returned down when I reached the top. Someone obviously had a key to the locked gate at the trailhead.

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Hazy summit view, because of forest fires in Sweden

After a couple of minutes resting, I started jogging down. Further down the road, I passed a cabin, where the 4 persons from the car sat outside and enjoyed coffee. One of them approached me and invited me to sit with them. And normally, I would, if it hadn’t been for the conference call. I politely declined and continued down the mountain road.

I reached the car 11:22am, which meant the whole hike (or jog) took 2 hours, and that I had PLENTY of time before my conference call. Time enough to drive up to Harran and enjoy a hot dog before calling in.

12:30am, I continued my travel to Brønnøysund.

Trip statistics: 15km, 770 vertical meters, 2 hours

Pictures from the hike:

Medhatten (183m), July 18 2018

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Medhatten

I arrived at my mom’s place in Brønnøysund, settled in and got a bit restless as it was still early in the day. Even if it was raining cats and dogs.

Mom is an avid hiker73 years old – and we talked about various hikes. She told me that she still hadn’t been to Medhatten – a low hump between Mosaksla and Tilremshatten. She found the hump to be too steep to attempt on her own, so I said “let’s go”. She didn’t need any time to think about the offer, and we were soon on our way.

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Medhatten seen from the trailhead

We drove to Einvollan and asked for permission to park near the farm. The farm owner was curious about our presence, and I explained that we were heading for Medhatten. It was ages since he was up there, and couldn’t give me any other advice except where to park.

We parked near a dam that we couldn’t see, and followed a distinct ridge leading up to the hump. Because of thick forest, it was hard to make a good decision about where to go.

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Our trailhead

We tried to ascend up the west side, but it was just too awkward and exposed. We then tried from the southwest, and found a fairly easy route up to the upper part of the ridge. The only drama was lightning and thunder, coming closer every minute. I told mom that we had to get up and down as fast as possible.

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Hurry up!

It was evident that mom was *really happy* about reaching the top.

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Medhatten! Finally!

A minute later, we were on our way down, as fast as we could go. The thunder was now directly above us. Finding the route down wasn’t as easy as I thought, and I had to use my GPS to reduce time spent on this hump. We returned to the car, dripping wet and quite content…

Trip statistics: 0,8km, 155 vertical meters, 33mins

Pictures from the hike:

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