Northern Norway, day 6
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Location |
| Breidvasstinden | 1224m | 506m | Brønnøy/Grane, Norway |
Continued from Søla…
Breidvasstinden is the highest top in Brønnøy, and one of the longest hikes in this region. I’ve been to this top twice, first time solo in August 2005 and in August 2015 – with Anne.
Mom – whom I was visiting in Brønnøysund – had a dream about getting to this top, but without GPS (and skills to use one), this was not a hike she could do alone. She could of course join in on a DNT hike (they are easily cancelled due to bad weather), but I had previously said that I would take her up there, and today I would stay true to my promise.
I also invited Harald – my 2nd cousin and godson. He has recently started hiking and was confident he would be in good enough shape for a 20km+, 1500 vertical meter hike.
We drove from Brønnøysund to Borkamoen (near Tosbotn) where we parked. Mom had just got herself a brand new car…
We followed the road up along the Leiråa river, and eventually took the right turn into Lesådalen. The road stopped at the Lesåa river, but we could follow a visible path up the forest.
Before the trip, I had been thinking long and hard about which route we should take up the mountain. Should we take my 2005 Svartvassdalen route, or should we go via Bjørnstokkvatnan lakes and Bjørnstokken, which Anne and I did in 2015? The pros were that I knew the routes, but there were definitely some cons as well. I ended up with a route I hadn’t done before – across Rånafjellet.
This was clearly the route with least cons, except for one important thing. Even though the river had little water in it, we still had to ford it. It might be that we should have crossed it further down, but that wasn’t obvious. The ford wasn’t difficult, but how is this river with more water in it?
On Rånåfjellet, mom’s shoulders were aching and Harald and I took her weight from her backpack. This made all the difference for her, and with her current shape, I was never worried that she would run out of steam. And by the looks of it, Harald seemed to do surprisingly well, given the fact that he recently started hiking.
We passed Lake Kaffevatnet and headed up the ridge leading to a lake previously (on the map) called Kaffevatnet.
The terrain was easy enough but the ridge was long and we had already been hiking for more than 3 hours. Breidvasstinden had been hidden in fog so far, but the fog was clearly lifting and it was just a matter of time before the fog was gone.
Eventually, we reached the lake formerly known as lake Kaffevatnet and sat down to grab something to eat.
Breidvasstinden summit was only 2,1km to the northwest, but there was a valley in-between and we had to stick to the ridge. The good news was that the fog had now left the mountain!
The ridge got bumpier by the minute and I could see that this wasn’t mom’s everyday terrain, vertical gain or distance. But she was determine to reach the top. In style!
It was nice to finally get on the east ridge, with only 1,2 bumpy km to go.
We reached the top of Breidvasstinden at 2:27pm – 5h:40m hours after heading out. There was joy…
I took a moment and reflected back on August 2015, when Anne and I descended Breidvasstinden on snow, and went down to the lakes between Breidvasstinden and Lauvvasstinden – where we spent the night in our sleeping bags. In the middle of the night (it was light, of course) I found myself quite concerned if we were able to make it up Lauvvasstinden – carrying our heavy backpacks. I just had to find out, and by 4:50am I stood on top of Lauvasstinden. Then I went down to Anne and slept like a baby until it was time for breakfast – and a reascent of Lauvvasstinden…
We enjoyed a long and good break with mighty views…
At 3pm, we were on our way down the ridge. I suggested that we should head for the snow fields – which looked like heaven compared to the bumpy ridge. The penalty would be some vertical meters to get back on the ridge further down, but they followed my lead without questions asked.
By point 1023m, we joined our ascent route and just could let our feet take us down, knowing that we had reached our goal and there would be (for the most part) downhill from here on.
Fording the river was just a welcome break from walking and a blessing for sore feet…
When we returned to the car, we were met by a very unhappy house owner who claimed we had parked too close to her house. Which we hadn’t noticed at all when we parked. The normal parking at the natural trailhead has been closed, so we took the first pocket along the main road we could find. It got solved in a civil manner (apologies, won’t do it again, etc..) but … these things just pisses me off. Where’s the generosity? Is it all gone?
A shout-out to mom for a job well done (almost 10 hours of hiking at age 73!) and to Harald for good company. This may well have been my last visit to Breidvasstinden. If I still have some good hiking years ahead of me, there’s a whole lot of terrain nearby that will have my attention…
Trip statistics: 24,9km, 1500 vertical meters, 9h:45m
Pictures from the hike:
