Sticking to the local region
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| Veten | 521m | 13m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| Garnestua | 653m | 415m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| Sulafjellet | 776m | 776m | Sula, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| Melshornet | 668m | 560m | Hareid, Norway | WCP |
This will be a short week report, as the weekend is covered in a separate report…
Veten (521m), Aug 19 2019
Veten above Flø
Monday: The day started out by visiting the Veterinarian. When Karma had her dental care some days ago, she got a needle shot in the throat. What I didn’t see until some days later was that the shot triggered a bad hot spot. I will spare you the nasty details and show a picture where her throat isn’t seen. Oh well, at it again… The cleaning 2-3 times a day, day after day. The upside is that Karma doesn’t seem much affected by it.
In the afternoon, it was time for a hike. This hike had its good and bad moments. Let’s start with the good…
It was raining all around when it was time for our afternoon hike. But, I could see a glimpse of blue sky above Flø and decided to drive out there and hope for some luck. It was raining even when I passed the “Flø” signpost, but then there was no more rain.
I didn’t expect that my luck would persist, so we hurried up the – reasonably steep route – towards Veten. The very tip above Flø is called Fløhornet – or Midtfløhornet. A much grander name than the summit point.
According to the book “Den Norske Leidangen” (1951), which lists the wooden cairns from the Viking age, lit when the enemy was detected, you’ll find that Veten is one of three “Vetter” in the old Ulstein municipality. The others are Sneldelida og Signalhornet. This particular Veten is called “Viten på Fløhorn” in the book. Which – in my humble opinion – means that the top should be called Fløhornet today, rather than the tip just above Flø.
We didn’t escape the rain, so any plans for a round trip hike got buried. The time was 7pm sharp when we left the summit, and suddenly I got this urge for a cold beer with my dinner. The only problem was you can’t buy beer after 8pm on weekdays in Norway. I was at 521m elevation, had a 2,3km descent ahead of me, and then a 9km drive to get to a store.
However, I didn’t see this as a huge problem, and hurried down the mountain. The hurry resulted in a seriously twisted ankle and a subsequent fall that went OK. Sort of. But the ankle was really damaged, and I could swear I heard something snap. My first thought went to the beer that was now out of reach, and my second thought was “how bad is this really?”.
In any case, I couldn’t hang around up here, so I started to jump down on one foot. As it was quite steep, I could easily control the jumps with my hands. But after a little while, the ankle felt better, and by the time I reached the road in Midtflødalen, I could even jog down to the car! What a miracle…
The time was 7:24pm when we reached the car and I had all the time in the world to get to the store in time. I must confess that I felt a little sorry for myself and ended up with 1 beer for dinner and 1 more for medicine…
Trip statistics: 4,6km, 500 vertical meters, 1h:04m
Garnestua (653), Aug 20 2019
Tuesday: This afternoon hike from Haddal got interesting once we got above the forest. An eagle was very, very curious about us. Or – more likely – curious about Karma. I’ve seen many eagles over the years, but I’ve never seem them with their claws out like this.
I was totally convinced that if I had been further away from Karma, the eagle would have attacked. That would have been bad for the eagle. Karma is 30kg and really don’t like attackers.
After this … weird … encounter, we moved on towards the top, where fog and rain awaited.
We only stayed for one minute and returned the way we came. I had hoped that it would stop raining and that we could take a different route down. But no such luck. Still, an interesting hike…
Trip statistics: 5,3km, 600 vertical meters, 1,5 hours
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the hike:
Vardane – Sula (776m), Aug 21 2019
Wednesday: After work in Ålesund, I drove to Sula island to do a round trip hike that I either a) hadn’t done before, or b) forgotten all about. It turned out to be b), and I had forgotten all about the hike I did back in 2006 – just after moving to Ålesund.
We headed out from the south side of lake Mausavatnet and I made sure that I didn’t get on the normal route to Rollonhytta. And then we were on our way up a tractor road that took us “deep” into the forest.
After a while, the forest road ended and we followed wet and boggy paths towards the mountain. I could certainly understand why I hadn’t repeated this walk in 13 years…
When we reached the ridge, we also found a path that made the hike less aggravating. As we passed Sundsnipa, I remembered that I had been there before, and that was back in 2006, of course.
The final kilometer was off-trail and I was quite happy when we reached the top – well knowing that we would have a nice and long path and a nice and long forest road for our descent.
It’s always nice to reach Vardane – the high point on Sulafjellet…
On the way down to Rollonhytta, I passed an elder couple that seemed to struggle big time with progress. But as they were actually moving, albeit in turtle speed, I didn’t ask if there was anything I could do. Because – what could I do? Moreover, they didn’t ask for any help either.
But when I got to Rollonhytta I met a Red Cross patrol heading out. The elder couple had obviously called for help to get off the mountain. I hoped it turned out for both parties…
Now that we were on the fine forest road, we ran back to the car. It will for sure be 13 more years until I repeat this round trip hike, but it was at least really nice to back on top.
Trip statistics: 11,6km, 720 vertical meters, 2h:06m
Pictures (Iphone6) from the hike:
Melshornet (668m), Aug 22 2019
Thursday: At least the day started out really nice…
And – the weather was still OK when I arrived at Hjørungavåg after work. I was in the mood for a good hike and had chosen to hike Melshornet from Kvernagota in Hjørungavåg. A quite enjoyable route.
The hike started out just as nice as I had hoped for…
One has a pretty good view towards Hareid along the way.
As we approached the summit ridge, I noticed some clouds moving in – real fast. But incoming rain was the last thing on my mind.
When we reached the top, I took a quick look towards the south and decided that we would stay here for ONE minute, then run back down. I was not dressed for rain!
At first, I thought the rain shower would pass the mountain and leave us in the dry. But that was just wishful thinking.
We got pretty wet before we reached the forest and it stopped raining. Then we met two guys that I stopped to have a chat with. It turned out that they were part of the local group that marked trails, put up signposts, etc. in this area. And one of them had emailed me some time ago, asking for a picture that is now on some board down in the village. I need to find that board one day, because I could certainly not remember which picture it was…
It was much more fun look at the rain showers, than to be in them…
But there was no reason to complain about the rain so far, because when we got to Hareid, all bets were off and the sky just opened up. Having no cars behind me, I stopped for a second to take the below picture. You really have to believe me, because it’s against Norwegian law to take pictures while driving. Or is it? Or does the law just state that you can’t operate a cell phone while driving? Surely, the law doesn’t mention System cameras? Anyway…
When we got back home, we could enjoy a rainbow, and then a double one…
Trip statistics: 7,5km, 660 vertical meters, 2h:07m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the hike:
Friday, Saturday, Sunday: as mentioned earlier, the weekend is covered in a separate report…
