Grey start, sunny and cold finish of the week
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| Høgkubben | 450m | 62m | Ålesund, Norway | WCP |
| Årvikveten | 458m | 205m | Sande, Norway | WCP |
| Aksla | 188m | 188m | Ålesund, Norway | WCP |
| Blåtind | 697m | 697m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| Rjåhornet | 598m | 105m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| Sollia | 661m | 661m | Herøy/Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| Nonshornet | 485m | 7m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| Kraksethornet | 458m | 65m | Vanylven, Norway | WCP |
| Nystøylhornet | 600m | 382m | Vanylven, Norway | WCP |
| Dalevarden | 531m | 98m | Vanylven, Norway | WCP |
Høgkubben (450m), Oct 29 2019
Tuesday: Today, I had set my mind on a round trip hike that I’ve been thinking about for some time – to descend via Skåthaugen.
Karma and I started out from Blindheim and took the northernmost of the three paths that run up to Høgkubben. This is clearly my favorite route up the forest.
As we rose above the forest, I could see that we were heading into fog.
The fog clinged to the summit, but it was clearly volatile. A touch of a breeze would surely blow it away.
Then we sat course for the top of the ski-lift (Turheisa) and after a few minutes, we were below the fog and had a nice view towards Ålesund.
The path was quite wet in places…
I located the path towards Skåthaugen, and it was really nice to do a new route. I do believe I hiked this path – or part of it – back in 2007 I believe, but have no recollection of the route. I do remember that I hiked with Svein Myhre, though.
Once we reached Skåthaugen, it was starting to get dark, and we had 2km along paved roads back to the car. It’s really fun discovering new routes on this mountain. Not that I think there are so many new ones left to discover…
Trip statistics: 7,9km, 480 vertical meters, 1h:54m
Årvikveten (458m), Oct 30 2019
Wednesday: I didn’t have much time, if I wanted to do an OK hike in daylight. I eventually ended up with driving to Drageskaret on Gurskøya, aiming to hike Veten. The time was almost 4pm when we got there, and it’s 3,3km to the top. And the same distance back. I had one hour.
I do carry a headlamp, of course. It’s just that it’s ages since I charged the batteries, and I don’t know what condition they are in. Charging them is on my to-do list every day, and every day I forget about it. So, that’s what the hurry is all about.
The only way I could get to Veten and back within one hour was to jog. If not all the way, than most of it. Fortunately, the hillside from Drageskaret is a gentle one, and offers a lot of slab rock – which is nice for jogging.
The weather was fairly OK. There was light rain in the air, but as we were halfway to Veten, we got a proper hail shower. This was painful for Karma and she found shelter by my legs. But this costed us time, and I hoped the shower would pass quite soon. It did and we moved on.
We reached the top 4:32pm, leaving us in good shape to get back before dark. I spent a minute or two on pictures and treats for the dog and then we headed back down.
The combination of an icy and boggy path made it not so easy to jog downwards. Hence, we spent almost the same time back to the car, which we reached 5:08pm. And now, it was pitch dark! It was a good workout, though…
Trip statistics: 6,7km, 460 vertical meters, 1h:12m
Aksla (188m), Oct 31 2019
Thursday: Another grey day in Ålesund, and it seemed that it would start to rain. I felt like just driving home, but then it’s those anticipating eyes of the dog when I open the car door.
It should be said that Karma isn’t all that eager on hiking Aksla any longer. Perhaps she’s still associating it with non-stop running for 7-8km. So today, I found a starting point that we hadn’t done earlier. I was able to fool her at first, but when she realized where we were heading, her head sunk.
But when we headed to the forest ridge path (opposed to the gravel road), she was all eager again, and we had a nice hike up Rundskue – the high point.
Then we stopped by Fjellstua to get a picture of Ålesund before we followed the gravel road back to our trailhead at Fagerlia.
Trip statistics: 7,8km, 305 vertical meters, 1,5 hours
Blåtind (697m), Nov 1 2019
Friday: A hard work week was coming to an end, and I looked forward to totally relax on this Friday afternoon. And there’s no better way to start Friday evening than a good hike. A “good hike” doesn’t have to be long or take long, but it should be a good work out. Like going up Blåtind – the highest top on Hareidlandet island.
And especially if you take the route straight up from Ringstaddalen – opposed to follow the path via lake Hundelaupsvatnet. There is no path going straight up the mountain, but the terrain is fairly easy to hike in, if you don’t consider the steepness. The hillside will get your heart pumping!
Karma LOVES this mountain and especially this route. She’s saw a hare here a few years back and she has not forgotten about it.
There was hardly any snow left on the mountain. Not too many days ago, there was snow from 500m and up. And, this was the 169th time I was on this top.
We just caught a glimpse of the final rays of sunshine, decorating the tops above Liadal. Very nice.
For descent, we took the southwest ridge, into Klungsdalen. Then we descended to Indre Haddal and followed the road back to the trailhead. Now – Friday evening could begin. Beer and pizza. Earned it!
Trip statistics: 5,9km, 630 vertical meters, 1h:47m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone8):
Rjåhornet (600m), Sollia (661m), Nonshornet (485m), Nov 2 2019
Saturday: I devoted this gorgeous (but cold) day to Turstiprosjektet Myrvåg/Tjørvåg – the local hiking committee that I am part of. At this time of the year, we are drawing price winners from the visitor registers on the summits that we “look after”. I’m responsible for the highest tops, which is not a very heavy burden.
But, today I had an additional task. I had previously left 10 sticks on top of Sollia, and it was a bit too late to deploy them, because of the snow and frost. As I didn’t want the sticks to spend the winter on top, I decided to carry them down. They are not light…
Our (Karma joined, naturally) first stop was Rjåhornet. I decided to head out from Stemmedalen.
It was a tough 600 vertical meter ascent. I’m not used to wear heavy hiking boots, and I had some heavy hardware in my backpack. But eventually, we had the summit in front of us.
The procedure was that I called in the last number in the register, then I would get a phone call back (from Elin in the committee), giving me a random number. Then I would take a picture of that page and be ready to move on.
But not until I had taken a look around…
Next stop was Sollia – A 4km+ walk from Rjåhornet.
When I eventually reached the point where I had painted sticks some weeks earlier, it was nice to see that they were shiny red and no paint had leaked.
A bit later, we arrived on top of Sollia and I repeated the procedure with the visitor register. It was blistering cold on top, and if I hadn’t brought a dry sweater for change, I would have had problems staying up there for several minutes.
Afterwards, I loaded up the sticks and we moved on in the direction of Nonshornet.
I was able to deploy one of the sticks and replace two others. Hence, I arrived on Nonshornet with 9 sticks. The procedure was repeated again, and I was really happy that my part of this annual thing was over.
When we reached the main road, we had a 2,2km walk back to the car in Stemmedalen. As boring as these walks along roads can be, a round trip hike is always the preferred choice…
Trip statistics: 14,3km, 940 vertical meters, 4:13m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone8) from the hike:
Kraksethornet (458m), Nystøylhornet (600m), Dalevarden (531m), Nov 3 2019
Sunday: Another nice weather day and I decided that I wanted to start collecting Vanylven tops with a prominence of 50m or more. I have done all the 100m+ ones, but lower prominence does not mean a lesser experience. As such, I looked forward to the new “project”.
I reckoned that from the list of tops (I haven’t compiled one yet), I was probably ~10-15 tops short. My take on this was to take 5-10 trips to Vanylven and then see how I was doing, compared to the list.
Today’s goal was clear – Kraksethornet – a hump just west of Nystøylhornet. I had been to Nystøylhornet 4 times earlier, but never got around to visit Kraksethornet.
I drove up the toll road in Sandvikdalen and then we (Karma and I) followed the Nystøylhornet path up to Trollenakkane. There, we left the path and headed off-trail in the direction of Kraksethornet.
The walk across the meadow was not pleasant. Semi-frozen turfs making a false promise of carrying my weight, and then did not. But things were easier when we started ascending again and shortly after, I could finally claim the top of Kraksethornet.
Nystøylhornet’s southwest ridge looked fun, and I decided to scramble wherever I could get the dog along. But when i got to the foot of the ridge, I discovered a path – which I decided to follow. And, the scrambling didn’t look so fun anyway.
There was a cold, cold wind blowing constantly from when we left the trailhead. We got some shelter from it on our way up the southwest ridge, which was a pure delight. On top, we had to face the wind again.
The views from Nystøylhornet are PRETTY nice! I remember when Anne came along – she was blown away by the views from the fairly modest top.
Next, we sat course for Dalevarden. I just picked a straight line between the two tops and Karma was overjoyed by running on this meadow. Pure paradise for her.
From Dalevarden, we followed a path that just vanished. Then followed an off-trail hike that I don’t care to remember, before we finally joined the path we ascended along.
The wind and some obnoxious off-trail hiking aside, this was a most enjoyable hike!
Trip statistics: 10,6km, 675m vertical meters, 2h:38m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone8) from the hike:
