Bad weather week and the first ski-trip
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| Høgkubben | 450m | 62m | Ålesund, Norway | WCP |
| Høgkubben | 450m | 62m | Ålesund, Norway | WCP |
| Rambjøra | 132m | 109m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| Høgehaug | 980m | 10m | Sogndal | |
| Stedjeåsen | 624m | 121m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP |
Høgkubben (450m), Dec 2 2019
Monday: I couldn’t shake the feeling: “another week, here we go again…” In other words, I wouldn’t mind at all driving straight home after work in Ålesund. Another day of battling indolence. Even an eager beaver like myself can have a bad day. But, then there’s knowing that once you get on the trail, it’s all good.
I decided to hike Høgkubben from Blindheim, expecting a beaten path. After all, quite a number of people live here, and some of them like to hike the local mountain. I also expected that Karma would protest, as she doesn’t seem to like this route. And she did protest, but when daddy commands, Karma gets going.
She’s been acting quite strange lately. For seven years, she has been by my side. But lately, she goes to the basement to sleep at every opportunity. I hope she’s not sick. She eats good and seems otherwise happy, but wants to be by herself. I’m taking her to the Vet tomorrow, just in case. She has a hot spot that just won’t heal, but I’m not sure if it’s affecting her in any way.
Anyway – the path was indeed beaten, making progress up the forest road much easier than it otherwise would have been.
We arrived on the summit just as it got dark enough to warrant the use of a headlamp. The pictures are lying in that respect. As for the pictures – they’re not good, as it was just a bit too dark for handheld shots. But you get the overall idea. It was indeed a nice afternoon on Høgkubben.
To my delight, I could see tracks down the other path. This meant that we would get a round trip hike and that I didn’t have to break the trail myself. Karma was now happy as a dog can be, and one may wonder what she actually protested against in the first place…
Trip statistics: 5,1km, 400 vertical meters, 1h:20m
@Vet, Dec 3 2019
Tuesday: No hiking today. I took Karma to the Vet to check out a hot-spot that has crawled back out from the shadows. The Vet performed a small surgery (without any sedation) and Karma stood still like she always does. Again, she received kind words from the Vet for her patience. Then she was put on antibiotics, and given the foul weather, I decided it was best to take it easy today.
Høgkubben (450m), Dec 4 2019
Wednesday: I got up at 5am and prepared for my working day in Ålesund. I left work 3:30pm when it was getting dark. The wind was seriously picking up and it started to rain. The will to just drive straight home to a warm and cosy house was overwhelming. And once again I managed to pull myself out of this longing for comfort and drove to the slalom hill in Spjelkavika.
All the snow had disappeared in less than two days and the path was incredibly icy. Not so bad in the beginning, but quite worse higher up.
On the top of the hill (Høgelia), we passed the “Christmas tree“, but there was not a shred of Christmas feeling…
Two days ago, I visited Høgkubben from the Blindheim side. If it hadn’t been for a broken trail, I could have wanted gaiters. Now, there was hardly any snow left and I was wearing sneakers. A bad choice, as I was both cold and wet on my feet by the time we reached Høgkubben.
The plan was to descend via Bigtonhytta, but I didn’t want to spend more time on this mountain than strictly necessary and took the path towards Blindheim. Which – would put us on the wrong side of the mountain and mean 4km along paved roads to get back to Spjelkavika. But that was OK. I was tired of the ice and the wind.
On the way down to Blindheim, we passed the same bench I took a picture of on Monday. There was a significant change in the amount of snow…
Fortunately, as I approached Spjelkavika, I found a “back road” that saved us 0,5km. And then it really started to pour down. We made it back to the car in the nick of time. The ferry ride across the fjord was bumpy!
Trip statistics: 9,7km, 400 vertical meters, 1h:52m
Rambjøra (132m), Dec 5 2019
Thursday: It was pouring down outside and the doorstep felt like it was 150cm high. Still low enough to climb across, and after pulling myself together real hard, I decided to give Karma a longer afternoon walk than just around the block.
For some reason, Rambjøra is on Karma’s “A-list” and she always takes off like a rocket. I had push hard just to keep up. Whatever snow was left was melting as we walked and it was altogether a miserable happening…
Then my headlamp decided to call it a day. Well – almost. It switched itself off every time I put my right foot into the ground, and I had to slam it to get it working again. And – we had roughly 3km to go…
It was one of those hikes that is OK to forget about. Even Karma seemed pretty fed up when we returned to the house…
Trip statistics: 3,4km, 100 vertical meters, 45mins
To Sogndal, Dec 6 2019
Friday: I had some ambition to hike Stedjeåsen on Friday evening, but it felt way too nice to enter Anne’s warm and comfortable house, where dinner was awaiting. Karma got a walk down by the fjord, and that was all she would get this afternoon. That is, until Anne took her on the evening walk.
Høgehaug (980m), Dec 7 2019
Saturday: As snow had fallen during the night, Anne and I decided to ski Høgehaug on Saturday. This would be the first ski-trip for the new season for both of us. I pictured nice tracks from a snowmobile, but that wasn’t the case. Fortunately, we didn’t have to break the trail ourselves, as some other skiers had left before us.
We started out in fairly nice weather, but that was about to change soon. Already at the top of the first hill, the snow and wind against made it difficult to look in the direction we were going. Fortunatly, we could still see the ski-tracks from the other skiers and were able to maintain progress, while looking down on our skis.
In Stilledalen (“The quiet valley”), I sensed a change in the weather. It took another 20 minutes for the weather to actually change, but it did.
On our way up, we met the skiers who had broken the trail. The last person was Tom Dybwad – a friend of ours that we normally meet on our ski trips to Tylderingen.
In the final section of our trip, the weather changed for the better, and we could enjoy a couple of nice minutes on top of Høgehaug. I had forgotten to bring treats for Karma, and she was disappointed. As she should be. But I promised her “double up” once back at the car, and I assumed I was forgiven.
We had a nice trip down the mountain, although I suffered from not having prepped my skis for the new winter season. My glide was awful, but it was nevertheless a really nice ski-trip…
Trip statistics: 9,4km, 435 vertical meters, 2h:17m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the hike:
Stedjeåsen (624m), Dec 8 2019
Sunday: It had snowed a lot, and the natural thing to do would be to go skiing. Like on Tylderingen, for example. But it was still snowing,and remembering yesterday, I didn’t fancy skiing in a snowfall with wind against. So, I proposed a round trip hike across Stedjeåsen, and Anne looked forward to it.
We took the normal route up the forest, which was nice. Only one hiker had been out today, and we met her as she returned from “Dagsturhytta”.
At 470m we took the southernmost trail – which we had to break ourselves. As we were in the forest, we didn’t have a lot of snow to deal with. It was a most enjoyable hike so far!
We then reached the tree where the mailbox is located, and signed into the visitor’s register.
Then we continued towards the high point – which is hardly visited by anyone – mainly due to wet bog in summer and deep snow in winter.
But we got to the top and agreed that we should do a round trip hike, through descending via Skardet.
But first, we had to locate the path – so we didn’t get lost in the forest…
Anne found the route, and we were able to follow the red dots on the trees down the forest.
Eventually, we reached a tractor road that took us down to Flatane.
The tractor road was a small challenge, as it was really icy – with a shallow layer of snow on top. But we stayed on our feet and returned home safe and sound. A very enjoyable round trip hike!
Trip statistics: 7,7km, 600 vertical meters, 2h:42m
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