‘H’ week (hell of a weather and all tops starting with ‘H’)
Index
| Date | Peak/Place | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| 17.01.2022 | Hovdenakken | 474m | 176m | Hareid, Norway | WCP |
| 19.01.2022 | Heida | 239m | 126m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 20.01.2022 | Huldrehornet | 271m | 113m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 21.01.2022 | Høgåsen | 240m | 240m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| 22.01.2022 | Hornseten | 190m | 152m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 23.01.2022 | Høgåsen (Ytrehovdåsen ) | 170m | 72m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP |
| 23.01.2022 | Høgåsen (Indrehovdåsen) | 187m | 66m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP |
| 23.01.2022 | Høgetua (Åsen) | 162m | 27 | Ørsta, Norway | WCP |
| 23.01.2022 | Huldrehornet | 271m | 113m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
Hovdenakken (474m), Jan 17 2022
Monday: I woke up to white and super-polished roads due to the storm last night. On my morning walk with Karma, getting a grip on the road was tough! Fortunately, the weather had calmed down considerably.
After work, it began snowing light. As the wind was now back to “normal west coast standard” I decided to hike Hovdenakken from the golf course. The idea was that I wouldn’t get the wind in my face until we reached the summit ridge.
The forest part was nice. In shelter from the wind. It was snowing light. All good.
The view towards Hareid remained the same, which meant that nothing was happening with the weather. At least not on this side.
But, in this parts of the country, elevation is everything. And when we got to the top, any idea about a longer hike was immediately dropped.
Instead of continuing towards Ramnefjellet like we normally do, we dropped southeast into the forest. The idea was to drop down to the juniper bush where we would be forced to stay on ~200m elevation until we joined our ascent route. It was quite fun to wander around in the forest, having no idea about where exactly we were, but have faith in the plan. And the plan worked. We did join our ascent route.
Back at the car I figured I could extend the hike a little longer. Karma loved the snow and so we took a walk around the golf course. Or – part of it, to be more precise. I have never played golf in my life, but I can clearly understand the attraction. I got Frisbees for Christmas so there will for sure be Frisbee golf this summer…
Trip statistics: 6,3km, 500 vertical meters, 1h:56m
Heida (239m), Jan 19 2022
Wednesday: Another storm followed the extreme weather “Gyda“. It was not tempting to go outside at all, and fortunately a crisis at work gave me a solid reason to stay indoors on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, there were no more excuses.
Anne had also come to visit, after a long and strenuous drive from Sogndal – in all kinds of weather and road conditions. She probably just wanted to relax now that she was finally here but I persuaded her to come along for a forest walk.
A forest walk in the storm isn’t a big deal, sheltered as we were.
But in order to reach the top, we had to get above the forest. It was nasty. Our stay on top didn’t last one second longer than it had to.
Back in the forest, we were OK again. Tt was still snowing, though.
Back home, I managed to get 10 more km on the spinning bike before dinner. 10km isn’t a lot, but I’ve managed to pull off 60km in the past few days (good intensity). It’s all about establishing a new training regime and so far it’s going OK.
Trip statistics: 6,5km, 335 vertical meters, 1h:39m
Huldrehornet (271m), Jan 20 2022
Thursday: Day 2 with the storm. Fortunately, it calmed down in the afternoon – even if there still were snow showers roaming around. After work, we agreed that we were not in a mood for anything else than a walk from our front door and up to Huldrehornet.
I was curious if we – yet again – would get an inferno on top. But above the forest, we were still in the clear.
It was almost “disappointing” to take a picture where snow and wind speed at 25 m/s didn’t dominate…
There were snow showers all around, but none of them seemed to head our way. As such, we were in no rush to get off the top.
We descended on the south side and stopped by Djupvikhaugen on the way home.
By lake Djupvikvatnet, we “finally” got our snow shower. But without the wind…
Trip statistics: 6,2km, 335 vertical meters, 1h:53m
Høgåsen (240m), Jan 21 2022
Friday: Neither Anne nor me felt like hiking on this rainy and wet (snow melt) afternoon. I guess we were just waiting for Taco-time. But, we know that the Taco always tastes better after being out, so we found the motivation to walk across Høgåsen on Dimnøya island outside Ulsteinvik.
We parked at the sports field at Sundgotmarka and followed an insanely wet and muddy path until we got to the normal route from Åsen.
The hike to the top is so short that it’s tempting to just call it a walk, but the top is a genuine with a whopping 240 meters of independence. It wasn’t much to see, though.
We took a different route down, equally wet and muddy. But it was nice to have been out. Once home I got 15km on the spinning bike and I don’t think the Friday Taco has ever tasted better…
Trip statistics: 3,8km, 240 vertical meters, 1h:10m
Hornseten (190m), Jan 22 2022
Saturday: It was a coincidence that all tops I had visited this week was starting with ‘H‘. And now that the week was almost over, I decided to “see it through”.
Anne was not in the mood for yet another rainy hike and so it would be just me to Karma. Optimistic, I drove to Gotene to hike Hidsegga via Hidsdalen.
In rain, that is not a problem, but it was much more windy there. And this is not a top you want to be on in rain and strong wind combined. Trust me on that.
So, I drove to Fosnavåg to hike Hornseten instead. It’s been many years since I’ve hiked from Fosnavåg. Normally, we start out on Heida.
The ascent was wet, nice and easy and we reached the top 18 minutes after heading out. Man, I miss the higher mountains, but with the weather we’ve had lately, I don’t want to expose the dog to that.
We took another route down, and stopped near the “Gapahuk” above Fosnavåg.
I really wanted to do some more walking and I decided to try out a route I gave up on (coming down, in the dark) a few years back. I remembered the terrain to be nasty, but why not give it another try? On the way down, I met a local and asked him about that route. “Good luck with that“, he responded – having been given advice on not to go there.
That just fired me up, and once back at the car – we continued further along the road to find a place to get into the forest. And boy, the forest was *dense*!
I was crawling, creeping and clearing the way for Karma. After a while it was just too dense and I had to find a way to the ridge where juniper bush was waiting. But eventually, we got up and could “celebrate” our 2nd visit to this top. The wind was way, way stronger now.
Again, we descended to the trail across Heida and then off-trail down a ridge that we ascended a few years back. We ended up in someone’s backyard and I felt like trespassing. Fortunately, the owner came out and welcomed us to pass through. The owner tried to get Karma’s attention, but that was futile. Karma was acting totally weird. “Do you have a cat”, I asked?
– I have 5, she replied…
Trip statistics: 8,5km, 550 vertical meters, 2h:24m
Ytrehovdåsen (170m), Indrehovdåsen (187m), Høgetua (162m), Jan 23 2022
Sunday: The weather was still miserable, albeit not as stormy as earlier in the week. Still, it was not within dog welfare to bring the dog to a higher elevation and I suggested that we should hike the hills around lake Hovdevatnet (Ørsta/Volda). It was a round that Anne hadn’t done before. But Helgehornet would not be in the loop today…
We started out with Ytrehovdåsen, aka Geitenakken, aka Høgåsen. There was light rain in the air, but not a lot.
We continued down to Hovdebygda and picked up the path to Indrehovdåsen at “Hovden Møbel”
I thought I would remember the route to up to Indrehovdåsen, but I didn’t and we ended up with scrambling a really steep hillside. But eventually, we got on the ridge path and could look back on Ytrehovdåsen.
Of course, the high point on Indrehovdåsen was also “Høgåsen” – the same name as on Ytrehovdåsen. That’s just confusing. On top, Karma spotted a squirrel and when that happens – it’s total freeze.
So we decided to have some fun with her…
The third and final top was Høgetua (aka Åsen). After this top, the normal thing would be to descend to the lake and follow the tractor back to the car. But I felt that would be a too short hike and so we continued towards Mork – which was a new route to me.
When we got to the sports field near Håskjoldvegen, we followed the road up to Kleiva and then up to the shooting range below Helgehornet.
From here, we continued along the Helgehornet path until we got to the east ridge. After a while, we found the path that would take us down to the tractor road and back to the car. It had started to rain now and the wind was stronger. As much as I wanted to include Helgehornet on the hike, I really didn’t want to expose the dog to that the weather I knew was up there.
Trip statistics: 10,7km, 520 vertical meters, 3h:18m
Huldrehornet (271m), Jan 23 2022
Sunday: Back home, I dropped Anne off at the house, took Karma and drove to the Huldrehornet trailhead at lake Djupvikvatnet. I just wanted extra exercise and not to mention more vertical meters.
It was not raining, but when we got to the top it was really, really windy. I struggled to keep the camera steady, with my back against the wind.
Back home (again) I immediately got on the spinning bike and stopped at 16km. I don’t want to overdo it in the beginning, but I was really happy having passed 100km in a little over a week!
Trip statistics: 2,2km, 250 vertical meters, 38 minutes.
