Another week with “mentally challenging” weather…
| Date | Peak/Place | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| 24.01.2022 | Rambjøra | 132m | 109m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 25.01.2022 | Kiberget | 438m | 65m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| 25.01.2022 | Bjørnenakken | 490m | 32m | Hareid, Norway | – |
| 25.01.2022 | Mosvarden | 553m | 50m | Hareid, Norway | WCP |
| 26.01.2022 | Gyrinakken | 365m | 157m | Herøy/Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 27.01.2022 | Skåla | 184m | 497m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | |
| 28.01.2022 | Rambjøra | 132m | 109m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 29.01.2022 | Breifjellet | 424m | 56m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| 29.01.2022 | Osberget | 134m | 36m | Ulstein, Norway | |
| 30.01.2022 | Rjåhornet | 600m | 107m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 30.01.2022 | Huldrehornet | 271m | 113m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP |
Rambjøra (132m), Jan 24 2022
Monday: At noon – walking the dog around the neighborhood – I noticed blue sky! Oh, how nice it was to see blue sky again! I immediately decided to hike Blåtind (697m) after work. But then, to the northwest, I could see hail showers performing a magical sky dance. Pretty to look at! Not so pretty by the time I would get hit by them.
Sure enough, by the time I ended my working day – the weather was back to miserable. Anne had gone back to Sogndal and Blåtind would have to wait until another day.
I decided to do some trail maintenance on the Rambjøra path instead and I texted my neighbour kid – Mats (soon 11), asking if he wanted to come along. He sure did. I already knew that he would really like to spend some time with Karma, having lost his own dog recently. That’s tough on a small kid…
He didn’t seemed to mind bad weather and he was cutting and ripping bush like a pro!
I’ll ask him to join on other routes as well. Maybe one day he can be take over my responsibilities for keeping the local paths marked and maintained. I can then sit on the porch with a Corona (note the ‘a’) and send him out in the field. On second thought – nah. I don’t have a porch. I drink Norwegian beer and hopefully – I’ll have my last awake moment on a trail…
Trip statistics: 3,5km, 120 vertical meters, 1,5 hours
Kiberget (438m), Bjørnenakken (490m), Mosvarden (553m), Jan 25 2022
Tuesday: After work – lo and behold – there did not seem to be a storm on the local 600m+ tops and I immediately decided to hike Garnestua (653m). Literally at the trailhead, it started raining and I could see bad weather moving in from the southwest. The dog would be too exposed up there and I had to come up with a plan B.
I decided to drive to Ulsteinvik to hike Kiberget. It would probably not be too crazy up there, and if it wasn’t, I could continue and prepare “escape routes”.
The trail was soaking wet, but that didn’t matter at all. What mattered was that the rain wasn’t pouring and the wind was not too strong. At least not yet.
On top of Kiberget, I decided to move on towards Bjørnenakken. Which offered two “escape routes”. From lake Kattatjørna, it was all off-trail up to the top of Bjørnenakken and to my surprise – the weather was still not too bad.
So, I decided to move on to Mosvarden (still off-trail). That would be the turnaround point regardless of the weather. I could not be hiking all night long.
“Finally”, the weather had ramped up a notch and while it was not yet totally awful, it sure was bordering.
This top don’t have a quick “escape route”, so we had to take the wind and the rain down the southwest ridge but after 10-15 minutes, we were in shelter. The rest of the hike back was just *wet*.
Late in the evening, as I’m typing this report, it sounds like there is a full storm outside. I’m not even sure Karma has any desire to do the evening route around the block…
Trip statistics: 10,1km, 600 vertical meters, 2h:14m
Gyrinakken (365m), Jan 26 2022
Wednesday: Another day with shitty weather. Sometimes I wonder if I would be doing all this hiking in the rain and snow if I didn’t have a dog. I hope I would. I have a fairly good discipline when it comes to getting out. Still, I guess I would have passed on the worst days…
Today, the goal was Gyrinakken – which meant that we would be a lot in the forest, and above it for a short period of time. But the forest didn’t provide shelter from the rain.
I was curious about the conditions on top, and when we finally reached the cairn, it was close to being nasty. Perhaps “utterly miserable” is a more precise expression. We didn’t have to hurry to get off the mountain. Had it been 100 meters higher, it would have been a different matter.
It continued to rain throughout the hike. At first, I had some thoughts about a longer walk, but now I just wanted to get home. And cover the extra distance that we didn’t do – on the spinning bike.
Trip statistics: 4,4km, 320 vertical meters, 1h:10m
Skåla (184m), Jan 27 2022
Thursday: Both the morning and lunch walk with Karma was wet and unpleasant experiences. When I finished work at 5pm, I briefly considered skipping hiking today. But – then it stopped raining. Like it often do between “evil showers”, but I am an eternal optimist.
So I made a plan to visit Øyrahornet (417m). It would surely be windy, but if we just got on the lee side, we would probably be alright until we reached the top.
On our way to Øyrahornet, it got more and more windy the higher we got. But the wind itself isn’t a big problem. Then came the rain and we hadn’t even gotten to the lee side yet. I quickly realized that this was not within dog welfare standards. Karma got her ass whooped!
I then figured we could use the same method on Skåla, as we would be in shelter from the very beginning. But getting across the river wasn’t possible and we had to go all the way back to the car and continue from there.
The hike up Skåla wasn’t bad at all (other than windy and rainy) but it wasn’t pleasant to be on top. I performed the usual “rituals” – picture on top, GPS waypoint and treats to Karma. And then we were off.
When we were almost back at the car, it started to hail. And the wind really picked up. It actually sounded like Judgement Day was here. It was kind of scary to listen to. But man, how good isn’t it to come back to a warm house, get a shower, put dry clothes on and enjoy the good feeling of having been out but now being inside?
After posting the trip on FB, a friend replied with this:
Trip statistics: 6,4km, 485 vertical meters, 1h:41m
Rambjøra (132m), Jan 28 2022
Friday: Today, I didn’t have the heart to expose Karma to the warp-speed combination of wind and rain and decided to take a trail maintenance session in the Rambjøra forest.
Except for a few places we were in shelter from the wind and it was altogether a good session. This was the *perfect* weather to rip bush in, because once I let go of the bush I had ripped out, it was *gone*. No need to carry them around and pile them up.
If the wind had come from the west, then all that bush would have been evenly distributed to the backyards in Dragsund, but the wind came from the east and all the bush blew towards the sea 😉
Trip statistics: 2,6km, 150 vertical meters, 1h:40m
Breifjellet (424m), Osberget (134m), Jan 29 2022
Saturday: It was raining so hard this morning that at first – I thought there would be no hiking at all. And if there would be – it would be without the dog. I could not see any upside for her in this weather. Yet another storm was moving in later in the day, but it seemed that there would be less rain around 2pm.
So, 1:15pm I decided to I had to go hiking somewhere and when I opened the front dog, it had stopped raining!
I brought Karma and drove to Ulsteinvik. I did not have any particular plan – just hike until the bad weather moved in again or I got bored. Whatever came first. We started out from Bugarden and now I finally understood what the ropes on the bridge across the – usually tiny – creek was for…
I decided to see if we could get to the top of Breifjellet. When we got out of the forest and I got Breifjellet and Kiberget in view, it started raining. I put a blanket on Karma and moved on. Fortunately, the rain stopped. Otherwise, Breifjellet would have been a bad place to be for Karma. It was very windy up there. I really struggled to keep the hood on.
There was no point in aiming for any higher top, so we sat course towards Nibben instead.
At Nibben, I noticed a “Kolbeinhaugane” signpost and a vague path in the direction of Ulsteindalen. I decided to follow it to see where we ended up. And sure enough, we ended up down on the Ulsteindalen road. From here, we would be on roads until we could hike up to Osberget.
But then a snow shower came in and it felt better to stay in the forest. So, we hiked back up to Nibben, but off-trail this time. Back at Nibben, I noticed another signpost – “Utsikten” (viewpoint) and we headed down to the bench. The view above Skeide was OK.
I noticed a vague path from the viewpoint. I assumed it would soon join the tractor road from Nibben, but it took us down to Skeide. Raudelva river was too big to jump across and at first it seemed we would just have to stay on the north side until we got to the main road (quite a detour). But then we came across two logs that functioned as a bridge. Fortunately, Karma has good balance and we got across to the south side.
We then followed the back roads until we got to Osberget’s west ridge. It’s quite a steep ascent, but not difficult (of course).
At Osberget, I had no idea that shitty weather was 3 minutes away. It hit us just as we were back at the car. Mixed snow and rain. Very happy to be at the car then!
Back home, I was very uplifted about the hike and got on the spinning bike to burn off whatever steam was left. I stopped after 20km. I’m doing 100km per week now. It’s really nice to feel sweat again. It’s the perfect alternative since I don’t feel like running any more.
Trip statistics: 9,5km, 620 vertical meters, 2h:45m
Pictures from the hike (Canon EOS RP):
Rjåhornet (600m), Huldrehornet (271m), Jan 30 2022
Sunday: I woke up 6am by a loud and annoying noise that I couldn’t understand. I quickly fell back to sleep but soon woke up again. I had to go outside and check. It turned out that the car engine fan was going on and off, running at max speed when on. I didn’t know what to about it and decided to deal with after breakfast.
After breakfast, the car battery was dead. I consulted a neighbor that knows everything there is to know about practical things. He suggested I a) locate the fuse, b) remove it and c) recharge the battery. The car started once it got boosted, but there was a warning light on the dashboard and I decided to let the car spend the day charging.
According to the forecast, the weather today was supposedly not too bad and I decided to see if Rjåhornet was willing to let us in. The local 600m tops have been like the Himalays for the past two weeks. Totally out of reach for anyone walking a dog.
We started by hiking up Dyrkyrkja and it was nice to see my neighborhood again.
After a while, Rjåhornet came into view and I wondered how the trip would be. This is NOT a friendly mountain when wind and snow/rain comes in from the west. Moreover, would there be challenges with ice?
Just as we were about to climb up the steepest part, a snow shower sat in. A guy was in front of us and he was clinging on to the ropes. When we got there, there was ice all over the lower part – except for those two places where Karma has to go. I just hoped that the ice were only where there used to be running water. On top of this section, we caught up with the guy and he decided to turn around.
As we started on the final hill, I found that the ice was everywhere. However, the wasn’t quite solid yet and I was able to break through the crust. I’ve been up here a couple of times when I really should have turned around. One slip and you will have a LONG slide…
I was really happy when the mast came into view and I knew that – at least – we could descend along the same route, if we had to. Karma shared my joy…
It was windy and cold on top and we didn’t stay longer than we had to.
Upon descent, we followed the Djupvika route, got another snow shower but there was nothing really unpleasant about it.
At the foothills, we switched onto the Huldrehornet route and paid this top a visit before setting the course back home.
Down by lake Djupvikvatnet, I decided that I would make this Sunday a “full exercise” day. So I texted the neighbor kid and asked if he would come along and rip bush on the Dyrkyrkja trail. As long as he can spend time with Karma, he don’t mind doing some hard work. And if you don’t think ripping bush (root included) is hard work, you’re wrong!
Back home, I got on the spinning bike and did another 20km. Afterwards, I “attaboyed” myself and as I hadn’t eaten since (very early) breakfast, I looked forward to a tasty salmon dinner.
Trip statistics: 13,7km, 900 vertical meters, 4h:40m
Pictures from the hike (Canon EOS RP):
