More skiing… (and back in Sogndal)
Index
| Date | Peak/Place | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| 07.03.2022 | Sollia | 661m | 661m | Herøy/Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 08.03.2022 | Nihusen | 438m | 340m | Ålesund, Norway | WCP |
| 09.03.2022 | Remøykammen | 184m | 41m | Herøy, Norway | WCP |
| 09.03.2022 | Remøyfjellet | 188m | 188m | Herøy, Norway | WCP |
| 10.03.2022 | Røyrafjellet | 123m | 100m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP |
| 11.03.2022 | Fløtravarden | 869m | 59m | Gloppen, Norway | WCP |
| 12.03.2022 | Molden | 1118m | 805m | Luster, Norway | WCP |
| 13.03.2022 | Storehaugfjellet | 1172m | 980m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP |
Sollia (661m), Mar 7 2022
Monday: Inspired by the nice ski-descent from Sollia to Tjørvåg the day before, I returned to Tjørvåg this Monday afternoon – hoping to relive some of yesterday’s moments.
I had a plan to ski almost from the trailhead. That didn’t work too well and the route up to ~160m was totally forgettable…
But after a while, we got firm snow and Karma attempted to cover every square inch on the entire mountain. The snow MORE than carried her weight. In fact, I was worried that I had to do a serious tooth count once down from the mountain…
It was extremely windy too. With one woolen sweater and one worn out Gore-Tex jacket (“Gore without the Tex“), I was on the border of being cold. I compensated with a high pace.
I was happy to reach the top and put my dove jacket on. I tried to get Karma to stand by the signpost, but she wouldn’t have it. I understood that the wind was a tad too cold for her. I decided to not spend a minute longer on top than we had to.
There was not much fun about the descent. The upper part of the mountain was glaciated. Then followed a long section that was just icy. The final section was not too bad, but I could barely see where I had skied. At ~160m, I was happy to put my skis on the backpack and walk down. There was nothing memorable about this trip, but skiing the highest top on the island on a Monday afternoon was nevertheless a good start to the week.
Trip statistics: 9,5km, 655 vertical meters, 2h:09m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Nihusen (438m), Mar 8 2022
Tuesday: Today, I hiked Nihusen with my good friend Torill. We’ve go way back and have climbed both Romsdalshornet and Stetind. Both among my most memorable trips…
Along came her dog Barco (4 months old) and he had a energy level that I’m not sure I’ve seen before. He was a mouthful and then some – for Karma. But they got along well after the rank had been determined.
It was good to be back on Nihusen – Torill’s backyard. She’s up here almost every day. We had a lot of catching up to do, not having seen each other for 2 years.
We stayed on top for quite a bit, chatting, looking at the dogs run around, just enjoying the day…
In all this turmoil that’s going on in this world, we both appreciated living in this wonderful country, being so privileged. And on top of it all, we have nature like this…
Then it was time for descent. It wasn’t hard to get the dogs to come along…
Being somewhat outside my regular hiking region, I felt inspired to come to the Ålesund office more often, and hike mountains south of the Romsdalsfjord after work. But, when I was filling up diesel on my way home, that inspiration got a blow. NOK 22,50 per litre! That’s actually quite a lot. But if that’s the price – or part of the price – we have to pay to disconnect from the dependency of Russian oil and gas, I’m OK with it.
Trip statistics: 5km, 370 vertical meters, 2 hours
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the Sulesund ferry harbor:
Remøyfjellet (188m), Mar 9 2022
Wednesday: The combination of a) late off work, b) very tired and c) a very cold and strong wind made me settle for an easy hike this afternoon and chose to take a walk across Remøy island.
I actually enjoy this hike, so it’s not as if it’s my last choice on earth. The views are pretty good!
The hike from Remøykammen (184m) to Vardane (188m) is a nice, 1,6km walk although the wind was quite … notable.
When we got to Vardane – the island high point – I had to decide on how we should return to the car. Sometimes, I’ve hiked almost all the way back to Remøykammen and discovered a new path down the forest. And sometimes, I’ve just followed the road back (boring!)
Today, I decided to see how long I could follow the forest (between the ridge and the roads). That sounded like a fun project.
We were able to follow the forest for a whooping 0,35km and then it got too thick and dense to even consider trying. I noticed a path and followed it down to a fence.
Then I thought – how far can I follow the fence? That also sounded like a fun project (risking that the readers of this blog find me the dullest person on this planet). But it’s all about trying to make the most of any situation.
The fence “project” was more successful and after 1,4km we ran out of fence and was close to the car. It’s not a route I’ll be repeating but it was fun to have done it once. Before returning to the car, we took a trip down to the shore and watched daylight fade quickly
Trip statistics: 5,8km, 320 vertical meters, 1h:47m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Røyrafjellet (123m), Mar 10 2022
Thursday: This was a clone of the day before and I ticked on points a), b) and c). The easy way out for walking the dog was to drive to Dimnøya island and hike across Røyrafjellet. The short drive felt OK, given the current insane price of gasoline.
It’s an OK walk. Actually, this was Karma’s first trip to a top. 09.12.2012 – 3 months old.
The trip across the top and return via the shore was something we’ve done a couple of times before, but this time I wanted to do a variation to this route. Just to cover new ground on my GPS track – which I’ve been building since I started hiking back in ’99.
At Indre Røyra, we continued along the shore in the direction of Draget. This was not very fun terrain and after a while I decided to return via point 41.2m and head back. I was quite happy with 5,4km in the terrain when I really just wanted to take a long nap instead.
Trip statistics: 5,5km, 260 vertical meters, 1h:26m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Fløtravarden (869m), Mar 11 2022
Friday: At 1pm, I decided to “flex” the rest of the day and sat course for Sogndal, for a a 10-day stay. The ambition was to do a ski-trip on Utvikfjellet along the way. Once there, I got this sudden feeling of being a young, fit man and chose skating skis. The plan was to FLY all the way up to Snøfjellet (1006m) – along the prepared track.
And maybe I “flew” the first 0,5km, but then started the uphill…
The track was glaciated and my thin skating skis just didn’t get a grip. The uphills were hard enough, but when I wasn’t able to skate properly, I just felt like an old and worn out guy. So, I settled for Fløtravarden instead. The most important thing was that the dog could run and have fun. But with my speed, there was no need to run. The dog looked altogether uninspired. That didn’t make me feel good. I want to see a dog running all over the place, which means it’s healthy and happy.
But OK, maybe the terrain wasn’t too inspiring. No bush or rocks to look under. Maybe she was just following daddy on this one.
It was nice to be up here, though. The views are phenomenal.
On the way down, none of us had any fun. Karma, normally always ahead – or adjacent – was just trailing. And I was just plowing – trying to control the speed. But on this slope, on this hard snow and without steel edges, that was easier said than done. Focus was just to avoid falling and hit my head. Fortunately, I’m not a rookie on skis and I made it back down safe and sound.
Next stop Sogndal! Err… correction: next stop Kjøsnesfjorden and a 30min wait for a convoy (tunnel work) all along Kjøsnesfjorden and throughout Fjærlandstunnelen. And given the number of trucks, the convoy was effective all throughout Frudalstunnelen also. But eventually, we got to Anne’s place and a nice week+ could begin!
Trip statistics: 8,6km, 240 vertical meters, 1h:07m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Molden (1120m), Mar 12 2022
Saturday: The plan was to ski Suletind (1780m) today, but the plan got cancelled due to the wind. Shame, as it was a gorgeous day. Or – at least the first part of it.
After considering a number of tops, we ended up with Molden (in Luster municipality). It’s a trip we both know very well and it’s not notoriously known for its ski-descent. Still, it’s a nice trip with grand views. And especially on a sunny day like this!
Normally, I’m just impatient to reach the top on this route, but today I enjoyed every minute of the ascent. I guess I was just starved on sunshine!
After passing Svarthiller, we decided to ski straight towards the top, opposed to following the ridge – like we normally do. And on our way up, we agreed that we should ski down her down as well. We’ve never done that before.
But first, a visit to the a) high point, b) the stone hut and c) point 1116m…
The view from the high point isn’t bad!
And – having lunch in shelter from the wind by the stone hut isn’t bad either…
We then moved over to point 1116m and prepared for the descent.
The snow wasn’t of top quality. Sometimes good, sometimes packed. But overall, the descent was hilariously nice!
From now on, this will ALWAYS be our descent route!
Down in the forest, we had big fun in trying to follow one of the ascent routes (imagine a very curvy Bobsleigh track) and not hitting a tree while at it.
This was clearly the best ski-descent I’ve ever had from this mountain and I was a really happy dude when we returned to the car. Anne mentioned “accidentally” that the cafe at Marifjøra was open. I figured she had deserved a visit…
Trip statistics: 8,4km, 630 vertical meters, 2h:49m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Storehaugfjellet (1172m), Mar 13 2022
Sunday: Anne didn’t feel for a ski-trip today, so I took Karma and drove to Sogndal Lufthamn Haukåsen (the local airport) to ski Storehaugfjellet.
It was tempting to go up along the power line, but I wasn’t sure if the snow would carry Karma’s weight. To be on the safe side, we took the mountain service road. It’s a little bit boring, but at least she wouldn’t have to struggle to get up the mountain.
The light was not the best, and I had forgotten to bring both my skiing goggles and my sunglasses. However, it wasn’t totally flat and I hoped that the ride down the mountain would be nice.
Above the forest, I could feel the wind. But it wasn’t so strong and cold that it warranted suiting up Karma. She showed no signs of discomfort either.
I like this mountain. I like to ski it and I like to hike it – from all kinds of directions. And I still haven’t explored the north side couloirs…
When we reached the top, it was tempting to find shelter between the two concrete towers on top. The danger in this was that ice could be falling any given moment. We stayed for 1 minute, tops.
Now the question was – which route do we take down? If I could only see the tracks leading to the power line, then that would have been a very tempting route. But all tracks were wiped out and I didn’t want to spend time looking for this route. Instead, I chose to descend via points 1133m, 1063m and 983m, east of the mountain road. The snow was quite hard but that would have been the case on any route. The snow carried Karma’s weight and we were both happy.
Back on the mountain service road at 850m, Karma followed the road while I skied in the forest. At one point I observed Karma in full speed with another dog on her tail. Karma was not aware of the other dog until I started yelling. The other dog got spooked and ran up the mountain road. I hope the owner was higher up, but I hadn’t seen anyone.
Back on the forest road, I wasn’t able to ski very fast and Karma easily kept my pace. We were alongside each other, and she clearly enjoyed hearing “good girl“, time and time again…
Trip statistics: 11,2km, 680 vertical meters, 2h:12m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the trip:
Inspirerande å lese – som vanleg!
Mange takk! Jeg har blogget siden ’99 og mange ganger tenkt at det er ingen der ute som leser dette, så det er veldig hyggelig å få en hilsen nå og da!