Summer holiday, day 21 – Rondane outskirts
Index
| Date | Peak/Place | Height | PF | Location |
| 24.07.2022 | Solsidevassberget | 1403m | 133m | Sel, Norway |
| 24.07.2022 | Baksidevassberget | 1327m | 177m | Sel, Norway |
| 24.07.2022 | Skoråtberget | 1298m | 48m | Sel, Norway |
| 24.07.2022 | Søre Skorutberget | 1309m | 119m | Sel, Norway |
| 24.07.2022 | Karihaugen | 1277m | 257m | Sel, Norway |
Continued from day 20…
Solsidevassberget
Sunday: I woke up early morning at Smuksjøseter and had a dialogue with the devil on my shoulder. Devil: “You’re only 4 tops short of 30 new pf100 tops this summer…” Me: “I know, but that’s a stretch and I want to hang with my family”. Devil: “There are 4 tops right here, you know. You can do one before breakfast, then 2 with your family and the last one on your way home. I’m sure your family will be understanding”. Me: “I don’t know. I don’t want to risk looking … obsessed”. Devil: “Well, you’re probably right…”
6:51am, I was on my way to Solsidevassberget, determined to be back before breakfast at 8am.
I hadn’t even looked at the map. All I knew that the top was just above Smuksjøeter. Where to go? Left? Right? I followed a hunch and took the path towards the Peer Gynt cabin, expecting to go off-trail within minutes.
After 0,5km I went off-trail, only to not have the faintest clue as to where I should go.
I aimed for the easiest-looking gully and hoped that I would get up. Which I did. It all looked much scarier from below and with fog.
Now it was just a matter of finding the top. After a false top I found the high point, and I was very happy about the start of the day.
The time was now 7:20am and I was ahead of schedule. Still, I decided to go off-trail and take the shortest route possible down to Smuksjøseter.
I found an OK route and took it easy down between bushes and rocks. All of a sudden, a bird flew out from a bush and immediately following – a wolverine! I was perplexed, thinking I was looking at a badger. But after getting control of myself, I realized badgers do not look like that. This was a wolverine for sure, but I never got it on camera before it took off after staring at me for ~10 seconds. The distance between us was perhaps 20 meters.
Back at Smuksjøseter (7:41am), I asked the lady in the hotel reception if they had seen wolverines in this area. Indeed, they had but she was mighty surprised that I actually had seen one, and THIS CLOSE to the hotel!
It turned out that breakfast wasn’t until 8:30, so I had all the time in the world for a shower and telling Anne about my encounter with this extremely shy animal.
Trip statistics: 2,7km, 285 vertical meters, 50 mins
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the hike:
Baksidevassberget, Søre Skorutberget
Still Sunday: After breakfast, we checked out from Smuksjøseter and went hiking towards Baksidevassberget, located right above the hotel, but on the other side of the lake.
Anne’s ambition was primarily to hike Baksidevassberget and told me that afterwards, she would return to Smuksjøseter and wait for me there.
It was a short and easy ascent up to Baksidevassberget, along an OK path.
We had a good view towards Smuksjøseter from the top…
Actually, the views all around were good!
It was also nice to see Solsidevassberget without fog, which I hiked early morning.
On top, I tried to persuade Anne that it would be a shame not to keep on walking on a day like this.
Maybe it was the Rondane view or my sweet-talk that turned her around, I don’t know. But she agreed to come with me to Søre Skorutberget.
To get there, we had to hike across Skoråtberget, a less distinct hump on the ridge.
We were following the “high route” to the Peer Gynt cabin – and this meant that we would have to go off-trail in order to get to Søre Skorutberget. But in this type of terrain, there isn’t THAT much difference.
Eventually we reached the top of Søre Skorutberget, my 29th pf100 top this summer. The devil on my shoulder came knocking on my door again. “29! 29! 29!”. I decided to man up and shrugged the devil off my shoulder. 29 is just as a good number as 30!
Now it was time to figure out how to get back to Smuksjøseter. The meadow below looked wet, and we should probably try to be clever about this. We found a vague path that took us down to lake Søre Høvringsvatnet.
We decided to cross the drain at the eastern end. There was a lot of bushes there, but we found a good place to cross the outlet from the lake.
Now we had 3,1km along the Peer Gynt path before reaching Smuksjøseter.
After returning to the car, I was ready to return to Sogndal. 29! YES, Let’s go! 29! Aarrgh! Stop!
Trip statistics: 10,1km, 450 vertical meters, 2h:50m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Karihaugen
Still Sunday: My “inner chaos” ended with us driving to Putter Seter where the rumor had it they served sour crème porridge. As it happened, this was also the best trailhead for hiking Karihaugen.
Darling Anne said she would relax in the car and told me to go and hike Karihaugen. After thinking carefully about it (for 10 milliseconds) I said I would and took off. Karma would just have to sit this one out and I’m pretty sure she was happy about it too.
In my head, this would be a short walk, but it was actually 2,4km to the top and more than 300 vertical meters. It would take a little while to get up and back down. Still, it wasn’t even 1pm yet and we had all day to return to Sogndal.
I kept a good and steady pace up the mountain, on a perfectly good trail.
On top, I met another hiker with his dog. He had a cabin in the area and knew the views. I told him that this was sort of unknown territory to me, although I had been to 4 peaks on the Rondane massif – in addition to Formokampen. Other than that, I felt blank. He pointed out Glittertind to me. I was happy to say I’ve been there.
Then he pointed out 3 mountains packed, racked and stacked: Heidalsmuen, Søre Svartkampen and Haldorpiggen.
As it happened, I had been to all of them. Then he got a bit curious. It turned out that we were both “peakbaggers”, logging our ascents on peakbook.org. When I told him about my blogs, he told me that he knew westcoastpeaks.com well and had been very inspired by the panorama pictures I had posted on my Søre Svartkampen trip report. Such things always warms my heart…
It was time to return to Anne, and last but not least – the sour crème porridge. In fact, I ran all the way down the mountain.
30! Yeah!
Being reunited with my family, we entered Putten Seter. It was a bit early in the day for serving “Rømmegrøt”, but Anne had already been inside and explained the urgency. And minutes later, we were served. Holy cow, it was delicious. Anne wasn’t even halfway through her portion when I went to the kitchen for refill.
Now it was time to return to Sogndal, and I looked a couple of times – but there was no longer a devil on my shoulder.
The dinner in Sogndal wasn’t exactly in the “nutritious” category, but darn – it tasted good.
I drove home to Sunnmøre the next day. Karma was limping and she would definitely have a couple of days with good rest! The odometer showed 3423km when I got back home. The driving in Greece not included (of course)
Many thanks to Anne and Karma for yet another unforgettable summer holiday!
Trip statistics: 4,7km, 340 vertical meters, 1h:01m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
