A mix of Indre Sogn and Sunnmøre
| Date | Peak/Place | Height | PF | Location | WCP |
| 22.08.22 | Nuken | 919m | 126m | Sogndal, Norway | |
| 23.08.22 | Storehaugfjellet | 1173m | 990m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP |
| 24.08.22 | Molden | 1121m | 808m | Luster, Norway | WCP |
| 26.08.22 | Hestehornet | 688m | 55m | Volda, Norway | WCP |
| 26.08.22 | Koppefjellet | 940m | 602m | Volda, Norway | WCP |
| 27.08.22 | Syrebakkane | 455m | 42m | Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 27.08.22 | Sollia | 661m | 661m | Herøy/Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP |
| 28.08.22 | Fossenibba | 1267m | 105m | Stranda, Norway | – |
Nuken (919m), Aug 22 2022
Monday: After a busy weekend, I felt for taking it down a notch and just walk the dog. Karma got a rest on both Friday and Sunday but pulled off a 15km+ hike on Saturday – without limping afterwards. That would not have happened during the summer break, and I’m now a believer in terms of the Librela injection she got a week earlier…
After work, I drove up to Åsen – probably the highest trailhead (to which you can drive a normal car) in the old Sogndal municipality – around 660m. From here, Nuken is just a 2,8km hike away – in easy terrain.
On top, I met 4 students. After some chatting, I ended up giving them a whole bunch of tips regarding good hikes in this region, and on Sunnmøre. That’s the nice thing about hiking mountains all across the country – when you meet people from here and there, chances are that I’ve hiked a mountain they know – and the bonding process is ON! Two of the guys were from Nesbyen, and it’s not that long since I was hiking in Nesbyen…
It was a nice afternoon, and it felt a bit wrong just to return to the car. So, I decided to extend the hike by hiking around lake Vetlavatnet and then see what I felt for doing.
After Vetlavatnet, we followed lake Halsavatnet in the south direction before setting the course towards Uglåsen.
But I’ve done that route before (with Anne) and I wanted a variation. So, we went off-trail before Uglåsen and headed through wetlands and the forest before returning to Åsen – and not in a good way – climbing across barbed wire fences…
Once back at Anne’s house (she was in Trondheim), I started chopping the wood I had cut a couple of days ago. After dinner and another episode of Hawaii Five-O, I went to bed with the best conscience in the world…
Trip statistics: 7,9km, 380 vertical meters, 2h:17m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the hike:
Storehaugfjellet (1173m), Aug 23 2022
Tuesday: After work, I finished chopping the wood I had cut with my chainsaw a few days ago. It was a notable effort. I felt indeed like a man…
The time was almost 6pm. Anne’s plane would land 8:45pm. What to do in the meantime? After a quick calculation, I found that I just might have time to hike Storehaugfjellet from near the airport – if I took the most direct route – along the power lines.
If I ran out of time, I could always turn around.
But the ascent went quite well and every time I checked the clock, I was ahead of plan.
The forest part isn’t too bad, but it sure felt good to get above the forest and just deal with mountain terrain.
Eventually, the summit was close.
We headed out 6:24pm and reached the top 7:23pm. Doing 700 vertical meters + within the hour in off-trail terrain was something I could live with.
We spent a couple of minutes on top before starting our descent.
Upon descent, we stayed south of our ascent route and didn’t join our ascent route until we only had 0,6km left to go.
We were now way ahead of plan. The time was 8:05pm when we returned to the car, but the plane landed 10 minutes ahead of schedule and so the wait wasn’t all that long. Anne was very happy about being picked up at the airport!
Trip statistics: 5,3km, 710 vertical meters, 1h:41m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Molden (1121m), Aug 24 2022
Wednesday: I had decided to leave Sogndal the day after, as the forecast promised lots of rain. I figured I might as well end this stay with a good hike and Molden was a good candidate.
I decided that this would be a quick hike and dressed light and wore light, leaving my Canon back home.
I am by no means able to run up this mountain anymore, but I should be able to pull off a mix of walking and jogging from the Krossen trailhead (500m). It turned out be more walking than jogging, but OK.
We met a lot of people coming down the mountain. Most of them seemed to be tourists.
Passing Svarthiller (860m), I stopped for my first picture…
We headed out 4:27pm and reached the top 5:19pm. Not very impressive for a 500 vertical meter ascent, but while Storehaugfjellet (710 vertical meters) the day before offered 2,7km to the top, Molden was a 4,1km hike from the trailhead.
It was quite windy up there. I had to put a light jacket on, but I was still hiking in shorts.
We jogged more or less all the way down and reached the trailhead 6pm sharp. I noted that there were far more wooden bridges than the last time I hiked here. Good work, folks!
Trip statistics: 8km, 630 vertical meters, 1h:33m
Hestehornet (688m), Koppefjellet (940m), Aug 26 2022
Friday: Thursday evening was spent driving home to Sunnmøre in the rain. To be fair, the weather was quite OK while passing Nordfjord, but I wasn’t tempted to go hiking.
After finishing work on Friday, I was a bit washed out and only wanted a short hike, but preferably somewhere I hadn’t been in a while. I ended up with Hestehornet in Volda. But on my way there, it felt plain wrong to leave the sunny coastline for foggy mountains further into the country.
I had been hiking Koppefjellet from Krøvelsætra a couple of times before, going up the steep north ridge to Koppefjellet, but I had never hiked Hestehornet along this route. When I hiked Hestehornet back in 2009, I was going up the northwest ridge. Which also means that Karma had not been to Hestehornet yet.
When we reached the top of Hestehornet, the hike felt a bit short, and I decided to hike towards Koppefjellet and then do an off-trail ascent before joining the ascent route just above the forest.
But was we moved on towards Koppefjellet, the fog was just like a magnet. It attracted me towards the mountain.
The north ridge route was out of the question today. It’s way too steep to take on with a dog when both the rock and the grass was this slippery after rain.
But there’s an alternative route up to the 933m top, adjacent to the ridge route. And this route – if the best route is found – doesn’t offer any scary parts.
We arrived on point 933m in thick fog and followed a vague path over to the 940m top.
It was tempting to head down to lake Vassteinvatnet and hike to Rotevassætra cabins and then back to Krøvelsætra, but it was Friday and I wanted to finish the working week with pizza and beer. And beer must be purchased before 8pm.
The time was 6:36pm when we left Koppefjellet. We had 3,8km and almost 650 vertical meters (including some uphills) to descent. Then 3,5km of driving just to get on the main road and then 8km to the closest store selling beer. It seemed like a stretch and so I decided to hurry up.
But hurrying up in this steep, wet and slippery terrain is easier said than done. I really hate to brag, but my close to 25 years of hiking experience came to full use upon descent. And we were back at the car 7:19pm, with all the time in the world to get to Volda and secure Friday night’s treats…
Trip statistics: 8,5km, 770 vertical meters, 2h:14m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Syrebakkane (455m), Sollia (661m), Apr 27 2022
Saturday: It was raining until noon. Which was OK, as I had things to do back home. But when it stopped raining, I drove to Moltudalen to enjoy the blue sky while it lasted.
It started nice. We hiked the road to lake Mørkevatnet, hoping the weather would hold up. I decided to aim for Sollia, desperately thinking of how I could possibly get a variation to a hike I’ve done many times before.
Then it occurred to me – I had never hiked along lake Mørkevatnet before. That was nice. It was easier to jump from rock to rock along the shore than to hike on land.
Eventually, we had to go off-trail towards Syrebakkane and join the regular path near the top.
I had a feeling that the weather window was about to close.
But Sollia still looked like an OK place to be, and so it was just a matter of hiking as fast as we could…
We clearly didn’t hike fast enough because the rain caught up with us halfway up the mountain. It was a bit unpleasant.
And the summit could only offer fog…
I decided to not let the rain affect us too much and was still determined to return via Hestefjellet and Selsteinen. But when it also got windy, it was just too unpleasant, and we took the path down to lake Mørkevatnet.
Eventually, it stopped raining, but I was quite glad we didn’t take the high route back to the trailhead.
Trip statistics: 10,7km, 500 vertical meters, 2,5 hours
Pictures (Canon EOS RP) from the hike:
Fossenibba (1267m), Aug 28 2022
The hike to Fossenibba in Røyrhusdalen (Stranda) is covered in a separate trip report…
