Still enjoying the great September weather
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 26.09.22 | Niven | 561m | 78m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 26.09.22 | Vardehornet | 600m | 60m | Ørsta/Volda, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 27.09.22 | Grøthornet | 748m | 35m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 27.09.22 | Sandhornet | 909m | 471m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 28.09.22 | Sylvkallen | 1310m | 180m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 29.09.2022 | Nystøylhornet | 600m | 382m | Vanylven, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 30.06.22 | Støyvafjellet | 875m | 42m | Gloppen, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 01.10.22 | Amlaholten | 508m | 265m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 02.10.22 | Vardafjellet | 1117m | 32m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 02.10.2022 | Kambafjellet | 1230m | 25m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 02.10.22 | Blåfjellet | 1401m | 151m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Niven (560m), Vardehornet (600m), Sep 26 2022
Monday: During my working day (from home), I was well aware of the rain outside and didn’t exactly look forward to walking the dog in the afternoon.
So, I made the brilliant decision to drive to Volda. If the weather was the same, then nothing was lost. But if the weather was better, it would be a huge win.
And the weather was indeed better! It didn’t rain at all!
I wanted to get some new tracks on my Sunnmøre GPS map and drove to Klepp, planning to hike all the way to the forest ridge facing the Hovden airport. I am not familiar with the local names, so that’s the best description I have. Not that there were lack of descriptive signposts, on the contrary! But I didn’t take the time to look them up on the map.
After 1,9km, the path started to descend and as I had no idea where this would take us, we went off-trail. We probably managed to find the only ridge in this entire forest without a path.
But it didn’t take long before we once again were on a path. And this path was going on and on until we finally topped out on the Niven ridge at approx. 500m. But we still had 1,4km left to go to the high point.
Well, that’s not entire accurate. There is a “Nivane 560m” signpost that most people consider to be the high point, but technically, there is a – up to 1m – higher point 0,3km to the northeast. We simply could not be bothered going there, as it was already getting late, and I was hungry.
So, we walked quickly up to Vardehornet – which always were my primary goal for this hike.
And finally – after 5,9km – Karma got her treats.
We took the familiar path down the southwest ridge. Slippery as hell, but one of my very few skills in life is to hike pretty fast down a slippery path and live to talk about it.
The final bonus of the day was to find a route back to Klepp that I hadn’t done before. OK, it was just a 0,3km leg, but it matters!
A good start to the week!
Trip statistics: 8,9km, 580 vertical meters, 2h:06m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Sandhornet (909m), Sep 27 2022
The hike to Sandhornet is featured here…
Sylvkallen (1310m), Sep 28 2022
The hike to Sylvkallen is featured here…
Nystøylhornet (600m), Sep 29 2022
Thursday: For some time, I have been thinking about revisiting Nystøylhornet, and this afternoon I decided to take the trip. I took the 4:20pm ferry from Larsnes to Åram and was ready to hike 4:37pm from the church.
The ATV road up to the nearest antenna was a complete disaster. My shoes were wet and muddy almost before the hike had begun. And all sort of “debris” from transport was scattered along the road. Not fun…
Things got better when we got on the mountain path. It was still wet and muddy, but … better.
We kept a good pace up the mountain, and I was determined to reach the top within the hour (600 vertical meters and 3,3km). On a normal good route, that’s a no-brainer, but this was not a normal good route.
I lost sight of the path and got an unnecessary detour, but we were soon enough back on track.
We reached the top in 50 minutes, which was a pleasant surprise. I immediately instructed Karma to start posing.
It is a very fine coastal view from this top and I presume that’s one of the reasons this is a popular hike. However, I do think most visitors begin their hike in Sandvikdalen.
Traditionally, I’ve tried out a number of variations upon descent, but today I was just keen on getting home for dinner – and decided to take the same route down.
Of course, the ferry from Åram wouldn’t be going for quite some time, and so I drove to Koparneset instead – just having to wait 15 minutes.
It was a beautiful evening, and I stopped several times for pictures on my way home.
Trip statistics: 6,6km, 620 vertical meters, 1h:29m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Støyvafjellet (875m), Sep 30 2022
Friday: Transport day – Sunnmøre – Sogndal after work and not enough time for a proper hike. In these cases, Utvikfjellet is a good place for a short walk. It’s 2/3 on my way to Sogndal and I guess Karma is a bit bored by then.
This afternoon, I took her for a walk to Støyvafjellet. It’s a short and nice walk along a good path with good views.
The nice weather period we had in September was coming to an end. I wanted to enjoy it until the very last minute. It’s been a superb month!
From the pictures, it seems like Karma was mighty impressed by the landscape. But nah – that’s not how it works. She had her nose constantly up in the air. My guess there was a herd of reindeer not too far away.
After visiting the high point, we went down to Støyvastølen and followed the regular path until we joined our ascent route.
It was nice to get back to Sogndal, although I don’t always look forward to the 3,5 hour drive. Anne had a pork shank in the oven, and we had a very nice Friday evening. I did notice that she had a lot of uncut wood in her backyard and a qualified guess that I would have to spend the first part of Saturday with the chainsaw.
Trip statistics: 4,7km, 320 vertical meters, 1h:07m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Amlaholten (508m), Oct 1 2022
Saturday: I woke up with a headache. I knew why. Anne served Aquavit along with the Pork Shank last night. It took me a couple of morning hours to recover, and then it was straight to her backyard with the chainsaw and the sledgehammer. The iron log splitter is brilliant. It was a few hours with honest and solid work…
I was done with the wood at 3pm and now it was time to walk the dog. As I expected rain, I decided to go to Amlaholten. This would be a forest hike all the way, and I wouldn’t pay much notice of the rain.
We headed out from Amlabukti and the plan was to hike up the west ridge.
I used to love this route, but after the arrival of “Ramnereiret” and the ATV road, this forest has lost its beauty.
I was able to forget above Ramnereiret once past it and enjoyed the rest of the hike up the ridge.
We stopped by the viewpoint just below the top, and I could feel the first drops of rain.
On top, we met a guy with his dog. We only said hello and I offered the other dog a few of Karma’s treats. Karma didn’t seem to like that…
We descended along the northeast path, until I decided to go off-trail and see what new this forest had to offer.
We crossed two familiar tractor roads before we were in brand new terrain and discovered that there was a path along the Festingdalsvegen road. As we got closer to Amlabukti, the path was quite distinct, and I could NOT understand why this was not on the map.
It was altogether a fun hike. Back at Amlabukti, I told Karma go and satisfy her thirst. She first picked the saltwater part of the fjord and didn’t want to drink. After maneuvering her to the river part, she was happy…
Back home, Anne had ravioli going on – inspired by her recent Yoga-and-cooking week in Italy. Tiramisu as dessert. Very tasty! And – a lot of washing up to do. I got that part.
Trip statistics: 6,2km, 500 vertical meters, 1h:50m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
Blåfjellet (1401m), Oct 2 2022
Sunday: The weather forecast wasn’t too good, so I didn’t have any plans after breakfast. As it hadn’t begun raining yet, I decided to drive to Øvstedalen and do a hike from there. Maybe to Slakkafjellet. Maybe to Lusaskard. Time would show.
In any case, it would just be Karma and me. Anne had a recent shoulder injury and wasn’t fit for hiking.
But halfway to Øvstedalen, I realized I had left my phone back at Anne’s house and so I turned back around. When I left Anne’s house again, Øvstedalen wasn’t all that interesting anymore and so I decided to drive to Hodlekve (the local skiing centre) instead. Not that I would go skiing, but a 600m trailhead is always tempting. Maybe I could get all the way to Blåfjellet before the bad weather came upon us?
I didn’t have any faith in reaching Blåfjellet, but Vardafjellet (1017m) was clearly an achievable target. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t been to that top yet. That can easily be explained – Blåfjellet is always a more interesting goal – whether it’s on skis or on foot.
When we reached Vardafjellet the weather wasn’t bad at all.
That is… the weather wasn’t bad *here* and I hoped it could stay that way.
In any case, we decided to continue to Kambafjellet. Even with bad weather up there, I knew how to get off the mountain quite quickly. Meanwhile, I stayed on the Sogndalsdalen side of the ridge – just to cover new ground.
And then we were on Kambafjellet. Now what?
The weather was still OK, so Blåfjellet was the next obvious target. This time, I chose to seek terrain that is normally off limits when skiing.
When we got to the 1400m top, it was raining light – or perhaps it was just moisture from the fog. Technically, I don’t think this top if 1400m, as there is no 1400m contour on the map.
Hence, we “had” to move over to the 1401m top – which is clearly the highest top on Blåfjellet.
It felt a bit winter-ish up there. There was still a lot of snow from last winter – combined with fresh snow.
If the weather still had been OK, we would have continued towards Nonsholten (1387m) – where I haven’t been yet. But I wasn’t too keen about walking about in the fog and the rain and decided to head back down.
The fun part of the descent was NOT looking at the map. Just head down and deal with any obstacles that might occur.
One such obstacle would be the descent into the Storakupa basin.
But whether it was dumb luck or experience, we found a good route into the basin right away and now we just had birch forest to combat.
Birch forests are normally quite nice, but sometimes they can be a bit cumbersome. Like today…
The beautiful autumn colors by far overshadowed any hurdles we might face in the forest, and soon we were down on the valley trail and had an easy hike back to Rindabotn/Hodlekve.
I picked Anne up in Sogndalsfjøra – out walking. Once back home I went to work. One stable of firewood had to go into Anne’s outhouse. Another pile of wood I cut yesterday had to be stabled outdoors for drying. This was a 2,5 hour intense working session and I felt really good when the job was done. Partly because the job was got done, but also because it’s really nice to feel that the good old body has been put to work.
At the end of the week 38 report, I wrote: “With 4440 vertical meters (5 afternoon hikes and 2 weekend hikes), the hiking week was a bit above the average. With the upcoming autumn weather, I have a feeling I won’t be seeing such an intense hiking week again this year.»
But, this week I did 4675m vertical meters (the same number of afternoon and weekend hikes). So I was clearly a bit pessimistic. The dog was happy, though. But now, a lot of weather of the not-so-nice sort is on its way…
Trip statistics: 11,2km, 840 vertical meters, 3h:10m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
