Awesome hike!
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | MAP |
| 17.09.23 | Dyrdalstinden | 1371m | 107m | Fjord, Norway | MAP |
| 17.09.23 | Point 1313m | 1313m | 34m | Fjord, Norway | MAP |
| 17.09.23 | Fokhaugtinden | 1244m | 22m | Fjord, Norway | MAP |
Sunday: I had been looking forward to this Sunday. The weather forecast was great, and I would take the trip to Overøye, just one week after helping to gather sheep in Seljebotn – the neighbor valley.
I was no stranger to this area and had been to a number of peaks in my Ålesund years (2006-2008). Like Auskjeret, Lauparen, Overøystolen, Storbua, just to name a few. But I hadn’t been to Dyrdalstinden – which was my main goal for today.
I left home on Gurskøy 9am, took the 9:30 ferry from Hareid to Sulesund and was ready for hiking from the Pusken parking at 11:10am.
After hiking 0,6km along the Pusken road, we crossed the river on a bridge and turned immediately right for the trail leading into Dyrdalen valley.
And soon we were on our way to a new, small adventure. That’s how I like to see it. Anything can potentially happen…
1,4km after the bridge, the path forked. We went left and headed for Dyrdalstinden’s south ridge.
I was happy to see the valley turning smaller, behind me…
Eventually, we were on the ridge leading to the top. I didn’t expect any difficulties and there were none either.
We kept steady progress towards the top and met 3 hikers coming down the mountain.
When we reached the top, there was one guy there – with a huge dog and there wasn’t much space. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, either. Fortunately, he had stopped by the mailbox, which was not the high point. We curved around them and went up to the main cairn.
Finally! Dyrdalstinden was “in the bag.”
I had a great view towards Trollvasstindan from here. I had only been to the north top (left on the below picture), and I remember that hike to be quite fun! But I hadn’t been to the south top yet. That will probably have to wait until 2024, but I’ll be there then!
Further south on that ridge is Fokhaugtinden. This is not a top with a prominence of 100m (or more) and hasn’t really been on my radar.
But now that I was here – AND the hike felt a bit short, maybe I could visit Fokhaugtinden also?
But first, I would enjoy myself up here for a few more minutes. I told Karma to stay behind and went to have a closer look at the ridge towards Storbua. It looked darned fun! But not with a dog as company…
I returned to Karma, who seemed to be very focused about daddy’s plans…
Man, it was good to be back here. So many familiar peaks in the distance…
It was finally time to reveal my plan about Fokhaugtinden to Karma. She didn’t seem overenthusiastic…
At 1200m, we left the ridge and began our descent into Dyrdalen valley. It was overall OK terrain.
Fokhaugtinden didn’t seem very steep from Dyrdalstinden, but standing at the foot of the mountain, I realized it would be steeper than I had thought. I wasn’t really thinking about our ascent route, but the ridge I planned to descend looked very steep.
I must admit, I had just assumed that what I thought was the highest point on the south part of the ridge, was Fokhaugtinden. I hadn’t even bothered to check the map.
The ascent wasn’t too bad and when we reached what I thought was Fokhaugtinden, I found that I was at a hump marked as 1314m on the map (1313m when zoomed in). What?
And this wasn’t the highest point on the ridge south of Trollvasstindan south (1418,7m) either. There was a 1315m hump a bit further north.
Then I realized that Fokhaugtinden was way further down the ridge – but fortunately – on the same ridge I had planned to descend. The ridge over to Fokhaugtinden looked easy enough.
I considered Trollvasstindan’s south top for a few seconds but concluded that it would be very strenuous for super-thirsty Karma. My main focus should be to get her to water.
On our way to Fokhaugtinden, I started to worry about my planned descent route – to the right on the below picture. But, in worst case, we could always head back up and descend the way we came up. I certainly hoped that it wouldn’t come to this…
When we were close to the ridge leading up to Fokhaugtinden, I got a sense of a huge drop below us. And sure enough, there was a drop!
The descent went quite alright, but when I looked back, I just couldn’t understand how we got down!
After a few minutes, we reached the top of Fokhaugtinden.
It could be mentioned that the map height – 1241m – is a point far west on the summit area. According to hoydedata.no, the high point is 1244m.
The descent from Fokhaugtinden also went quite easy. Some route-finding was necessary in places, but overall – much easier than expected!
Karma was very, very happy about unlimited access to water.
I found the valley trail and after 1,4km we arrived at the trail fork where we turned left for Dyrdalstinden earlier in the day.
I was super-happy about the hike and the day. I wouldn’t have cared a bit if the trip back home was a 5-hour drive. Fortunately, it was only 2…
Trip statistics: 14,7km, 1625 vertical meters, 5h:32m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
