The majesty of northern Norway
Summer vacation, day 3
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 07.07.24 | Oksskolten | 1916m | 1384m | Hemnes, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Disclaimer: First and foremost – to kill any protests – I used the “majesty” description solely because Oksskolten is the highest peak in northern Norway. As such, it deserves some credit. But there are numerous peaks in northern Norway that each and every one easily could be called the “majesty” in their respective region. Stetind, being just one of them…
Sunday: When we woke up at Fjordgaarden Hotell in Mo I Rana, we had absolutely no plans. We were just happy being in northern Norway, ready for whatever adventures we could come across.
But adventures don’t just come along. You have to find them yourself. And when we noticed that we had a good weather window until 4pm, we decided to go for the highest peak in northern Norway – Oksskolten (1916m).
Anne was slightly terrified about going for such a big mountain, but on the other hand – she wanted it really bad too…
We could use my trip back in 2009 as a guideline for how long this hike would take. Back then, I did the hike in 5h:47m. But that was 15 years ago. And I was alone. We concluded that if we did this hike in less than 8 hours, we would probably get a taste of the afternoon rain but most likely dodge the forecasted evening snow (!)
Snow was not a thing exclusive to northern Norway in July. Reports from southern Norway came ticking in – snow on one high peak, after the other.
After breakfast, we drove E12 towards Umbukta and took the service road towards lake Storakersvatnet (or just Akersvatnet). The nightmares from the drive back in 2009 are no longer present in my life, but I didn’t look forward to it. In short, it was a bumpy ~40km drive along a very bad road. I kept apologizing to Karma, in her cage, back in the car.
The excitement was high as we started to close in on the mountain…
Approx. 10:50am, we were ready to start hiking – from above Laurisbukta – ~550m elevation.
The first task was to hike up to the pass between Kjennvasshammaren and Ridaren.
This route was marked and easy to follow.
After a while, Oksskolten came into view…
At lake 828m, the marked route continues eastbound towards the Gressvasshytta cabin. This is where we left the path and continued southbound – towards Oksskolten.
The next task was to descend to the glacier – and cross it.
The glacier looked easy enough, but getting on it – and off, required some route finding.
This was Karma’s 2nd glacier hike (ever) – and both within a month. We were still curious if her paws could handle the rough surface without socks. But she seemed to be doing fine – this time also.
We were not alone on the glacier. There were two other parties on the glacier, either guided groups or glacier training groups. In any case, I assume the guides “outed us”, telling their clients of teammates how reckless some people can be. But in all honesty, there were no dangers. There was blue ice all over the place and we’ve got decades of glacier experience.
“Fortunately”, the glacier got a little more broken up as we approached the other side.
We tried to educate Karma about glaciers, the best we could…
After the glacier, we followed slabs up to the foot of the upper mountain. There were small cairns here and there, but we just hiked where we found the best route.
I was so happy to see that Anne was doing fine. For the past 7 years, she’s had this fatigue that could turn the simplest hike into an overwhelming task. And Oksskolten is a pretty overwhelming mountain…
Once above the slabs, it was clear that we still had a job to do…
Getting Karma up the ridge wasn’t difficult, but it turned out that of the doable routes – we picked the hardest – for her.
The final leg to the top was much longer than I had assumed it would be. We could see a person on top, but it felt like forever to get there.
Eventually, we reached the top. Anne was truly happy about being on top of northern Norway. Having been here before, I was just glad that Anne was doing OK. Karma was a bit more reluctant, like – what’s in it for me?
The person on top was from Finland and he wasn’t accustomed to glaciers. As such, he had forded the river from the glacier – which – is a big deal. We asked him if he took his boots off. His English wasn’t perfect, but we were left with the feeling that most of his clothes had to come off.
I didn’t remember much from the 2009 hike, but I remembered the views!
I also remembered that a traverse across the tops surrounding the glacier would be quite a task!
The sky was turning dark, and we decided to get off the mountain.
We took a different route down the upper part – an easier one which I didn’t spot going up.
The Finnish guy tried to keep up with us, but he wasn’t able to. We agreed that we should not wait for him. He would have to take responsibility for his own hike.
We got back to the foot of the upper mountain when the rain sat in.
The rain was light at first, but then it turned into proper rain. Descending along the slabs was more of a challenge now.
I had a heavy backpack, which I suspect was the reason that I got a strong headache – along with too little water and no food. As such, navigating in the pouring rain was a strenuous task.
But, I got us back to the glacier exit point and the hardest part of the hike was behind us.
And then it stopped raining.
We had an easy hike across the glacier, and I started looking forward to this hike coming to an end.
It was really nice to take on the last downhill, seeing the car down there. Even the bumpy 40km drive ahead of us didn’t bother me. I just wanted to a) get back to the car, b) get back to the hotel, c) get a beer and d) get sleep.
Anne really impressed me today. She was golden until we got back to the car, but once she relaxed, she started to realize what she had just accomplished. Her ambitions changed from going out to dinner, to ordering pizza to the hotel and we ended up with stopping at Circle K at Gruben for burgers.
Not long after we were back in the hotel room, she went to sleep. Sound asleep…
I enjoyed a couple of beers while writing down this trip report…
This was our first day in northern Norway this summer! Of course, I hoped that we would have more adventures ahead of us, but we just had to wait and see…
Trip statistics: 16,5km, 1705 vertical meters, 7h:39m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max/Samsung Galaxy) from the hike:
