A slightly tough hike!
Summer vacation, day 25
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 29.07.24 | Ljosuregga | 1581m | 119m | Stranda, Norway | – | MAP |
| 29.07.24 | Slettfjellet | 1420m | 233m | Stranda, Norway | – | MAP |
Monday: I was supposed to be back at work this morning, but that never happened. The weather was great and the fog was gone. I really felt a “need” for having one more good hike before I could “officially announce” the summer vacation as over.
During my 3 weeks of vacation, I had done stuff at work for 14 days – in the mornings and evenings. Besides, now that I’ve turned 60, I have more vacation days than I seem to be able to spend. So, I had no bad conscience about taking one day extra.
So, where to go? It had to be something above the average for sure. Then I started thinking about area around the Geiranger fjord. I had been gradually working my way eastbound from Hellesylt towards Holedalen. Nokkenibba, Hurklutefjellet and Lianibba. Next in line was Slettfjellet and Ljosuregga. So, I decided that those two tops would be my target today.
But this was only because I had noticed that someone had left a track on Peakbook.org, which indicated that it could be possible to get up from Holedalen, via something called “Stigen”. I didn’t know what “Stigen” was and what to look for. As such, I felt a certain “tension” about it, during the 2 hour drive from home to Holedalen.
On my way up from Hellesylt, I saw a guy by his car. I took a chance and asked him if he knew about “Stigen”. He did and while he couldn’t tell me exactly where the path began, he gave me a good advice about where to park, so that the car would be safe from the local cows. More importantly – yes, I would be able to bring a dog up there. Excellent!
As I drove up Holedalen, I could see some fog on Ljosuregga. Fog was NOT part of my plans today, and I strongly hoped the fog would go away.
When I got to the upper meadow in Holedalen, I located the first tractor road that had a gate. I was able to park the car on the inside, without blocking the tractor road.
That was a good start, but I needed a good continuation. Where the heck was the path? I didn’t understand how to get up this mountain, so I really felt I needed a path!
I followed the tractor road until its end, but I didn’t see any path. Left or right? I chose left. That was the wrong direction. The terrain was QUITE cumbersome!
But at least I had figured out where the upper route went. Through the elimination method…
So, it was just a matter of heading in that direction – once I had overcome the obstacles in the lower forest…
After a while, we had reached the lower part of where I assumed the route was. The terrain was gradually getting steeper and now I was in real need of a path.
And then we found the path. Big joy!
The path zig-zagged up the mountainside and after a while I could see the pass between Slettfjellet and Ljosuregga. At this point, I felt the hard part was over. Above us was most likely friendly and rocky tops.
When we got Ljosuregga in view, I had to delete “friendly” from the list of adjectives. How the heck would we get up there? The only upside was that the fog had left the mountain.
I had to rely on the old saying – “everything sorts itself out when you get close enough to the problem”.
That old saying is definitely not always true, but there is some truth in it. And when we got closer, I saw something that looked like a traversing ledge in the middle of the face. Could that be our route up?
With restrained optimism, we sat course for the “pile of rock”.
The ledge route became indeed our route up. At first, I tried to find a good route for the dog close to the wall, but then I discovered that it was much easier to get her up further right. More exposed, but easier.
And then I could call on her.
Once above this problem, I definitely felt the hard part was over. I mean, what else could there possibly be? I was now having a clear view towards the high ridge.
We passed a section with white/grey rock. I wondered if this was what had given the mountain its name. “Ljos-ur-egga” aka “Light colored-boulder-ridge”. At best, it’s a longshot. It probably means something else.
Eventually, we reached point 1556m, which marked the beginning of the ridge leading to the top.
Looking towards the top, I noticed a gap in the ridge that I didn’t know about. But I decided to not worry about it. “Everything sorts itself out ...” etc…
Access to water had been a problem for Karma so far and that’s why I had brought water and a drinking bowl. It was also nice for her to find snow. I hope she was able to cool properly down before we continued.
The moment of truth was 1 minute away. Would the gap pose a problem?
Ouch! This was not dog terrain. But what about myself? How hard was this gap really?
I had to find out and “parked” the dog on point 1576m – 5m lower than the summit.
The scramble down to the col was easy enough, but even if I found a good way up on the other side, this descent alone was enough to NOT bring the dog along. In retrospect, I could probably have gotten the dog up if we stayed much lower down in the mountainside and come up on the back side…
I had two challenges ahead of me. The first was steep, hard snow. I had to avoid that. The second was loose rocks and scree. My initial thought was to traverse this side and get back up on the other side. That clearly seemed like the best route. But that involved crossing snow (or scrambling with exposure) and so I decided to try to find a way straight up.
It was only 2 vertical meters above the snow that was a bit tricky. Once above that, the rest was easy. A few minutes later, I was on top!
Now I had to make sure that the dog was where she was supposed to be. She was! Good dog!
I could allow myself a minute for taking pictures before heading back.
So many mountains out there…
I won’t be able to visit all of them before I have to retire from this “line of work”, but I’ll do as many as I can!
It was time to get back to Karma. We had one more top to do, providing Karma showed no signs of fatigue. I scrambled down with great care…
It was really, really tempting to also visit Gjerklandsegga, but I felt that would be pushing it, with respect to what the dog should be doing now, just after a very busy summer with big mountains.
We retraced our steps down the steep face…
…and sat course for Slettfjellet.
Karma looked good and when we spotted a hare, Karma was “on steroids”.
From previous training, she knows that running after something means cat food for a month, so she stayed put, looking desperately at a) the hare and b) me, for permission to have lunch.
No permission was granted, but it kept her head occupied for the next 30 minutes.
And within “no time”, we were on top of Slettfjellet.
There are good views from up here also, and I tried to remember the details from our hike to the neighbour tops Lianibba and Hurklutefjellet in 2018. I only remembered fragments. I’m still not sure if “I’m losing it” or if there is simply not enough memory for all the hikes. More probable is that I only remember the memorable hikes. I *think* that’s the point with the word “memorable”.
But I really don’t have to remember all that much, thanks to my blogs…
It was time to get back home and we began our descent from Slettfjellet.
I already started looking forward to returning to Holedalen to hike Steegga and Holedalsfjellet. Which meant that: a) I would get a nice walk along Holedalsvatnet and b) expose my car to cows. I think a better plan is to park where I parked today. The extra 2,5km (total) are less expensive than broken mirrors.
I also looked forward to finding out where the “Stigen” path begins!
We followed the path down to the point where we found it. Then, the path turned southeast and for a while I though this path would run all the way to Holesætra.
But eventually, the path turned south and went in the direction of my car.
We were almost down by the meadow when we ran into cows. They were everywhere! To avoid any sort of confrontation, I went back up a little and headed off-trail through obnoxious terrain in the direction of the tractor road we followed in the beginning. One cow popped up here. Another there. It was like a frickin’ “dodge the cow” game.
But eventually, we were on the right side of the fence…
Holedalen was truly beautiful today…
My emerging bad knee was still surviving, but I felt that it was good timing to get back to the daily routine before the knee prevented me from doing anything…
And maybe this is our next hike in this area? Who knows…
Trip statistics: 13,4km, 1375 vertical meters, 2h:28m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike:
