Winter is closing in…
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 23.09.24 | Klosterhaugen | 20m | 20m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 23.09.24 | Jensholmen | 19m | 19m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 24.09.24 | Skafjellet | 573m | 82m | Hareid, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 25.09.24 | Huldrehornet | 271m | 113m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 26.09.24 | Rambjøra | 132m | 109m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 27.09.24 | Rambjøra | 132m | 109m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 28.09.24 | Skolma | 636m | 483m | Hareid/ Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 28.09.24 | Bike, Dragsund | – | – | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 29.09.24 | Bike, Lysløypa | 160m | 0m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 29.09.24 | Bike, around Gurskøy | 160m | 0m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
Klosterhaugen (20m), Sep 23 2024
Monday: In my notebook, this day was summarized as “headache and pouring rain”. This didn’t set me in a very adventurous mode after work, but I mustered the energy to walk the dog. I decided to drive to Herøy and do a roundtrip across this small island.
There is a lot of history to dive into – on this isle of sagas. You can look it up if you’re interested.
We hiked down to the outdoors amphitheatre (where “Herøyspelet” takes place once a year) and I did my best to entertain Karma. Tough crowd!
We stopped down by the shore, hoping that we could spot eagles, like we did last year.
Nothing much exciting happened today, except the passing of a Skjold-class corvette.
A note to those who visit “Klosterhaugen”, near the paved trail. This is not the high point. For that, you need to visit another small hill 50m to the southwest…
Trip statistics: 2,8km, 50 vertical meters, 0h:45m
Jensholmen (19m), Sep 23 2024
Monday: The walk on Herøy island (or isle) was a bit short, so I drove over to Jensholmen to extend the dog walk. We were already wet, so…
As I hadn’t been to the top of this isle, we made sure to go there. Not fun terrain at all. Once back down, we just kept on walking around to cover most of the island.
The isle is only < 400m east-west, but you can stretch the hike by walking from molo to molo. We were able to do 2km of hiking on this small isle…
Trip statistics: 2km, 30 vertical meters, 2h:26m
Skafjellet (573m), Sep 24 2024
Tuesday: At least some progress on the knee issue. I went to my regular doctor, and he didn’t hesitate in sending me to a specialist.
The knee isn’t all that bad. I can do hikes, but not many days in a row, and the “forecast” for the knee is problematic. It needs attention.
After a night with little sleep, I decided to go biking after work and my goal was no less to bike up to Skafjellet on Hareidlandet island. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to bike all the way, but the interesting question was – how much could I bike?
The “monster hill” from Geilane got the best of me already in the first section. I struggled to get grip on the slippery soil.
But after the first bend (which took ages to get to), the road was less steep and I was able to bike continuously up to the point where the mountain path begins.
I gave up biking the path until I had 300m left. As the terrain was somewhat flat then, I was able to get to the top with a little dignity left.
The thought of returning the same way felt boring, so I decided to bike down to the pass between Skafjellet and Holstadhornet, and then aim for Grimstad. Biking down the northeast ridge was fun – until it became a bit rocky near the pass.
To my surprise, I was able to bike most of the 800m meadow before the path drops steeply into the forest. The terrain ahead of me was reserved for professional bikers, and I pushed the bike until we reached the tractor road leading down to Grimstad. The remaining 2km back to the car was fun!
As if the day hadn’t been strenuous enough, we had an ongoing major incident at work, so I was working the entire evening. We got it solved just before midnight.
Trip statistics: 8,3km (on bike/pushing), 540 vertical meters, 1h:43m
Huldrehornet (271m), Sep 25 2024
Wednesday: I went to bed around 1am the night before and woke up at 2am with a headache. Around 3am, I was still trying to get rid of it and noticed that Karma was in distress. She definitely needed to get outside.
She had a terrible diarrhea and had to go out 2 more times that night. So, no more sleep for me.
At this point I was wondering, how many nights with little or no sleep I can handle…
After work, I found I had the energy to hike up to my local top Huldrehornet.
The forest part was especiall HARD today, and I was very happy when we finally got to the summit ridge.
Soon after, we reached the top.
Like almost always, a hike gives me more energy and so I decided to take a different route back down.
After the 4km hike, I took the bike (from the car) and we headed up to “Halsen” where the Djupvikhaugen trail begins. The plan was to bike more, but Karma lost interest and so I decided to call it a day.
Trip statistics: 2,5km on bike, 4km on foot, 300 vertical meters, 1h:22m
Rambjøra (132m), Sep 26 2024
Thursday: The afternoon & evening was reserved for a dinner with colleagues in Ålesund, where we would wish my former boss Rune the best of luck, in his retirement. I owe him a lot. He was the one that took a chance on me, when I applied for a software development position in Rolls-Royce back in 2006. By then, as a Silicon Graphics Presale Engineer, I was working with just about everything that had to do with computers (software development, networking, storage, graphics, etc…. But I knew C, not Java. And I didn’t know Ajax and the other “foreign stuff” on his skills requirement list.
When that was clear to him, he looked at me and said, “but are you a quick learner?” And the rest is history, as they say…
Therefore, I took my lunch break (slightly extended) later than usual and was able to give Karma a walk across my local top Rambjøra before I sat course for the express boat.
I was back home 6-7 hours later, and Karma went totally bonkers when I got back home. If I’m gone an hour, she seldom comes down to greet me. Maybe, if I’m away 2 hours. More than 4 hours is equivalent of a lifetime, so you can imagine how she got after 6-7…
Trip statistics: 3,5km, 140 vertical meters, 0h:49m
Rambjøra (132m), Sep 27 2024
Friday: The plan was absolutely not to go to Rambjøra for the 2nd day in a row. But the car wouldn’t start!
In the pouring rain, the original plan was just to keep on driving until inspiration to hike somewhere came upon me. But now I needed a new plan.
OK, so what about biking to Stemmedalen and then up to the lake? Yup, let’s do that. But after 1km of biking, Karma was bored and didn’t want to continue.
So, we went back home. I needed groceries and walked (still with Karma) down to the store while trying to figure out what to do next.
Back home, I decided that I might as well do trail maintenance on the path to Rambjøra. The path was quite in order when I left it before the summer break, but now there was a lot of tall grass that had to go away.
On top, I was not in a mood for a roundtrip hike. I just wanted to call it a day and we returned the way we came. Until we reached the fork to Møre Skule. Karma was really eager to go down there so I let her. This path had A LOT of tall grass but then I ran out of petrol.
Trip statistics: 2,5km on bike, 3,5km on foot, 210 vertical meters, 2h:19m
Skolma (636m), Sep 28 2024
Saturday: I felt I had “deserved” a good hike in OK weather and drove to Brandal (on Hareidlandet island) to hike Skolma.
The path was super-wet, but at least it wasn’t raining!
Above the forest, I could see that the snow level was at around 5-600m. So, this meant that there would probably be snow on Skolma as well.
It wasn’t a whole lot of snow on the mountain, but I’m personally against the idea of snow in September. Our summers and autumns are short as it is. And this summer and autumn has been exceptionally bad.
But I felt confident that this snow would surely not last long.
It did come a huge dump during the following night and there was snow all over the upper part of this mountain the very next day. But 2 days later, all of it was gone.
It was windy, but I had good clothes and Karma can handle strong wind as long as it doesn’t hail.
Surely, there would be no hail today. I would have known about that already, as it typically hails all the way down to sea level.
And then we were up!
It was nice to be up here. The knee was holding up OK.
Then I noticed “something” moving in from the sea…
That “something” could potentially be painful for Karma, and I decided to get off this mountain – quickly.
When the “something” came upon us, I still didn’t know what it was. Was it just fog? Or snow? Or worse – hail?
It was hail…
But Karma “survived”, and after 10 minutes, the hail shower passed.
It’s nasty to be in a hail shower, but it’s nice to observe it from a distance…
We were almost in the clear…
And a few minutes later, everything was just OK again…
Trip statistics: 7,5km on bike, 540 vertical meters, 1h:51m
Biking – Dragsund, Sep 29 2024
Sunday: I surprised Karma with a morning walk much longer than usual. We went to Dragsund and back – a good start to the day!
Trip statistics: 4,2km on bike, 30 vertical meters, 0h:27m
Biking – Leikongeidet, Sep 29 2024
Sunday: After breakfast, I decided that this would a biking day and I drove up to Leikongeidet, where the plan was to bike back home – with Karma.
After “Lysløypa” – the lit trail – we followed tractor roads down to Vonheim. Then it started to rain – a lot. The shower didn’t last long and when we got to Leikong, the rain shower had passed.
I had never been to Buaneset before. This was a good day to visit this place. Looked cozy and “smelled money”.
Then I biked up as far to Djupvikhaugen as I could before I had to get off the bike. The remaining part was done on foot, but I’m calling it all a bike trip anyway.
Karma seemed to enjoy the everchanging scenery of places that are well known to her (except Buaneset).
13,8km after leaving Leikongsætra, we got back home. I had to bike back and pick up the car, but this time I biked up Leikongbakken – along the parallel road. On top of the hill, I tested the new gravel trail that is in the works.
Seconds after I got the bike into the car, it started to rain again. Good timing!
Got a nice rainbow too!
Trip statistics: 21,5km on bike, 490 vertical meters, 2h:22m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the trip:
Biking – around Gurskøya, Sep 29 2024
Sunday: In the afternoon, I was up for more biking. Why not just take the new bike for a ride around my local island?
I took the round counterclockwise, which meant that I would get the long uphill from Gursken to Leikongeidet.
I had a bit of headwind, and combined with that my tyres aren’t optimal for speed, I felt the trip was a bit strenuous. It got easier whenever biking westbound, and was able to do 30km/h on these legs.
The new bike was better than the old one, but the I felt the handlebar was still too low. At least for the cruising part of the trip.
All in all, it was a good trip. I was 6 minutes slower than in 2017, but then I did the trip clockwise. I think that way is faster. So – quite comparable.
Trip statistics: 48,1km on bike, 585 vertical meters, 2h:36m
