Mostly rain, but also a couple of OK walks
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 25.11.24 | Rjåhornet | 600m | 107m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 26.11.24 | Heida | 239m | 126m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 27.11.24 | Haddalshornet | 611m | 103m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 28.11.24 | Storhornet | 497m | 497m | Giske, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 28.11.24 | Sloktinden | 442m | 34m | Giske, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 29.11.24 | Skåla | 184m | 86m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | MAP | |
| 30.11.24 | Høgskjerva | 317m | 9m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 30.11.24 | Kiberget | 438m | 65m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 01.12.24 | Eikenakken | 123m | 123m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Rjåhornet (600m), Nov 25 2024
Monday: I was lucky and got an early appointment with my Chiropractor in Volda. He did his stuff and told me the problem was solved. Maybe I thought the pain would go away immediately, but it didn’t. I asked if I could try to get up from a chair, just to make sure he actually fixed my problem. He looked at me patiently while I – successfully – got up from the chair.
Anne had made it to Paris. They would have a long wait there before the flight to Réunion was scheduled to leave.
After work, I decided to hike Rjåhornet. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but I was sure that it wouldn’t get more painful than it already was. But I was better from a functionally point of view. No doubt about that.
We headed out from Djupvika. There had been incredible snowmelt for the past two days and all the snow shovelling felt wasted.
I wasn’t sure how much snow there was left but took a chance and wore low terrain shoes. They would surely get wet, but I had good socks!
On our way up the mountain, it got darker and windier by the minute.
On top, it was really windy. I didn’t have to tell Karma to go to the sheltered part of the building on top. She figured that out all by herself…
It was just impossible to take proper pictures. It was windy also in the sheltered spot.
Regardless how my back would take this hike, it felt good to start the week with a 600m top! The wind was soon forgotten about…
Trip statistics: 6,2km, 590 vertical meters, 1h:57m
Heida (239m), Nov 26 2024
Tuesday: My back was just a tad better when I woke up this morning. At least, things were going in the right direction.
After my working day had finished, it was raining, but the good news was that Anne had made it to Réunion and could look forward to the upcoming adventure down there.
I had planned to hike Røddalshorn but turned around at the trailhead. Too much snow and too much rain. Instead, I drove to Leikanger Skule (at Leikong) – with Heida as the goal for the day.
To make it a bit interesting, we headed into the dark forest and after a couple of minutes, I had no idea where we were.
At least not in terms of our route towards the top. But as long as we were going *up*, we were on the right track. Karma had a great time. So much to smell!
Eventually, we reached the windy top.
I tried to take pictures, but they didn’t turn out even close to decent. I still post one though…
On our way down, we stuck to the regular route. Which was basically a small river, due to the snowmelt.
The hike won’t go down in my history book as memorable…
Trip statistics: 3,7km, 250 vertical meters, 1h:10m
Haddalshornet (611m), Nov 27 2024
Wednesday: It was a gorgeous day. A bit cold, but nice. I was hoping to get off work at 3pm and get a little bit of daylight. My working started already at 7am, so…
But then someone threw in a 3pm meeting in the very last minute, and by the time I got in the car to drive to Havåg to hike Haddalshornet, there was only a couple of minutes with daylight left.
Hiking was easy. The path was 50% free of snow and where there was snow, it had a frozen crust that for the most part – carried my weight. Karma was happy! Very happy!
It was nice to get above the forest and get some views.
It was pitch dark on the mountain, but the cell phone managed to find a little light! I just don’t bother to bring my Canon on hikes like these – especially after dark.
And then we were up!
It was too windy (like always) to get a proper cell phone picture, but I managed to take a half decent shot of my home area.
When we left the top, I took a route I seldom do, but the hard snow tempted me. After a minute, I realized that it was pretty steep. Then I noticed Karma came sailing past me with “all brakes on” and then all of a sudden, the snow didn’t hold my weight. I went through, stumbled, lost my headlamp and started to sail down – in good speed – until I stopped when the snow ended. This fall was not good for my already troubled knee, but at least I didn’t have to limp down the mountain. It was a small scare!
Back in the forest, Karma – like always – suggested that we should take the other route down, and so we did.
On our way home, we stopped by the Eiksund bridge – just to get some light after two hours in the darkness.
Trip statistics: 6,5km, 610 vertical meters, 2h:04m
Storhornet (497m), Sloktinden (442m), Nov 28 2024
Thursday: Ålesund day, and I had a 2pm appointment with the orthopedist. It’s been 6 weeks since I last met with him – for the first time, and he said I didn’t that I had to do any surgery on the meniscus. A couple of weeks later, I had this bad fall where the knee got a huge setback. Today, he wrote me a prescription of some kind of wonder medicine that hopefully would make the knee respond better. It will be interesting to try out.
As I really wanted to hike in this nice weather with a little bit of daylight, I drove straight to Godøya island after the appointment with the Doctor. I would not only just get a little bit of daylight. Chances were good that we could reach the top before it got dark.
This time, I decided to hike from Alnes. It’s been a few years since I hiked Storhornet (aka Godøyfjellet) from this side of the island.
I was so glad to be back, in this nice weather. It’s always nice to be on Godøya, but it’s extra nice when the weather is good. The only negative thing was that the wind was a bit cold. My clothes kept the wind out, but only through hiking quickly, I could avoid getting cold.
My original plan had to hike across the mountain and return to Alnes. But when we reached lake Alnesvatnet, I got a bit fed up with the wind and decided to descend on the other side (via Sloktinden) and return to Alnes through the tunnel.
But before we got started on the final ascent, I had to revisit the infamous “Johan Skytt” rock. If it’s not clear from the below picture, it’s exposed on both sides and a fall will be – if not fatal – extremely damaging.
There was a lot of ice on the mountain, but it wasn’t difficult to find routes with no ice. We both reached the top without a single slip.
Karma patiently waited for treats while I had my round of (cell phone) pictures.
Then it got dark, and the headlamp had to come on. We moved on to Sloktinden and I looked forward to getting off the windy mountain.
It was too windy to get good pictures after dark. Even with my Octopus tripod, the camera would not be still.
Eventually, we reached the 1,5km long – and free of wind – tunnel. Karma was a little – “oh this is weird” in the beginning, but settled quickly in.
In the evening, I got an update from Anne (on Réunion). They were following the scheduled program and all was well.
Trip statistics: 9,1km, 620 vertical meters, 2h:19m
Skåla (184m), Nov 29 2024
Friday: And then came the rain!
Today I got started on the “wonder medicine” that hopefully would take away the pain in my knee. My body didn’t respond well to this drug and in the afternoon, I had stomach pain I was all knocked out.
I had to take a nap after work (highly unusual) and I’m still not sure how I managed to get up – 1,5 hours later. I read myself up on the drug and found that general side effects are “stomach pain, flu-like symptoms & fatigue”. Right…
It was raining and I just wanted to get back to bed. But I couldn’t just ignore the dog’s eyes, asking me “what are we doing this evening?“. So, I decided to man up and take a walk across Skåla. That should at least give us a 5km walk and hopefully – the dog would be happy afterwards.
We headed out from the closed store at Tjørvåg and followed the road up to Sandvikskaret. We took a detour to Øyraelva river, as I wanted to see how much water there was, after the huge snowmelt. I cannot remember seeing this much water in the river.
It’s normally quite easy to cross this river, even after rain. But not so today.
We got back on the Sandvikskaret road and from Sandvikskaret, we got onto the Skåla path.
I felt weird, and I can’t describe it. I didn’t “feel myself”. I felt almost like a Zombie. I slipped a couple of times, landed on my feet easily and concluded that the zombie-state was only in my head.
From Skåla, we descended to Stokksund. On our way back to Tjørvåg, Anne called from Réunion. She had a lot to tell. It wasn’t the best time for the phone call. Anne is a bit sensitive to noise on the phone, and the traffic was closed by, the wind was strong and it was raining. But I found shelter behind a tree, and we had a good talk.
The hiked helped. I was able to stay up for the rest of the evening and I already started dreading taking the next pill the next day. On the other hand, I really wanted a functioning knee again.
Trip statistics: 5,4km, 245 vertical meters, 1h:26m
Høgskjerva (317m), Kiberget (438m), Nov 30 2024
Saturday: I got to bed late last night, around 1am. I don’t know why I keep staying up to see Lord of the Rings films over and over again. I’m not really into that stuff, but I love great cinematography.
I woke up at 7 this morning, after waking up a couple of times from a stiff neck. It was too early to get up and the next thing I knew, the time was almost 10am. I am indeed fortunate to have a patient dog.
I had some errands in Ulsteinvik and afterwards, I drove up to Bugarden to give the dog a walk.
The plan was to get up to Høgskjerva and take it from there. That meant some “climbing” for the dog…
We followed the path for a while, then went off-trail to get onto the west ridge.
The weather wasn’t very pleasant when we reached Høgskjerva, and my shoes were already soaking wet. It wasn’t tempting to keep on hiking, and that alone inspired me to do just that.
So, our next stop would be Kiberget.
When we had Kiberget in plain sight, the rest of the route was quite clear. We would take the direct route to Kiberget, then follow the path to the waterworks building and then the Vikemarka trail back to Bugarden.
It was quite windy on Kiberget, but the dog was well protected from the whipping rain.
It was time to get off the mountain and I already started looking forward to the warm shower, awaiting back home…
It was extra nice to give Karma this long walk, as I would be away in the evening. It was time for the annual “Smalahove” dinner with our friends in Ulsteinvik. It would have been nice to go with Anne, but she was more than 10,000km away.
Trip statistics: 8,7km, 410 vertical meters, 1h:57m
Eikenakken (123m), Dec 1 2024
Sunday: When I looked out the window this morning, it wasn’t raining. Excellent! I hadn’t checked the forecast but figured it would be a good day for a 600m – or higher – top. Then I took Karma out on the morning walk, and it started to pour down. Afterwards, I checked the forecast and it wasn’t good. My first instinct was to stay indoors all day, but that just isn’t us.
So, I drove to Eika island to do the usual hike across the forest tops, including the island high point – Eikenakken.
At Sundet, I tried to find a route that I hadn’t done before. That effort failed miserably, thanks to a jungle of juniper bush.
We retraced our steps to the forest track, which led us up to Nakken.
The weather was truly miserable. Constant rain with wind gusts up to 15m/s.
But it was OK to be in the forest. Not much wind here!
When we reached Eikenakken, I abandoned the idea of hiking all the way to Søre Eika. Nothing to see there anyway. So, we followed the path down to the Eika road and turned back to the trailhead.
Just before the reached the gravel road, I noticed something pass just in front of Karma. I immediately understood that it had to be a deer. Karma was maybe 10 meters ahead of me and was still confused about what just happened. I told her to stay put and saw two deer run for their lives, down the forest. That was just about the only exciting thing that happened today…
Trip statistics: 5,9km, 340 vertical meters, 1h:28m
