Finally Trænstaven!
Introduction
During the summer of 2014, Anne, Karma and I had an unforgettable vacation on the Helgeland coastline. Our hikes never made it to any of my blogs and now I want foremost to make the pictures available.
This and the subsequent posts from this vacation will be extremely short trip reports. The primary intention is to get the pictures out.
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | MAP |
| 23.06.14 | To Træna | – | – | Træna, Norway | – |
| 24.06.14 | Trænstaven | 336m | 336m | Træna, Norway | MAP |
To Træna, June 23 2014
Being from Helgeland, I have grown up with the mystic mountains on the Helgeland coastline. Torghatten, Trænstaven, Lovund, Dønnamannen, De Syv Søstre, Rødøyløva, to name a few. Ever since I started hiking, it’s been a dream to visit the tops that requires some planning to get to. This summer was dedicated to make that dream come true.
This would be a different type of vacation, as for the coming 8 days, we would not bring the car, just jumping on whatever ferry or express boat going in the direction we wanted. And the nights would be spent in a tent.
As the primary goal was to climb Trænstaven, we had invited buddy Bjørn Eirik to be the lead climber. He brought his kayak and his plan was to kayak from base-camp to base-camp and catch up with us in the evenings.
We left the car at Stokkvågen and took the express boat to Træna via Lovund. Bjørn Eirik planned to kayak all the way to Træna, but that didn’t work out well. Due to an extremely rough sea, he had to seek shelter on some islet near Sleneset and had to be extracted by someone with a boat from Lovund. And that’s where he met us.
Eventually, we got to Husøya, where we established a camp for the night, looking forward to climb the mighty Trænstaven the next day.
(The Trænstaven climb continues after the below picture gallery)
Pictures (Canon 60D) from the trip to Træna:
Trænstaven (336m), June 24 2014
We got up early in the morning, packed our camp and Anne, Karma and I took the shuttle boat from Husøya to Sanna. Bjørn Eirik followed (of course) in his kayak.
And then we were here! For real!
We had one logistical problem. What should we do with Karma? It wasn’t so that it came as a surprise. But we didn’t have any other plan than to get to Træna and hopefully there were some living souls there, that could look after Karma.
In a pink house, we found a living soul with the name Gerd Alfrid Engø, born and raised on the island. We told her our plan to climb Trænstaven and asked kindly if Karma could wait in her garden.
Gerd was a bit sceptical. Not about Karma, but about our plan to climb Trænstaven. We had to convince her that we had done this sort of stuff before. And then it was OK. Karma got an instant upgrade from the garden to the hall, and then to the living room. Within minutes! Karma has a charming personality.
I am not sure what we would have done if we couldn’t find someone looking after Karma. But we would have figured something out. Now, we could focus on establishing a camp and move on to Trænstaven…
As for plans, if we couldn’t get Bjørn Eirik onboarded, I would have assumed the role of lead climber. I hadn’t done a lot of leading in the past, but I knew how the principles – and Trænstaven is by no means a difficult mountain to climb. But I was more than happy to leave the rope work to Bjørn Eirik.
Because, we had a bit of steep terrain ahead of us…
Those who chose to climb here without a rope is hopefully comfortable with the exposure…
The climbing was altogether easy, but it was nice to have the rope for safety…
The final stroll to the top was just magical!
And then one of my dreams had come true…
It was extra nice when Gerd and Karma came out and waved the flag!
We had a bit of coastal panorama view…
After a short, but nice stay on top, it was time to get back to Karma!
The descent went well!
We took a couple of short-cuts, compared to our ascent route…
We immediately returned to Gerd to pick up Karma. We were so grateful. 10 years later, I don’t remember much of the evening, but I can only assume we fell quickly to sleep and had wonderful dreams…
Pictures (Canon 60D) from the trip:
Continued on Træna, part 2, June 24 2014
