Wonderful Sandhornøya island!
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | MAP |
| 05.07.14 | To Sandhornøya | – | – | Gildeskål, Norway | MAP |
| 05.07.14 | Sandhornet | 993m | 993m | Gildeskål, Norway | MAP |
| 05.07.14 | Storbranden | 178m | 178m | Gildeskål, Norway | MAP |
Continued from: Skjeggen, July 4 2014
To Sandhornøya, July 4 2014
After Skjeggen (and Nonsfjellet), we sat course towards Sandhornøya island. We stopped in Gildeskål and had a nice meal at a café before we sat course for the ferry at Sund.
On our way to Sund, we stopped at the Gildeskål church (Medieval stone church dating from the 1100s) because Anne wanted to look at it. Unfortunately, it was closed for visitors because of some kind of theatre play – “Den Mørke Arven – en krimfortelling“. And so we moved on.
At Sund, we had a couple of hours to kill before the ferry to Horsdal came. We enjoyed the view towards the mountain we would hike the following day. And the weather was just getting better and better…
While waiting, I tried to get friendly with an Eurasian Oystercatcher. But they’re shy creatures…
They could have put up a signpost saying that if you’re heading for Horsdal, “vehicles have to reverse when boarding“. There could also have been information about those heading for Sørarnøya island would have priority, whenever they arrived. But then again why bother? As if people from other places would come here to visit?
Fortunately, there weren’t a lot of cars, and we didn’t have to take the long way around Sandhornøya.
Anne found a good place to put up the tent – near the molo at Skiposen.
Then we saw movement on the beach…
Foxy mom was out with her four cubs, at least from what we could see…
We found it best to not wake Karma up…
Sandhornet (993m), July 5 2014
The next morning, we drove to Horsdal to hike Sandhornet.
The first part of the hike was 1,5km along the fjord…
Then followed a steep forest ascent.
After a while, we entered Stjerndalen valley, which we would spend some time in…
The path was easy to follow.
We had the summit in view during the whole ascent of Stjerndalen…
Fugløya island was on our to-do list, but it got a bit complicated with hiking restrictions (birds and nesting). So, we will simply have to come back for this island…
We promised ourselves to not look towards the north until we reached the top. The view would surely be so amazing that we didn’t want to see any of it until we were up.
Before we reached the top, we had to cross a boulder field.
And then we were up!
The mountain is 993m above sea level, but the total ascent was closer to 1100m.
So – what about the north view?
I did a series of zoom panoramas. I did some annotations to one of them. Doing them all – at the detailed level I used to do – back in the days – would just be too time-consuming.
We allowed extra, extra posing time…
What a view! In all directions…
In the Risnestinden report, we took pictures of “Kong Harald” and “Finnmarken” (the coastal express) and below us, “Midnattsol” was sailing…
Karma was taking it easy…
23km to the northeast, we could see Per Karlsatind – a peak in the Børvasstindan mountain range – that we would hike the next day.
We wouldn’t be reaching Bodø this time around, but we came back strong in 2023, with visits to Steigtinden, Valviktinden, Fjærkjerringa and Rypdalstinden.
When other hikers arrived on the top, we began our descent.
On our way down, I decided to hike across an unnamed hump on the ridge above Stjerndalen. I just have to do these things…
Back in the forest – a pond in the creek/river was too nice to just pass. A signpost said “Vassverk – vis hensyn” (water works – show consideration). We reckoned that if it was drinking water, it should say that. We decided that “consideration” meant “don’t dive in nude“. But since there were no others around, we did just that…
This was surely the icing on the cake…
By the time we reached the water works building, we concluded that there were 61 hikers above us. To us, this was an unknown mountain. We just went there because of the high prominence (# 88 in Norway ranked by promincen). But now, we understood why the mountain was so popular.
Back in Horsdal, we sat course for Saltstraumen. We were not done with this region yet and the next day, we would hike Per Karlsatinden. But I had a “secret plan” of getting one more top, as we would have to cross Knaplundsøya island.
On our way to Knaplundsøya, we met a “nice chap“…
Storbranden (178m), July 5 2014
After hiking Sandhornet, we drove to Saltstraumen. Anne went to the beach while I tried to figure out the best route to Storbranden, also known as Store Brannen.
My first thought was to hike via Høvelåsen, but at the cemetery I got a bit lost and realized that it wasn’t a proper road onwards.
So, I drove to the northeast side of the island, picked a random house and rang the doorbell.
Sure, they knew about a path and it was just behind the house…
I admit I don’t remember much from this hike, but I guess I must have thought that we were heading up to the high point. But we were actually coming up on the west top – 177,6m.
The view was quite nice…
I was particularly interested in Børvasstindan – and Per Karlsatind – which we hopefully would stand on top of, the very next day.
When I saw Steigtinden, I didn’t know what it was but I wanted to go there. It took only 9 years to get there…
So far, so good. But on the map, I was on a nameless top. “Storbranden” was 0,4km to the west. Better get over there and check it out…
The west top had a trigonometric point and was lower than the top we came from.
What I can’t remember if I knew all along that the high point was east of the first top we visited, or if I discovered that along the way. In any case, my tracks reveal that we returned to the 177,6m top and then went over to the 178,2m top – 120m to the southeast.
We had a good view towards Blåfjell – and Børvasstindan from the high point.
We returned to the car, picked up Anne and started to plan where we would spend the night.
Pictures (Canon EOS 60D) from the day:
Continued on: Per Karlsatinden, July 6 2014