A tough hike for Karma
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 09.05.25 | Sandfjelltuva | 1001m | 153m | Vanylven | WCP | MAP |
Friday: After work, I had a strung urge to get away from the coastal islands and decided to go to Vanylven to hike Sandfjelltuva. Thinking back on previous hikes, I didn’t think of it as a steep hike and figured that Karma could probably do this quite well.
When I got to Røfsdalssætra, I re-evaluated. It was much steeper than I remembered it to be, and the cool afternoon with fog on the mountain tops was now turning into a warm afternoon. This would be a tough ask on the dog, but I was confident that she was up for it.
She was quite eager in the beginning, and it helped a lot that we crossed a creek early on.
But just as we were to rise above the forest, she wanted to turn around. This was brutal, but I had to determine that there was no evidence that she couldn’t do this. She was not sick, and she was not limping in any way. She was just getting old, I suppose. I told her that things would be so much better once we got to the top. Of all my motivational speech, I guess the only thing she took away from it was – “come on!”
Above the forest, it got less steep. At least until we reached the foot of the mountain. She walked slowly but determined.
New since the last time I was here, was a dam.
Above the dam, one peak after the other popped up. Karma was getting increasingly more interested.
The inevitable could not avoided. The final 300 vertical meters would be *hard*. Not so much for me, but absolutely for Karma.
She was *not* happy.
But eventually, we reached the ridge. To my huge disappointment, she vomited. That’s not natural and I will have to discuss that with the Vet next week. But once that was “over and done with”, she looked quite fresh.
She was duly rewarded on top.
The procedure is that I toss the treats around, and she gets occupied for a couple of minutes while I could devote my time to taking pictures.
Afterwards, she was curious about what I had in store for her.
I didn’t have a whole lot of exciting stuff in store for her, but at least we would not be going down the same route we came up.
She constantly tried to get onto the snow, and I stopped her, explaining about cornices and all that. Eventually I remembered how the east side look liked. Pretty much like the west side, which means no drops. It would have been just fine to walk on the snow.
Eventually, we returned to the valley along a similar steep route. The huge difference was of course that now, we were going down and not up.
In case you’re wondering why the dog has a coat on, it is to prevent sunburns. She has almost no hair left on the lower part of her back. Partly because of the cancer operation in January and -possibly- partly because of the cancer.
Poor kiddo. She has been through a lot. But her appearance is so brave. I’m OK. I’m OK.
It was a beautiful hike. Unfortunately, we missed the ferry by 2 minutes, but I didn’t mind waiting 28 minutes for the next one. The views were quite alright.
Trip statistics: 7km, 760 vertical meters, 2h:27m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone 13 Pro Max) from the hike
