Hiking, biking and … skiing!
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 12.05.25 | Garnestua | 654m | 417m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 12.05.25 | Myrvåg | – | – | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 13.05.25 | Bike, Myrvåg – Leikongeidet | 160m | 0m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 14.05.25 | Skåla | 184m | 86m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | MAP | |
| 14.05.25 | Røddalshorn | 563m | 100m | Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 15.05.25 | Mosvarden | 553m | 50m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 15.05.25 | Stokksund | – | – | Herøy, M&R, Norway | – | MAP |
| 16.05.25 | Orkja | 948m | 470m | Jølster, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 17.05.25 | Krosshøe | 1628m | 223m | Lom, Norway | – | MAP |
| 17.05.25 | Rundhaugan Øst | 1512m | 101m | Lom, Norway | – | MAP |
| 18.05.25 | Nuken | 919m | 126m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Garnestua (654m), May 12 2025
Monday: With very low expectations, I drove to Feirelia (Gurskøy) to see if Karma would want to hike the forest path, which could eventually get us to Gyrinakken. Nope. She wasn’t interested and ran back to the car. OK, at least I tried.
I drove her back home and continued to Ringstaddalen, where I left the bike at Løset. Then I drove down to Berg to hike “Martinråsa”. This is a “no nonsense” route. 500 verticals straight up.
Unfortunately, just as I was taking on the steep terrain, I felt a little dizzy. The type of dizziness you can get where there are no more carbs to feed the engine. It takes a while until the body realizes there are fat reserves to consume.
The entire hillside was hard work, but at least I could look forward to some fun scrambling and climbing on the sharp ridges higher up.
Finally, I reached the plateau. I was still a little dizzy and I had to cancel my planned jog down the mountain.
It was nice to be up here, but I wished I was here with Karma. I hope we figure out what’s wrong with her tomorrow.
I headed down the northeast ridge, to the bike and had a fun descent down the road. The 2,3km took only 5 minutes.
In the evening, I tried to get Karma on a walk in the local neighbourhood. She refused to walk. Then I pulled out the bike. Holy cow. She ran down the street in pure joy. Very confusing!
OK, she wouldn’t go all the way to Dragsund, but we got a good round around the extended neighbourhood. We also stopped by the local ball cage, just in case there was a ball laying around. There was a basketball and Karma was happy.
She’s an enigma. She couldn’t walk, but she could run and play with a ball?
Garnestua: 4,2km on foot, 2,3km on bike, 535 vertical meters, 1h:26m
Local walk: 2,7km on bike, 50 vertical meters, 0h:22m
Bike trip; Myrvåg – Leikongeidet – Myrvåg, May 13 2025
Tuesday: The day started early. I went to Ålesund for Karma’s X-ray. I picked her up a few hours later and the verdict was clear. A significant spondylosis in the lower back. That pretty much explains her unwillingness to hike. There is no cure, only pain relief. Things will be different from now on.
There’s no reason to not be economical with pain relief medicine for an old dog, so the Vet presented the “toolbox”, and we agreed on the starting point. We’ll see what kind of effect it has. She’s been on one kind of pain killers for a month, and the muscle mass in her right hind leg has pretty much recovered. That’s good news.
The Vet explained to me that if the dog experiences pain while walking on 4 legs, it will resort to 3. Hence the drop in muscle mass. But the pain killers must have made her feel that it was OK to use all 4 legs again.
She has severe skin disorders. Today alone, 4 bleeding wounds. She got a shot of Cytopoint – a fairly new treatment. I hope that can reduce the itching. As for the wounds, the treatment is quite familiar to me, and the wounds are in control after 4-5 days.
Needless to say, she was confused for hours after waking up after being sedated. In the afternoon, when she was good and stabile, I decided to go for a bike trip. I didn’t feel like hiking. I took the bike and biked up to Leikongeidet, via the forest.
In the upper part, it started to rain and I wasn’t dressed for rain. But it was OK. What was not OK was that I had sidewind both ways, which in these parts feels like headwind. Roughly counting, I thought I was getting only 250 vertical meters, but when taking all the small ups and downs into the equation, I almost reached my daily dose of 500 meters…
Trip statistics: 19,3km on bike, 470 vertical meters, 1h:15m.
Skåla (184m), Røddalshorn (563m), May 14 2025
Wednesday: It was the “day after”. But OK, now we have a clear picture of the problem. However, we don’t know what degree of pain Karma is having – in any given position. We only did X-ray. We would need MRI or CT for further information. We probably won’t take it that far. We have to figure out how we can keep her active, without suffering from too much pain.
This afternoon, I took her to Tjørvåg. She has always loved the road up to Sandvikskaret, and she seemed pretty interested today as well. Maybe I could get her all the way up to Skåla? But she stopped after 100 meters.
There was a tractor road going to our right, where she stopped. I pointed at it and asked if she was interested in it. She was. This road took us to a path that I’ve never followed before. It seemed to lead to houses not too far away and I hoped that there would be a fork and a path leading up the forest.
There was, and Karma was leading on – clearly enjoying an exciting scent from the path. Higher up in the forest, the scent must have vanished, because Karma lost interest. But we were now close to the top and she came along.
Treats were awaiting on top of course…
She seemed very happy going downhill. We followed a seldom used path down to Tjørvåg and the main road back to the trailhead. She looked very tired on the main road. She also had been unsteady throughout the hike, but that was a side effect of the pain killers, which the Vet had warned me about. It would pass.
I drove home, left Karma and then I drove up to Leikongeidet to hike Røddalshorn. I wasn’t very motivated, but I had no good reason not to get the daily dose of 500 vertical meters. The hike across Skåla only gave me 230m.
To make time fly, I turned on a podcast. That helped, and it kept the wind out of my ears.
I had an easy pace up and down the mountain, enjoying episode 1 of “Reitgjerdet” going up and episode 2 going down.
Back home, I knew what was awaiting. Karma in her normal state would come running down the stairs to greet me. But now, she would just be laying in her bed and wait for me to come up. I decided to confuse her and took a ball and started to play with it in front of the house. She’s nuts about balls, and it didn’t take many seconds before she came running down and threw herself into the play.
Afterwards, I gave her lower back a massage. I had no clue what I was doing, but she really seemed to like it.
Skåla Trip statistics: 3,7km, 230 vertical meters, 1h:06m.
Røddalshorn Trip statistics: 3,7km, 380 vertical meters, 0h:54m.
Mosvarden (553m) + Stokksund, May 15 2025
Thursday: After work, I had to take a trip to Ulsteinvik to pick up the rest of Karma’s medicine and figured I could go for a bike trip afterwards. I drove to Skeide, and the plan was to bike up to lake Mosvatnet (458m) and return the same way.
This route includes “Mørdarbakken” – murder hill. Yet again, I wasn’t able to bike all the way up. I’ve done it once, on a different bike. It’s so incredible steep.
It was a relief to arrive in the pass by Skeidshornet. I had a lot of uphill ahead of me but the worst part was behind me.
When I got to lake Mosvatnet, it was just ridiculous to not hike Mosvarden, ~100m above the lake. I was able to bike the trail for a while, but I proceeded on foot from the signpost.
I considered going straight up but concluded it would be just as effective to follow the trail, going diagonal up the mountain.
It was nice to be on the mountain. It was a cold wind and so I was quite happy I didn’t choose shorts for this trip.
I’m not sure why they raised the cairn 100m SW of the high point.
When I got to the high point, I decided to hike off-trail straight down the mountain. It was much less steep than I had imagined it to be.
Sea fog seemed to be on its way in. Sometimes it rolls in and makes everything dark and cold, but sometimes it just stays out there. I’ll find out tomorrow what happened to it.
The descent was nice. At Litlevatnet, I went over to Ulsteindalen, just for the change of route.
Back home, Karma greeted me (a lot) and I took her to Stokksund, to see if I could trick her into going up Skåla for the second day in a row.
She was very happy along the forest road from Trolldalen to Stokksund and when we got to the Skåla trail, she seemed very eager. But all of a sudden – full stop. I don’t know if uphills are still causing her pain or if she just thinks this is going to be painful. She’s on more medication now, so she should be able to do it. But I’m not going to force her.
So, we went over to Stokksund island. A nice place but nothing to see or do there. Then we went up to the Stokksund soccer field. Two women teams were playing, but I wasn’t there to watch a soccer game. From the soccer field, we followed a path that I knew was a dead end, and at the dead end we turned around.
It wasn’t fun either. A whole bunch of seagulls were circling over our heads, clearly unhappy about our presence. Might as well return at let them have their nests in peace.
Mosvarden: 13,9km on bike, 0,8km on foot, 650 vertical meters, 1h:32m.
Stokksund: 3,5km on bike, 1,3km on foot, 130 vertical meters, 0h:55m.
Orkja (948m), May 16 2025
Friday: I quit work 2:30pm and sat course for Sogndal. I wanted to do a hike along the way and had my eyes on Orkja, which I didn’t hike last year.
Orkja is a brutal hill, and I didn’t want Karma (with her bad back) to take on this hillside. But maybe she was OK to hike up to Hamnanova – on the other side of Dvergsdalsdalen valley?
Nope. She walked 10 meters, then stopped. OK. I put her back in the car (already parked in the shade), opened the windows and said, “see ya in a little bit”.
Orkja appears more brutal than the actual 520 vertical meters. It starts steeply and it doesn’t let up. My kind of mountain!
It was a gorgeous day. It was tempting to go to the point where I could see almost all of lake Jølstravatnet, but that would cost me time, and I settled for a panorama view towards Skei.
My stay on top was as long as it took to take two Iphone panorama pictures…
Then I headed back down.
In the lower part of the mountain, I was able to do shortcuts and keep a pretty good pace. I was back with Karma 53 minutes after leaving it. That’s the thing I love about Orkja – in addition to the views – is that I can get a fairly high mountain – in less than one hour. If I didn’t have to park by the quarry (the only place with shade), I would have been up and down in 48 minutes…
Needless to say, we were both happy to see Anne again…
Trip statistics: 4,1km, 520 vertical meters, 0h:53m.
Krosshøe (1628m), Rundhaugan Øst (1512m), May 17 2025
Saturday: This trip is featured on a separate post…
Nuken (919m), May 18 2025
Sunday: The plan was to join Anne on a “Dugnad” (voluntary work) in Fjærland. But as I felt crap the day before, we agreed that I could stay home with Karma, and if I felt up to it, cut, chop and stack wood in Anne’s backyard.
Fortunately, I felt better this morning, and I was quite happy to work on Anne’s wood instead of going to Fjærland. I worked for 4 hours without pause and the result was quite good.
When Anne returned from Fjærland, I felt like going for a bike trip. There was no point in suggesting a hike to Karma. She wouldn’t even walk up to the street for a pee.
Maybe it was an ambitious project, as my back was stiff and sore after all the wood work, but I decided to bike from Anne’s place and across Nuken.
It would be a relentless 900 vertical meter climb to the top, but I looked forward to it.
Dalavegen wasn’t too bad, because of asphalt and a pleasant grade. The toll road to Åsen was definitely the worst part. I put on a Podcast to make the hill a bit easier. It worked.
At Åsen (665m), I had 3km on the trail to the top. The first part was easy, but then it got quite rocky.
Overall, I would say that I biked 30% of the route to Nuken. But pushing the bike wasn’t too hard work.
I had to cross some snow along the way and feared that the brakes would be squeaky going down the mountain.
1h:59m after leaving Anne’s place, I was on top of Nuken. I was happy. It would for the most part be downhill from now on.
I took a couple of pictures before getting on the path along Nukeggene.
I am not a dare devil on a bike, but this is a way better bike than my former, and I quickly learned that this bike put up quite a good fight against the rocks on the path. I actually got acquainted with the bike in a way that I haven’t done before.
On my way to Hyllsete, I actually felt like a dare devil. Where I would typically hit the brakes and control everything, I just let the bike do what it does best. It was a bumpy ride, but it helps a lot that I can lower the seat with the push of a button. Then the seat wasn’t in my way.
When I got to Hyllsete, I could now look forward to roads, not paths.
One thing that shocked me, was to see the vast destruction on the Åberge – Hyllsete road. An intense rain shower in March was the culprit, I was told. It must have been an extraordinary shower. I’ve hiked this road since 2010, and I’ve never seen anything like this.
I also stopped at Åberge for a picture. It’s a beautiful place.
Finally, I stopped below Åberge for a picture of Sogndal. From there on, I kept a good pace down to Sogndal and then I had one final hill in front of me before I returned to Anne.
She served sour cream porridge for dinner. It tasted heavenly!
Trip statistics: 22,6km on bike, 1080 vertical meters, 3h:05m.
