A nice week in the local mountains
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 29.09.25 | Lidaveten | 592m | 439m | Volda, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 30.09.25 | Melshornet | 809m | 567m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 30.09.25 | Vardehornet | 599m | 60m | Ørsta/Volda, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 01.10.25 | Mosvarden | 553m | 50m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 01.10.25 | Skafjellet | 573m | 82m | Hareid, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 02.10.25 | Huldrehornet | 271m | 113m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 03.10.25 | Gjøna | 531m | 163m | Sande, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 04.10.25 | Koppefjellet | 940m | 602m | Volda, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 05.10.25 | Sollia | 661m | 661m | Herøy/Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 05.10.25 | Hestefjellet | 621m | 83m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 05.10.25 | Selsteinen | 598m | 90m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Lidaveten (592m), Sep 29 2025
Monday: It was a grey day, with rain in the morning. But after work, it was just cloudy. I decided to pay Lidaveten in Volda a visit.
I was growing a little bit tired of my usual round-trip hike across Lidaveten – from Berkneset, and so I decided to try something new.
I parked the car at the bottom of the Eidheimsvegen road and biked up to the beginning of the south ridge mountain trail.
I wanted to hike fast and tried to imagine that I was in a race with lots of people ahead me. In other words – I would pass all of them and win!
Just before the steep forest trail begun, I was all “wired up” and ready to hike faster than I’ve done in a long time.
Then Anne called to say “hi”.
That sort of changed the momentum, and she sensed that it was better if we talked later and let me go.
I was still reasonably happy about my pace. I focused very hard making each step count. To keep the pace, I have to hit the rocks, not the soil.
The 335 vertical meters took 23 minutes. I could have done it in 20 without any interruptions. Having said that, I’m very happy that a) I have a girlfriend and b) that she wants to give me a call…
It was nice to be back on top.
I took a couple of pictures and headed back down. The motivation for the descent was not to use my hands in any place. This route has a couple of steep spots and coordination is required when the pace is high.
I figured this descent route would be a good benchmark for when I should officially call myself old. The day I have to use my hands for safety is the day I’m old…
Another “benchmark” is Saudehornet in Ørsta. They day I don’t want to do that hike is the day I’m old.
Without such benchmarks, how can you tell?
The last time I was here, was with Karma. I have to admit I hadn’t thought about her since we went on the Poland trip. But she will be in my heart forever…
My elapsed time up and down was 1h:11m. Now I’m afraid I will be obsessed about repeating this route but making it within the hour. I spent 4 minutes on top, that leaves 7 minutes. I can probably do the biking route 2-3 minutes faster, but the hiking time would be a challenge. Anne’s phone call only lasted 1 minute. We’ll see…
Trip statistics: 4,4km on bike, 2,4km on foot, 590 vertical meters, 1h:11m
Melshornet (809m), Vardehornet (599m), Sep 30 2025
Tuesday: It was a beautiful afternoon, and I decided to spend it on bike and on foot, going across Melshornet and Vardehornet in Ørsta/Volda.
I drove to the waterworks building and started out along “Panoramavegen”.
Then followed a hard 2,4km climb towards lake Dinglavatnet.
Finally – I could proceed on foot.
I had a reasonably good pace, and I could see people halfway up the mountain. That inspired me to put in an extra gear. Unfortunately, they were all halfway *down* the mountain, so I had to dig for an inner motivation to keep going fast.
52 minutes and 5,1km after leaving the car, I was up. It was windy here so the (thin) wind jacket had to come on.
I jogged a little going down. It was quite clear that I am nowhere close to run fast down in rocky terrain, like I did 10 years ago. I think I am better at reading the terrain now, but my knees are just so stiff.
Back at the bike, I continued up Vardehornet. I wasn’t able to bike ALL the way up, but more than I’ve done in the past.
I had planned to bike down Vardehornet’s southwest ridge, but when I got to the top, I met another biker. He was going down a different route and I asked if I could come along.
We couldn’t bike the upper part of the hillside and when the other guy got on his bike, I still found it too steep. But eventually, I got going and biked with a higher risk than I’ve ever done.
Down by the meadow, I said to the other guy (an older guy, like me) that I wasn’t able to keep up with him. Trailing him going down was one thing, but he planned to go up to Nivane and since he had an E-bike and I didn’t, I would not be able to keep up.
Instead, I biked down the valley (near Ullastøylen) and for some reason, I’ve never done this route before. I always thought about doing it but never did. Now it’s done. The biking wasn’t epic, but alright.
Eventually, I got back on the Prestesætrevegen road and a bit later, back on “Panoramavegen”
A very nice trip!
Trip statistics: 8km on bike, 3,3km on foot, 680 vertical meters, 1h:46m
Mosvarden (553m), Skafjellet (573m), Oct 1 2025
Wednesday: I spent 2/3 of my working day at a car shop in Ørsta, waiting for the car to get a rack of LED lights. I had no idea if these lights would even come close to my previous 1000m lights, but they didn’t seem to be on the product list anymore.
After work, I was keen on yet another bike trip. I drove to Eidet (between Ulsteinvik and Hareid) and sat course for the waterworks building and the gravel road up to Skarpeidet.
Then I continued along the road to lake Mosvatnet. From here, I would push the bike up to Mosvarden.
I was able to bike 1/3 of the way to Mosvarden. The rest of the route was hard work.
But it was nice to reach the Mosvarden cairn. It took me 57 minutes to get here.
Now, I looked forward to biking over to Skafjellet.
The path was better than I feared, and I was able to – almost – bike all the way to the Skafjellet – Bjørnenakken ridge.
When I reached the ridge, I took it for granted that I had to push the bike all the way up to Skafjellet.
But then there was strong tailwind…
I didn’t have to bike very hard. It was mostly about steering the bike along the trail. The wind did the rest.
I chatted with a couple of hikers on top. They assumed I had an E-bike. This has gone too far! I do know that E-bikes are very popular, but people are in general very surprised when they realize I have a “non-electric bike”. It shouldn’t be like that.
Anyway, I had a long and nice descent ahead of me. I know the route to Skafjellet quite well and knew that I wouldn’t have to get off the bike at any point.
I stopped to chat with a guy digging ditches, leading the water away from the trail. When he heard that I was also a fellow “trail worker”, he lit up. We had a nice talk, and we were both concerned about the fact that the younger generation isn’t “knocking on our door” to help…
At Geilane, I had 4,1km back to the car at Eidet. The first 2km went fine. Then I got the headwind…
But all in all, a *superb* bike trip!
Trip statistics: 18,6km on bike, 710 vertical meters, 2h:07m
Huldrehornet (271m), Oct 2 2025
Thursday: The rain came in the afternoon and I – believe it or not – decided not to go hiking today. Instead, I went to the grocery store to buy something for dinner. Then I noticed two things: 1) it wasn’t raining and 2) my windshield wipers weren’t working.
The car’s dashboard was full of alarms. Wiper alarm and multiple assist alarms. I had the car on service the day before and got a rack of LED-lights mounted. They said they struggled. I can only assume they struggled so much that they f….. up the wipers.
As it wasn’t raining, I decided to do a quick hike up and down Huldrehornet.
Fortunately, the rain stayed at an arm’s length while I hiked, and as soon as I was back in the car, it started raining again.
It was only a short drive home, so the fact that the wipers weren’t functional didn’t matter much.
Trip statistics: 2,3km, 250 vertical meters, 0h:36m
Gjøna (531m), Oct 3 2025
Friday: For some reason, I didn’t have a lot of inspiration for hiking today. I was quite deep into work and just wanted to keep on going. But daylight was fading fast, and I just walked out the front door without any plan at all.
I was thinking about taking the bike to Rjåhornet, but the strong wind was an issue. Biking would probably not be so fun.
So, I decided to go to Gjøna. I had an idea of going steep directly up from near Gjøneset and top out just by the summit. I’ve done this route once before (long ago) but when I got there, the inevitable bushwack made me drop the idea.
In the end, I would be happy with just getting up and back down.
For the most part, I was in shelter of the wind.
Today, I decided to not follow the path along the upper route but instead head towards the ridge coming up from Gjøneset. I’ve never been out there before.
The wind was far more noticeable on this ridge.
But it wasn’t as much the wind force as the sheer noise. The gusts sounded like a dozen runaway freight trains…
On top, there was hardly any wind at all. That was weird, and I had planned to record a short reel up there.
I hung around for a few minutes. The wind was “gusty”. Like, it was poking me.
I took a couple of pictures and began my journey down…
But first, I wanted to descend a little into the couloir that I originally had thought about following up the mountain. Oh man, the gusts knocked me right off my feet. I got my cell phone out and started to record, but then my hat blew off. I started looking for it and had forgotten that I was recording. As I was a little bit down in the couloir, it hadn’t blown across the ridge, and I found it. It would be sad to lose my favorite hat…
Instead of taking the normal route down, I decided to head towards Saursegga and then towards Selhaugane.
On my way down the steepest section, the wind picked up again. Then it was fun to try to get down without using my hands. Always make the best of any situation!
Once down by the main road, I walked over to the molo and followed the rocky beach back to the car for 0,9km. I enjoyed moving fast across big rocks (where a fall could potentially be very painful) as I think it’s good for the brain. Lots of computations going on – I hope.
Trip statistics: 5,5km, 560 vertical meters, 1h:42m
Koppefjellet (940m), Oct 4 2025
Saturday: I slept through the night. The all-over-the-news storm “Amy” either didn’t wake me up or she wasn’t here.
In the morning, Anne told me that the storm had passed through Sogndal, breaking her (small) greenhouse glass roof. Power outages too.
I worked for a couple of hours and decided to go to Koppefjellet in Volda. According to yr.no, there would be gusts up to 38 m/s around the time I would reach the top. That sounded just crazy, and I had problems believing that to be true. I just had to find out…
Already after crossing the Dragsund bridge, I could see that the storm had been in my neighbourhood as well. Fallen trees were pressing on the power lines and people were working to fix the problem.
When I got to Volda, life looked normal. It was a nice day. Folks were walking, jogging, biking.
I drove to the start of the Rotevassætra road, parked the car and got started on my 4,9km bike trip to Rotevassætra.
It was going well until…
It was cumbersome to get around the fallen tree, but soon I was back on the road again. A guy with a chainsaw was working the problem, but he would need time.
But a minute later…
After a while, I lost count of fallen trees. I was really getting bored from this. There were at least 15 trees bending over from the wind.
One thing was for certain. I was NOT going back this way…
Eventually, I reached Rotevassætra. Now it was just me vs. the storm.
I had a nice walk up the forest, and there was no wind whatsoever.
I figured, it was this calm down here, it couldn’t be too bad on top.
As soon as I reached 700m, a gust moved me sideways. It wasn’t that strong, but it caught me a little off-guard. Cool. I was looking forward to more!
But there wasn’t anything more! How disappointing! My hat wasn’t even close to disappear…
Panorama pictures weren’t even a challenge.
But OK. The hike was nice. I returned along the same route and met a farmer looking for his last two sheep. I couldn’t help him, but I had been looking for sheep – something all hikers ought to do at this time of fall.
Again, I was certainly not about to return along the road I came up, even if the guy with the chainsaw probably had made some progress.
So, I biked the meadow to Krøvelsætra. I was able to bike most of the way, but the bridges were tricky. Had to push the bike across them.
No trees had fallen across the road to Krøvelsætra and soon I was back on the main road.
When I got to the long hill down towards Volda, the sound of the wheels told me I was going faster and faster. It was windier down there than on the mountain and when the wind started to interfere with my planned direction, it got too scary to go faster. The GPS track shows I reached 62 km/h before I chickened out.
A fun trip!
Trip statistics: 13,4km on bike, 3,9km on foot, 950 vertical meters, 2h:23m
Sollia (661m), Hestefjellet (621m), Selsteinen (598m), Oct 5 2025
Sunday: The plan was to work for a few hours after a nice and long breakfast. But then I checked the weather forecast and rain was expected around 1pm. So, if I didn’t want to get wet, I should get going.
But where?
I felt for a mix of hiking and biking. That seems to be my theme these days. Then I decided to go for a rather tough round, which included Sollia – the highest mountain on my island (Gurskøy). What I would once there, time would tell.
It was nice to be out biking. After the Leikongeidet hill, I would only have a few hundred meters left of the easy part.
The time had come for getting off the bike. The hard part was awaiting.
Pushing the bike up to the mountain plateau was hard work and good exercise. Once on the mountain plateau, it was biking a little, walking a little, on repeat.
But I enjoyed myself…
Eventually, Sollia came into view. I looked forward to getting up there and decide on what to do next.
While here, why not fix the sticks that had fallen over…
I still didn’t have a clue where to go from the top. I had several options, though.
Finally, I reached the top of Sollia.
I had Taylor Swift’s new album (“The life of a showgirl”) on repeat. I’ve never listened to her albums, but I had a feeling this album could be a good one. And it sure is!
But now what? Time to decide.
Eventually, I decided to go to Moltu via Hestefjellet and Selsteinen. At least, I knew I could bike to the foot of Hestefjellet and maybe part of the way up the mountain.
I was almost able to convince one of the sheep to come over and say hello. But in the end, I was just too scary, I suppose.
After some biking in the lower part, I pushed the bike to the top of Hestefjellet. By now, I looked forward to getting back on roads.
The descent from Hestefjellet was steep and there was no way I would be attempting to bike down here.
Selsteinen was opposite to Hestefjellet. I pushed the bike in the lower bike and then I could bike to the top.
Now I really looked forward to getting down to Moltudalen. But first, I had another steep hillside to descend.
I biked down the upper part, then walked until it was possible to bike safely again.
Finally, I was down on the road to lake Mørkevatnet. Now, I had 18km to go before I was back home.
I enjoyed the descent down Moltudalen. A car pulled out from the parking just in front of me, and when the driver realized I was glued to his bumper, he let me pass. I almost hit 60 km/h down the road, and I didn’t see the other car again.
The rest of the trip back home was nice and uneventful. I could feel a few raindrops as I was approaching my neighbourhood. Good timing!
It was nice to get back home, have a shower, lunch and a small rest…
Trip statistics: 35,9km on bike, 1150 vertical meters, 4h:12m
