Fantastic “winter” days!
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 09.02.26 | Melshornet | 809m | 567m | Ørsta, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 10.02.26 | Lidaveten | 592m | 439m | Volda, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 11.02.26 | Veten (Hidsegga) | 556m | 320m | Sande, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 12.02.26 | Løkeberget | 579m | 300m | Hareid, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 13.02.26 | Skafjellet | 573m | 82m | Hareid, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 14.02.26 | Garnestua | 654m | 417m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 15.02.26 | Storetua | 592m | 249m | Sande, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Melshornet (809m), Feb 9 2026
Monday: I worked from Anne’s place in Sogndal until 3pm. Then I hauled all of my gear into my car and sat course for home (on Sunnmøre). Fortunately, there was no tunnel work or convoys, and I could enjoy a nice drive on dry roads.
When I got to Volda, I decided to get a good start to the week by skiing Melshornet. It was pitch dark when I got to the Helgatun trailhead and my instincts told me that this ought to be a hike. But I figured – how bad could it be? I could see snow on the trail, and it would surely go faster down on skis than on foot.
After skiing 30 seconds, I noticed that an excavator had completely destroyed the track. There was hardly any snow and whatever snow was left, was hard as ice. I considered returning to the car and put my hiking shoes on. But in the end, I decided to go on with the ski-trip.
It probably went faster up the mountain with skis on, than without. But I wasn’t looking forward to the descent one bit. I decided to worry about that later.
It took me a little more than one hour to get to the top. I then went over to the cairn to get some pictures of Ørsta.
Fortunately, there was no wind and I was hoping for a good close-up shot. I was quite happy with the one I got.
I was also happy about the decision of going up Melshornet. I didn’t really want to. All I wanted was to get home after a long day and just relax. But what’s the fun in that…
40 days into 2026, Melshornet became my 28th unique top. And my 41st top – including tops I’ve visited more than once this year.
The descent was just horrible. I cannot articulate how bad it was. But for reasons I cannot explain, it seemed to go faster than it would have done on foot.
When I got down to the area where the excavator had destroyed the track, I took the cross-country skiing route down to the skiing centre, completely forgetting that there were a few uphills along the way. I just had to take my skis off and walk…
I returned to the car 8:34pm and could finally look forward to getting back home!
Trip statistics: 8,6km, 600 vertical meters, 2h:12m
Lidaveten (592m), Feb 10 2026
Tuesday: This hike is featured on a separate post…
Veten on Hidsegga (556m), Feb 11 2026
Wednesday: Still the same, gorgeous weather, and after work I decided to try out a route to Hidsegga that I considered to be new to me.
The goal was to follow the boulder all the way until its end and then see where the route would lead me.
Sunset was in progress, and I was hoping for some nice pictures higher up.
The route was very enjoyable. I had no recollection about doing this route in 2017! That could be worrying from a health perspective, but I go with the excuse that its impossible to remember all my hikes…
After the boulder ended, I had very cumbersome terrain ahead of me. Even listening to a podcast with Karl Ove Knausgård didn’t help. I’ve never read any of his books and always thought of him as “some mysterious character”. This podcast helped a bit in “humanizing” him.
I just had to get away from this tiresome terrain and started heading northwest until I reached the ridge route from Hidsneset.
It was so good to be on a path, albeit vague and not very much used.
The sun had set beyond Sandsøya and now there would be a short, but nice period with a golden glow in the horizon.
The wind made it freezing cold to be on top of Hidsegga, but I endured the time it took for a selfie…
… and a couple of other pictures.
The plan was to continue towards Grøthornet, but as I got a “late” start to this hike, that meant a late arrival back home. So, I decided to take a shortcut down “Høgehonnet” and into Hidsdalen. This route was enjoyable when there was no vegetation or snow fields I could follow. After that, it was just tedious and no fun at all.
Once down by the main road, the car was only 0,7km away. Not too bad.
Trip statistics: 6,5km, 550 vertical meters, 2h:12m
Løkeberget (579m), Feb 12 2026
Thursday: I had the most “interesting” night. I went to bed with a programming challenge. I wasn’t happy with the solution I went to bed with. I woke up at 2am with a better solution. I pondered on it, wasn’t totally happy and feel asleep again.
I woke up at 4am with an even better solution. I was clearly onto something. I pondered on it until I fell asleep again.
I then woke up at 6am with something that stood out as the perfect solution. I couldn’t get to sleep after that and logged into work 7am, eager to “turn my dreams into reality”.
But – with the brain now active, my perfect solution wasn’t so perfect anymore. But, with a touch of elements from my 2am and 4am ideas, I had mapped out a workable solution. The only question was – could I charge my company for my nighttime work? Probably not. I just couldn’t see myself trying to make the arguments for it…
I finished work 3:45pm and decided to hike Løkeberget from lake Snipsøyrvatnet. I had found the necessary motivation for the boring walk up the mountain service road to lake Hammarstøylsvatnet. But as I was driving towards the trailhead, I could see another service road – leading to lake Svartevatnet and decided to follow this road. I had seen it before but never understood where it begun.
After an easy start, I soon ran into “challenges“. As there was gravel on the ice, I tried to get by without the ice cleats but suddenly there wasn’t any more gravel – just pure ice. At this very moment, a woman came down the road and said something like “people like us…”
I couldn’t get up and couldn’t get back down and had to take a major leap to the outside of the road. I landed on a small ice-free pitch and avoided an unpleasant slide. I chatted a bit with the woman. She had been to Løkeberget and could report OK conditions on the mountain.
As I was approaching lake Svartevatnet, I decided to hike straight up, rather than following the marked route.
It was very tempting to cross the ice, although I didn’t have brought my ice picks. And so I did.
In worst case, my ice cleats could probably function as ice picks.
I enjoyed myself. Before the hike, I realized that I had completely forgotten about the radio program “National rap show”. So I put on a 2,5-hour episode of pure entertainment.
The forecast had mentioned snow today. That didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon…
I reckoned it was about time to mentally prepare for something else than the nice weather I’ve had for 2 months straight.
Approaching the top, I started to think about my descent route. It didn’t take me long to decide on descending via Langheida and embrace whatever off-trail terrain that would come my way.
And then I was up.
It was a little bit windy. I took a couple of pictures and began my descent.
On my way down, I was no longer so sure that we would not see any snow today.
The descent was overall OK. I passed through some cumbersome terrain but then I came across a marked route in the lower part of the forest. I had one minor mishap – stepping into water, reaching high up my leg. I was soaking wet and a little cold for the first 10 minutes. But I had my best socks on and soon enough, I hardly felt that I had been wet through and through.
Finally, I found the same tractor road that I followed in 2019 and once down on the main road, the car was 1,2km away.
Trip statistics: 6,6km, 560 vertical meters, 1h:54m
Skafjellet (573m), Feb 13 2026
Friday: This hike is featured on a separate post…
Garnestua (654m), Feb 14 2026
Saturday: This hike is featured on a separate post…
Storetua (592m), Feb 15 2026
Sunday: The first part of the day was spent cleaning up after assembling my new bed. The amount of plastic was just crazy. Then, I watched the men’s cross-country relay in the Olympics. As we (us Norwegians) had hoped for, Norway took the gold medal and Johannes H. Klæbo became the most-winning (as in gold medals) athlete in the history of winter Olympics.
I wasn’t feeling well today either, and allowed myself an hour of rest before going hiking.
I drove to Holtane to hike Storetua.
The hike up the forest was just as hard as the hike to Garnestua the day before. But by putting one foot in front of the other makes progress…
It was windy and cold. I had already 3 layers of clothing but knew that my dune jacket would have to come on when I reached the upper plateau.
The final 800 meters to the summit cairn was extremely windy.
No selfies today. It was just too windy…
But I was quite happy reaching the top. It would be mostly downhill from here on. I had already decided to do my usual round-trip hike via Sæshorn.
I took a couple of panorama pictures, in shelter behind the summit cairn. It would not have been possible to keep the cell phone steady in that wind.
I felt like a wreck, but I enjoyed the walk. The silver lining was that I could hit the bed once back home.
But it would have to be a short rest. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I couldn’t delay dinner all that long.
Hoping for better shape and form in the coming week…
Trip statistics: 8,8km, 520 vertical meters, 2h:16m
