Various weather week on Ytre Søre Sunnmøre
| 03.08.26 | Leinehornet | 364m | 364m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 03.08.26 | Leinebjørnen | 271m | 108m | Herøy, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 04.08.26 | Haddalshornet | 611m | 103m | Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 05.08.26 | Helgehornet | 623m | 545m | Volda, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 06.08.26 | Rjåhornet | 600m | 107m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 07.08.26 | Kongsvollen | 683m | 200m | Hareid/Ulstein, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 08.08.26 | Huldrehornet | 271m | 113m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 09.08.26 | Rjåhornet | 421m | 68m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 09.08.26 | Storevarden | 430m | 430m | Herøy, M&R, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Leinehornet (364m), Leinebjørnen (271m), Aug 3 2026
Monday: My first working day from home, since July 22, and it was raining. After I finished my working day, it was still raining. Should I even bother go hiking? I had a lot to unpack and clothes had to be washed. But in the end, I found that those were not good enough reasons to skip the daily exercise…
I decided to drive to Leinøya and hike Leinehornet. If it was still raining – then so be it. It would be a short hike but give me 350 vertical meters. If – by any chance – it wasn’t, I could also hike Leinebjørnen and get 500+ vertical meters.
When I got to Leinøya, it wasn’t raining!
I parked down in Leine and headed upwards, curious to see what weather I would get. It was raining nearby, for sure!
And Leinehornet looked a bit … gloomy.
It was a bit windy, but it’s always windy out here. You get a bit cocky after a while. If someone in eastern Norway – or Sogndal – complains about wind, I typically say “This is windy? This is the draft I have at my front door all year around”. Cocky, yes. But not necessarily very far from the truth.
When I reached the top, it still wasn’t raining.
I like Leinehornet. This was my 43rd visit and when it’s raining back home, quite often, the weather is different here.
As the weather was still OK, and I decided to go for Leinebjørnen.
The weather was still OK as I crossed Leinebjørnen. I wouldn’t care if it rained on my way down. I just hate rain while going UP a mountain.
After returning to the car, I drove for maybe 3 minutes and then the windshield wipers started to move again…
Trip statistics: 6,7km, 515 vertical meters, 1h:40m
Haddalshornet (611m), Aug 4 2026
Apologies for the “piano tiles” on some of the Google Earth screenshots. I’ve reported this artifcact to Google, but I am not holding my breath…
Tuesday: My buddy Geir Ingebretsen sent me a message this morning. He was on his way from Molde to do some hikes in my area. First on his agenda was Garnestua (654m) but I couldn’t get off work then and asked him to text me after the hike.
Approaching 2pm, Geir was down from his hike across Garnestua and I found that I could be a bit flexible regarding the rest of my working day. He came to my house, I finished work and then we agreed to go for Haddalshornet.
He left his car at Haddal, and we drove my car to Havåg and headed out from there.
I hadn’t expected that the weather would nice after a longer period of rain. But Geir had of course checked and wouldn’t have made the long trip from Molde, only to hike in rain.
It was actually a very nice afternoon. We didn’t even need jackets on…
And then we were up!
Geir was struggling with a bad foot and preferred paths over off-trail terrain. And so we agreed to descend via Klungsdalen instead of taking more adventurous routes…
This was very familiar terrain for me, and this would be my 143rd visit to the top…
It was really nice hiking with Geir again. Maybe one day we’ll again do something on a grander scale than Haddalshornet…
Then followed a misunderstaning. Given his bad foot, I thought he was returning to Molde, but that was not the case. He had planned to do more hiking the next day. And as he was too modest to ask for a bed, he spent the night at the DNT cabin Toralfbuda. We cleared up this misunderstanding a few days later and my guest room is already ready for him…
Trip statistics: 6km, 600 vertical meters, 2h:13m
Helgehornet (623m), Aug 5 2026
Wednesday: Today, I got my new Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM. I had no idea how this expensive lens should be accurately used, but today I just wanted to play around with it and see what worked and what didn’t.
The plan was to hike across Sandhornet (909m) in Ørsta, but once I came out of the Eiksund tunnel, raindrops fell on my windshield, and I decided to hike Helgehornet instead.
At Håskjold, I stopped and took a picture of a horse. That became my first picture with the new lens.
Then I continued up to the Sollidalen shooting range and parked the car.
On my way up the mountain, I used the 100m as a regular lens.
I look forward to bringing both this lens and my Canon RF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS USM, and compare 100mm pictures.
Before reaching the top, I stopped by my regular viewpoint to capture all of the Ørsta fjord.
Then I continued up to the top. The rain never kicked in and I regretted not going to Sandhornet.
On my way down, I decided to focus on flowers.
The major challenge was holding the camera steady. Photographing with a macro requires a tripod, I think. Besides, it’s always windy here…
I found the insects once I had the picture up on my computer.
If your head is shaking by now, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email on how I can improve the photography!
On my way home, I stopped the car and had a look at some Boer goats. I really hoped that the Nofence box wasn’t a heavy load to carry. After looking it up, I learned that the general feeling is that goats adapt quickly to the 0,5kg device and do not show signs of distress from its weight…
For the second evening in a row – a beautiful sunset!
Trip statistics: 4,3km, 400 vertical meters, 1h:24m
Rjåhornet (600m), Aug 6 2026
Thursday: The weather forecast was rain all afternoon, but all of a sudden, it wasn’t raining. I decided to grab this window of opportunity and hike Rjåhornet.
I drove to Stemmedalen and biked up to the lake.
Then I followed the path upwards. That is, I chose an off-trail section in the beginning…
I knew that there would be fog on top. It didn’t matter. This would be my 364th visit and I know what the views look like. It was nice to be greeted by sheep, though…
There’s really not much to report from this hike…
As long as it didn’t rain, I was very happy. This morning, I did not expect to get 600 vertical meters today, so I was actually more than happy.
Trip statistics: 4,2km on foot, 1,5km on bike, 600 vertical meters, 1h:38m
Kongsvollen (683m), Aug 7 2026
Friday: According to the forecast, it should have been raining all day, today as well. But it didn’t. Something made me feel I could possibly go to a 600m mountain this afternoon, and avoid rain. Maybe it was occasional rays of sunshine. Not sure.
On my way up from Ringstaddalen, I felt raindrops. OK, just have faith. If that doesn’t help, the rain gear is in the backpack.
The rain didn’t last long and I arrived lake Hundelaupsvatnet, quite dry.
Kongsvollen and Blåtinden lie side by side. Yet, I had been to Blåtind 207 times and Kongsvollen 41 times. Kongsvollen has only 2 main access points (Løset and Ringstaddalen) while Blåtinden has 4 (Eiksund, Havåg, Haddal, Ringstaddalen). But more importantly, Blåtinden is the highest top on Hareidlandet, with a prominence > 600m.
I was in the outskirts of the rain showers. I could feel light drops of rain. I wasn’t worried about the rain coming my way. I assumed I was on the other side of the “rain line” today. It has happened before on this very mountain.
That’s one of the cool things about living on the coastline. Yes, it’s raining, but not necessarily on *me*…
And then I was up!
Rather than returning the way I came, I decided to descend the upper part of “Bukketrappa” and return to my ascent route via “galleries” in the steep mountain side.
First, I headed down the upper part of the ridge and then I sat course for the exposed, but easy “gallery“.
One slip, and it would be over. All the more reason to stay focused.
When I was almost off the mountain, I had an accident. I was taking off my wind jacket and was a little out of balance. In the middle of a step – my left foot slipped. The foot rocketed ahead and I was unable to straighten out my right foot. I fell on it – bent – with my entire body weight.
It’s so frickin’ painful. It has happened to me 3-4 times in recent years, but I always feel on my bad knee – the left one. I felt the same pain today. My first thought was: “I’m out for months”. The second thought was “I’m out for the week”. 5 minutes later, after limping a bit, my third thought was: “I’m OK” ….
Trip statistics: 7,4km, 660 vertical meters, 2h:24m
Huldrehornet (271m), Aug 8 2026
Saturday: A very lazy morning. I didn’t have to work, I wasn’t on duty call, Anne was in Sogndal and the weather was crappy enough – preventing me from thinking about hiking already from early morning. I could just stay in the house and do what I wanted to do.
I watched an Episode of “Shetland” (season 9) at breakfast. It was only of interest now that we had been there. It was funny to see the detective trying to open closed doors, one of them being the entrance door to Queens Hotel – where we stayed.
Then followed a few hours of blogging. Don’t assume these blog posts come without effort…
Late in the afternoon, I just had to do some kind of walking. I decided to hike up and down Huldrehornet. It would only give me 250 vertical meters, but I was already 275 vertical meters ahead of “plan” this week.
On top, the weather was three times as awful as 5 meters below the top. It was that weird effect again. Everything is normal until you put the top of your head on level with the summit. Then it’s an inferno.
Back home, I tried to figure out how to photograph negatives with my new Macro lens and lightboard.
I figured out the technique, only to learn that I still have a way to go on the set-up. The camera has to be perfectly aligned, I need non-reflective glass, pressing the negatives down and I need to purchase software for inverting. But it *could* be a fun hobby…
Trip statistics: 2,2km, 250 vertical meters, 0h:43m
Rjåhornet (421m), Storevarden (430m), Aug 9 2026
Sunday: It was raining cats and dogs this morning. Excellent, as I could devote myself to catching up on the blog post backlog from this summer.
Well past noon, I decided to go for a hike, as the forecast indicated that the rest of the afternoon would not include a lot of rain. I decided to drive to Nerlandsøya and do a hike across Rjåhornet and Storevarden. No – not the same Rjåhornet I visited 3 days earlier…
I decided to head out from my usual trailhead in Kvalsund.
After checking out the “Gapahuk” (lean-to shelter) and concluded that there had been good progress since the last time I was here, I followed the wet path into the forest. The path was basically a small creek until I was well into the forest.
Once out of the forest, the hike towards Rjåhornet was just fine. It wasn’t raining and I enjoyed last Friday’s episode of “National Rap Show”
When I reached Rjåhornet, the highlight was – of courses – the view towards Skorpa island.
I even had a bit of sunshine and at times, the colors were interesting.
Next up – Storevarden.
This is a route I’ve done many times before, and I had hoped that maybe I could do a new variation to it. But that’ll have to wait until another day. Today, I was just cruising along on familiar ground.
The last time I was here (in May), a helicopter was dropping of stones for upgrade of the path. On Facebook, I had seen good work be done by volunteers during the summer, and now I could see the result of this work with my own eyes.
Then I decided to leave the path, just to get some additional vertical meters and ended on the Nausa ridge.
Approaching the trailhead, I took a picture of Kvalsund with RAW format (opposed to JPEG). To my surprise, the .CR3 (6264×4180) file was only marginally bigger than other JPGs I took in the forest. I was really happy with the end result. From now on, I’ll turn to RAW when there is a picture I really want to be good.
And as I had already altered several settings on the camera, I had to take a picture of a Foxglove also…
Trip statistics: 7,9km, 540 vertical meters, 2h:12m