Hordaland Mountains - Route Descriptions

Norwegian Mountains

Gullfjellstoppen, July 20 2004

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Trip report, July 20 2004

I decided to take an evening trip to Gullfjellstoppen and do some "field research". The mountain should be fairly dry after a couple of days with OK weather. The plan was to look closer to Pilatusgjelet, "Pontiusgjelet" (probably called something else), Gordoneggen and Glamragjelet - almost free of snow. I looked very much forward to the hike. I traveled very light and wore sneakers for the first time. For some odd reason, wearing the hiking boots caused great pain in a leg, so had the choice between sneakers or no hike.

I left lake Osavatnet 18:15PM and arrived the lower part of Glamragjelet 18:45PM after a quick hike around lake Svartavatnet. I quickly headed up to the bottom of Pilatusgjelet couloir and started to climb up 19:00PM. Well on the way up the couloir I ran into two sheep who freaked when they noticed my precense. This was a bad situation. The sheep caused rock to fly down the couloir, and I had to be very careful. They had nowhere to go, except up and down, and they headed upwards. I was on the border of turning around, preventing the sheep from getting too high in the steep couloir, but then they turned around and started to head down. We passed each other by careful steps, on each side of the couloir. Having passed me, they found a tiny spot of grass on the side of the couloir and decided to stick around. This meant I had to be exceptionally careful not to loosen any rocks. I didn't want to be responsible for killing sheep through a rockfall.

Well over halfway up the couloir, the problems began to occur. First a huge rock blocked the couloir, now much more narrow. A pile of loose rock were supported by the huge rock, and they seemed to move just through eye contact. It was technically easy to climb the rock but another huge rock of the same kind appeared just after. This rock was also doable but with even greater risk for rockfall. And above this rock, things looked a lot more ugly. I decided I would not take a risk of sending large rocks down the couloir, and turned around. It took me about 5 minutes to figure how to downclimb the lowest of the large rocks, but eventually I made it to the bottom without sending a single rock down.

I then stayed high in the hillside and took a look at "Pontiusgjelet". This couloir is unnamed, so I assigned an "obvious" name for the occasion. In the core couloir I found a waterfall a bit too overwhelming to take on without any safety precautions. I noticed a ledge above the couloir, up to the left that looked interesting. Unfortunately, the rocks were highly unstable and 5 fairly large rocks started to move on contact. I was able to stop the rocks from falling with my body, and moved them away one by one. I decided this was dangerous terrain and continued my journey further up Glamragjelet.

I decided I should hike up Glamragjelet. Without snow (almost), the gully looked much more interesting than the steep snow slope I walked up last winter. The lower sections consisted of a couple of class 4 (YDS) moves. Then I ran into a large chunk of hard snow that prevented further (safe) access. And I had no ambition to walk on top of this snow. I climbed up alongside the gully and bypassed the tricky sections of Glamragjelet. Mainly because I found no way down back into the gully before I was almost on top.

I studied a ledge that I assumed was "Gordoneggen". This is a ledge that runs from Glamragjelet to (near) the summit and travereses the steep face diagonally. The ledge gets broader and easier the higher it gets, but there were a few spots in the lower sections that looked quite ugly. I guess I will be back later on and have a closer look.

At last, I arrived Gullfjellstoppen 20:30PM. It was quite a lovely evening, no wind and nice temperature. I took a direct route towards Ronamanen and followed a valley down to lake Makskiltjørna. I followed the trail down the waterfall, but lost it along the way. I decided to follow the river from the lake all the way to Svartavatnet. This meant downclimbing a number of waterfalls along the way, but I found moving from rock to rock in the river more efficient than walking off-trail on grass. I was back at lake Osavatnet 21:40PM. Good hike. Nice evening.

Pictures from the July 20 2004 hike:

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