Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal
Messingeheida (Hyningane north top), May 31 2009
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The north top (Messingeheida)
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I started the month of May by visiting the Hyningane main top. On the last day of the month, I wanted to visit the north top (also called Messingeheida) and thereby complete all of the tops surrounding the beautiful Liadalsdalen valley. I hiked Bergehornet - Grøthornet - Liahornet in June 2006, Tverrfjellet (Hesteryggen) in June 2008, Liadalsnipa - Bjørnastighornet - Eggja in July 2008 and Hyningane main top in May 2009. On the hike to Messingeheida, I asked my colleague Rune if he wanted to come along. He did.
The plan was to traverse Messingeheida from south to north. According to information I had, the traverse was quite easy - almost a stroll. But I didn't know how difficult it would be to get up to the saddle between the two Hyningane tops.
We headed out from Liadalsdalen 09:50am and passed Liadalsætra 10 minutes later. As I didn't know the best route towards the north top, I suggested that we would just head up in the direction of the main Hyningane top and aim for the saddle when we got the north top in view.
Part of the route
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On the way to the north top, it seemed that reaching the saddle wouldn't be so easy. We could always head up a steep snowfield, but equipped with only one ice-axe each (and no crampons), this wasn't so tempting. We knew that we could suddenly run into snow hard as ice. But something that resembled a steep gully looked interesting. This could surely be our way up to the saddle. But when we got closer, it seemed that this wasn't a gully after all. It was really difficult to see, with the sun against. In the end, we decided to just head towards the north ridge.
The north ridge was indeed a stroll. It was airy in few places, but required no scrambling. We reached the summit 11:45am, close to 2 hours after leaving the trailhead. The steep drop towards Skorgedalen was quite something, and we both enjoyed this top very much.
On the way up the north ridge
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Being up here, we wanted to check out the south ridge as well. The south ridge was a bit more airy than the north ridge, and required some scrambling in places. It was definitely more exposed going down the south ridge than going up. When we got to the saddle, we could see that what we earlier thought was a gully was indeed a gully, and it would have been a convenient (albeit steep) route up to the saddle. The ridge towards the Hyningane main top didn't look very friendly, although it is possible to get up and down this ridge.
On the south ridge
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We headed back up to the top and then down the north ridge. We were considering visiting Grøthørnet (1045m) as well, but I decided that I didn't feel up to it. A long ski-trip to Nordre Smørskredtind (1606m) the day before had taken its toll. I'm sure that bringing food and enough water on the warmest day of the year would have been clever. And in "dumb, dumber" style, I hadn't brought any food today either. Rune offered me one of his two slices of bread, and I gladly accepted.
A snowfield offered a fast descent from Messingeheida's north ridge. We headed down into the valley and came across a path 800m north of Liadalsætra. We were back at the trailhead 1:22pm, 3,5 hours after heading out. I strongly recommend this - somewhat anonymous top - to everyone.
Anything exciting?
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