Norwegian Mountains

Laurdalstind via Laurdalen, May 2002

Click here for the main Melderskin/Laurdalstind page, with trailhead and route information as well as maps.

Trip report May 1 2002:

Laurdalstind had been on my wish list for a long time. But information about the mountain was hard to find on the net. Through a few conversations with local people I did get the impression that this was a hike where a rope might be required. Thanks to email conversation with Uwe Wollin, who had scaled the mountain, I was now geared up for a hike. I mentioned this to my friend Petter Bjørstad. He found the mountain interesting, and suggested we should climb it soon.

So on may 1st, we drove from Bergen, with a unpredictable weather ahead. The weather people had put a rain & sunshine symbol on the region, so with great optimism, we hoped we would be blessed with sunshine on top.

Far from it. It started to rain as we arrived Rosendal. After some scouting for the trailhead, we were on our way. We headed straight up the forest, seeking open terrain wherever possible. We followed tracks wherever available, but realized that we were mostly on a sheep track. However, we saw sticks with red paint here and there, quite helpful.

Before we reached Laurdalen valley, we sat course for the base of Laurdalstind, with the decision to climb up the rightmost snowfield. From my perspective, it looked like a 15 minute hike with a gentle angle. It was neither. Petter kindly allowed me to break the steps up the slope, which was about 45 degrees at the steepest and close to 100m in vertical gain.

Once onto the ridge, I was confident that this was "my kind of mountain" - light scrambling with safety in the terrain. On top of the first hump, this was no longer my kind of mountain, looking down on the narrow saddle over to hump two. And I could only imagine how it looked on the other side. Had I been alone, this is where I would have turned around. But Petter is an experienced mountaineer, and took the lead over the saddle. Carefully looking for handholds and moves. After the necessary complaining on my part, I followed on. And the moves weren't too difficult, but the exposure was significant. The rain had turned into snow, and the winds at 1100m were cold and not welcome.

On top of hump two I stared in despair on the second saddle. I had grown comfortable with the exposure, but the rocks on the far side looked at first impossible to climb without using ropes for security. Petter found the saddle interesting and moved slowly, but safely across. Just beneath the rock which required a technical vertical move, I realized that it was doable, as long as no mistakes were made. It took me some time to move around the second rock, as I didn't feel comfortable with the handholds. Finally I was able to lock my arm in a crack, move around (with total exposure) the rock. As I was moving, I was a little worried that my arm would be stuck in the crack, and bounce me back.

Up towards the summit, we ran into stonger winds and dense fog. I had problems separating the snow and the fog, and moved upwards with careful steps. On top we had to do a comparision of our GPS altitude readings, due to the low visibility. When we were confident that we had reached the summit (surprised that we saw no cairn) we headed back down. Due to the fog we mistakingly headed towards the west face of the summit. While we believed we were heading down the ridge, we were heading straight off the mountain. I checked my GPS tracks, and we immediately adjusted the course.

The saddle crossings were far easier going down than going up. But I struggled with the first class 3 move around the rock (the last challenge on the way up), as I had to apply a new technique going the other way. The move was relative easy (in technical terms) once I decided the order of handholds required. We went down the snowfield, the same way we came up. As we headed down towards the car, it rained heavier than ever. We arrived the car, soaking wet, 6,5 hours after we left it.

See also Petter's trip report.

Pictures from the May 1 2002 hike:

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Some of the thumbnails may have been cropped to fit the format
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1. Laurdalstind seen from Rosendal (115KB) 2. Laurdalstind seen from Rosendal (116KB) 3. Melderskin and Laurdalstind seen from Rosendal (155KB) 4. Malmangernuten seen from Rosendal (124KB) 5. Laurdalstinden seen from the trailhead (72KB) 6. Petter on the way up towards Laurdalen (163KB) 7. Rosendal seen from Laurdalstinden trail (179KB) 8. Malmangernuten seen from Laurdalstinden trail (118KB) 9. Base of Melderskin seen near Laurdalen (127KB) 10. The base of Laurdalstinden ridge (139KB) 11. Saddle 1 on the Laurdalstinden ridge (231KB) 12. Saddle 1 on the Laurdalstinden ridge (264KB) 13. Saddle 1 on the Laurdalstinden ridge (222KB) 14. Saddle 2 on the Laurdalstinden ridge (190KB) 15. Saddle 2 on the Laurdalstinden ridge (167KB) 16. Petter takes a break (94KB)

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