Norwegian Mountains - Route Descriptions

It was the last day of ..

Easter. And it was supposed to be a sunny day, so I decided to go for a day-trip on the north side of Romsdalfjorden. The question was where I should go. A lot of snow had fallen, so if my little buddy Troll would have a chance of some walking, I would have to find a mountain with prepared tracks. In the most excellent book Turbok for Molde og Omegn (Olsen/Pedersen) I found the answer. According to this book, one could expect prepared tracks on Raudheia.

Coins

After having passed Molde, I began to suspect that there would be a parking fee at the parking. I had forgotten to bring cash, but there were some coins in the car. At least 30 kroner and I hoped the fee wasn't 50. At the parking area, the ticket guy charged me NOK 30 while asking you don't happen to have them in coins? I smiled as I paid and counted to 30. I had 2 kroner left, which I would spend on a celebration, once back home.

The "snowmovehicle" ..

hadn't arrived yet. I waited until it came and then I could present some excellent tracks to my four-legged buddy. He walked 10 meters, halted and started licking his paws. Allright-i then. It's that type of snow..

With my little buddy in the backpack, I continued up the mountain. The "snowmovehicle" hadn't gone up the mountain, but a snow scooter had left some good tracks. At least into the Fursetbotnen basin. It was snowing higher up on the mountain, so I stopped by Steinliheia to get a glimpse of the Skåla mountain. A wise move, as I never saw Skåla again after that.

Peace and quiet
(Click for larger image)

I had left the trail head 11:07AM and after a short detour on Steinliheia, I arrived at point 659m at 12:30PM. This seemed to be the turnaround point for many skiers. I overheard a couple of other skiers who planned to ski down to Skaret via Langdalen. That sounded like a nice trip, but my logistics plan suggested I should head back down the way I came.

I continued up to another cairn (point 666m), which was obviously higher and I thought that this was the high point. But after checking the GPS, I found that the high point was still 300m ahead. It was a good thing I checked the GPS, because I couldn't see the summit cairn from my location. And since the visibility was OK, I figured that the true high point was somewhere in-between. The GPS track log didn't support this theory, so it was altogether a bit strange. There was however no doubt that the northernmost point was the highest, so Raudheia could now officially be claimed.

The weather was getting better and better by the minute, and it felt a bit wrong to leave now. But I wanted to get ahead of the Easter traffic and began my descent. Skiing down from Raudheia was quite nice, although Telemark was out of the question. One turn to the left, and a fury fellow would have shot out the backpack and get buried in deep powder snow. We don't treat our buddies that way, do we?

Once we reached the autostrada left by the snowmovehicle, Troll was able (and willing) to walk. So in the end, he got some exercise. We reached the parking area 13:45PM, which was now full of cars. I had a splendid drive back to Molde with the car roof down in the trunk, and the ferry to Vestnes was waiting just for me. What a day! However... as the temperature was below zero, it got a bit chilly halfway across Romsdalsfjorden. My wet clothes didn't warm me up either. Should I bit the bullet and put the roof back on? NO! What a defeat that would be. If you've seen the movie Dumb & Dumber, and remember how Carrey/Daniels looked like upon arriving in Denver on their bike? Well, that's almost how I felt upon arriving Vestnes..

Once back home, I got on some dry clothes and continued towards Godøya and had a good struggle in deep snow on my way to Storhornet.