Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal
Romedalstinden (1295m) & Storkopptindane (1232m), Aug 11 2011
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Romedalstinden
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Romedalstinden? Sign me up...
My friend Arngeir Syversen invited me for a evening hike to Romedalstinden, and as I hadn't been to this beautiful peak since July 2006, I looked very much forward to see it again. When Arngeir asked me about the route, I remembered clearly the hilariously exposed summit ridge. Oh yes; then there was the matter of rock-fall in the steep hillside above Litlekoppvatnet. We don't want to wipe out the Litlekoppen sheep tribe. Besides that, I didn't remember anything particularly difficult.
Arngeir came from Ålesund, I came from Ulsteinvik and I arrived at Ytre Standal only a few minutes after him. Excellent timing! We drove one car up to the trailhead at 180 meters and were on the trail by 4:16pm. The weather was just fine, but we could see the fog hitting hard on Romedalstinden. What a shame it would be to ascend the summit in thick fog!
Approaching Ytre Standalsætra
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To the ridge
We kept a steady progress up the forest, passed Ytre Standalsætra 4:35pm and reached the ridge between Romedalstinden and Storkopptindane 5:58pm - without causing any rock-fall. And the Litlekoppen sheep tribe was still alive and kicking. I had already made Arngeir aware of that I planned to visit the highest of the Storkopptindane peaks, after visiting Romedalstinden, and hoped that he could come along.
Arriving on this ridge is quite something. The terrain is simply spectacular, and one feels humble in this mighty landscape...
On the ridge
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Issues...
I remembered the route incorrectly and told Arngeir that we had to take a detour alongside the ridge. This detour involved some unpleasant scrambling on wet grass, and was totally unnecessary. Back on the ridge, I redeemed myself and immediately found the correct route below the distinct pinnacle, before crossing over to the other side of the ridge.
Then followed an exposed pitch that I had completely forgotten about. It all came back to me now - this was the point which made me give the route a YDS class 3 grade (hands needed for further progress...) . We passed this point in a fashion you won't find in any climbing style guide, but we managed. As our moves involved knees and a strong faith in grass, I made a mental note about exploring a different way of passing this point upon descent...
An exposed and ugly pitch
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To the summit
The remaining route up to the summit was far less airy than I remembered it to be. It was almost disappointing, as I had described the route to Arngeir using capital letters. But there's also normally a capital difference between the first and second ascent, so Arngeir was probably more than satisfied...
Faced with the three options; 1) "I'll just wait here, thank you", 2) crawl the summit ridge and 3) walk the summit ridge upright, Arngeir arrived Romedalstinden in style - 6:40pm - 2h:25m after heading out. I expected no less of him.
Romedalstinden summit ridge
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On Romedalstinden
From the summit, we had a clear view towards the east. The mountains west of Romedalstinden were still wrapped in fog. Being above a sea of clouds is quite something! We could certainly spend a while up here, but the day was dawning and we had one more top (Storkopptindane) to visit. Better move on.
Storkopptindane
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To Storkopptindane.
We descended the upper part of Romedalstinden just as safe as we had ascended it, and then arrived at the "ugly spot" mentioned earlier. Arngeir and me chose different ways of dealing with this exposed pitch. Both ways turned out well.
Then we noticed 3 hikers on their way up to the ridge. We met them as they arrived on the Storkopptindane - Romedalstinden ridge and we had a brief talk with them. They were all new to the area, and we tried to give them as much practical information as possible. Due to the rock-fall danger, Arngeir and me were quite eager to be back in the valley before they returned from the summit.
It didn't take us long before we were just below the top of the highest of the Storkopptindane peaks. A friend of mine had said that this route was "just easy scrambling", and while the route up was fairly easy - we had to take into consideration that we had to return the same way. That wouldn't be equally easy, but it didn't stop us...
Ascending Storkopptindane
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We reached the highest of the Storkopptindane peaks 7:43pm - and could see that the other hikers had reached the summit ridge on Romedalstinden. Good for them! We only stayed for a few minutes before we scrambled down. Conclusion; going up was far easier...
I just had to visit the next top as well and ran over to it. This top was far easier than the first one, and I returned to Arngeir within a couple of minutes. As the other hikers now had reached Romedalstinden summit, this was a good time for us to descend towards Litlekoppen - and avoid rock-fall.
After a good hike down the forest, we reached the car 9:16pm - exactly 5 hours after leaving. Many thanks to Arngeir for the invitation and for his good company. You can read his side of the story on haramfjell.com, once his report becomes available.
Passing Ytre Standalsætra
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