Norwegian Mountains, Møre og RomsdalSkolma via Skolmedalen, Aug 20 2009To the main Skolma/Sneldelida/Smørkinna/Veten page (maps, route descriptions, etc.)
The route
Skolma is a popular mountain,
and people normally hike this mountain from Ytreflø or Brandal.
Another option is to go off-trail up Skolmedalen valley, and if you
do so, the chance of meeting other hikers (before you reach the top) is
rather slim. And that is a shame,
because this is a beautiful valley, with tall walls rising above.
I became aware of this route when I started taking the express boat between Hareid and Ålesund. Seen from a distance, the route didn't look trivial, but on a walk from Kvitneset to Flø (Aug 9 2009), I had a better view up Skolmedalen, and I could no longer see any difficulties. The only thing left to do was to make the trip. I asked my colleague Terje Øvrebø to come along, knowing he also appreciates slightly odd routes up mountains. Terje brought his own car. One car at Brandal and one at Kvitneset is clearly an advantage, because then you don’t need to walk the 2.4 km from the Skolma trailhead (at Brandal) back to Kvitneset.
The route, seen from Kvitneset
Heading out from Kvitneset is always nice. It is a 1,5km walk to the valley entrance, and we didn't say no to some fun scrambling along the way. We followed a moraine up to a creek and stuck with the creek until it got too steep and slippery. At first, we headed up a grassy slope that led us away from the creek, but what appeared to be the obvious route soon led us back to it, and now we were above the steepest part.
The route up Skolmedalen
The "gate" to the upper valley was a distinct, grassy ledge, and it looked like a straightforward route. But on the way up, we noticed a wet slab area on top of this ledge, and there was some "excitement" as to whether we could pass without slipping and falling off. But it turned out that this section was of the friendly kind, and it was also clear that the rest of the route up the mountain would be easy. We went over to the edge so we could see the shore, and noticed a couple of steep gullies. One had a very cool viewpoint (a rock), which just had to be checked out. I couldn't go all the way to end of the rock, as it was slanting downwards, but even from my fairly safe position - I got dizzy. It's the same ol', same ol'; - walking outwards proud and upright - only to find myself crawling back in..
Shore view
We also passed some cool cliffs, but refrained from any further climbing. An eminent sunset was in the making, and I wanted pictures from the top. We arrived on Skolma summit 7:06pm - 2 hours after leaving Kvitneset. Two Danes arrived shortly after and Skolma was semi-crowded on this nice afternoon.
Magic light on Runde
On the way down, we caught up with a teenager on the rocky trail. She was wearing a towel and pink clogs! She told us she had walked up from Brandal to see if the temperature in Lake Grøthornvatnet (500m) was good, but it wasn't. So she walked back down. Terje and I found that to be quite remarkable..
|
The pictures were taken with a Canon EOS 450D + Canon EF-S 17-85mm IS USM F 4-5.6
Javascript
slideshow (Full size images)
|
Flash
slideshow (Images scaled down. |
|
To Skolmedalen
Up Skolmedalen
Skolma views
No Javascript: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34
westcoastpeaks.com Other Møre & Romsdal mountains Other Norwegian mountains |