Norwegian Mountains, Sogn og Fjordane
Såtefjellet (Steinbotnegga) on skis from Helgheim,
Dec 18 2011
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The route, as seen in Google Earth
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Anne and me drove from Sogndal and met up with Janne Eikås and Joar Eide a few kilometers east of Helgheim. Here, we jumped into Janne's 4WD car and drove up a steep (and snowy) forest road above Helgheim. After a car accident in my younger days (I was a passenger...) I have grown to strongly dislike steep and snowy roads. And as soon as I realized that this was a really steep road, I wanted to jump out. But I bit my teeth together and stayed put until we parked at 330 meters. But one thing was sure - there was no way I would be sitting in that car on the way down!
Our trailhead for the day
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We headed out 11:10am and realized we would not have a sunny day in the Jøster mountain region after all. But - the weather wasn't bad at all and we headed up the forest with a good spirit! After 500 meters, we left the forest road and headed northwest up the forest in Helgheimsdalen.
We have the mountain in view
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I had never met Janne or Joar before, and they proved to be very good company. The day before, they skied to Skjorta - a significantly longer trip! In other words - fit and sporty people!
We aimed for the east ridge and switch-backed out way upwards, taking turns in breaking trail. It was a shame that we were cheated out of the beautiful view, but on the other hand - we didn't have to deal with thunder and lightning. At least, that has to count for something!
Up the east ridge
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We reached the summit of Såtefjellet / Steinbotnegga 12:52pm - 1h:42m after heading out. For a minute, I thought that the weather was changing towards the better, but it soon got apparent that it was changing towards the worse. We found shelter behind a huge rock west of the summit cairn and enjoyed out lunch.
On the summit
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The descent would have been just superb, hadn't it been for a) the fact that there was not a whole lot of snow and b) incoming snow showers. But there was no absolutely no reason to complain, and we enjoyed ourselves to the fullest - retracing our tracks on the east ridge...
Descending the east ridge
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Our skis took some beating on the east ridge, but that was nothing compared to what was about to come...
After returning to the parking (1:46pm), I made it perfectly clear to everyone that I would be skiing all the way down to highway E39. Whether it was the love for skiing or fear of the forest road - I don't know - but Anne and Joar was all of a sudden following me and Janne was left alone with her car.
After skiing down the forest road for a little while, I was so close to fall flat on my face. I was now skiing on gravel with just a tiny, tiny fraction of snow on top! The skis looked just awful underneath! As I started waving to the others to stop skiing, I noticed that Janne was shouting to us. Her car had lost the grip and was sliding down the forest road. How she managed to stop, I don't know, but the car stopped and it was decided to leave it there until she got hold of chains. Surely a wise decision!
Back on E39 (2:08pm), we had to walk 500 meters back to my car and minutes later, I was on my way back to Sunnmøre. That was one of my worst car trips ever! There is so much talk about traffic safety. Well for starters - how about ploughing the roads! Commuting between Sunnmøre and Sogndal every other weekend, I am still to be convinced that the road authorities takes ploughing seriously. To be honest, I've lost all faith in them...
At Anda - halfway to Sunnmøre...
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Later, I learned that Janne had safely rescued her car. Good news!
