Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal
Vanylven
Litlebøra & Storebøra on skis, Jan 4 2009
To the main Storebøra page (maps,
route descriptions, other trip reports, etc.)
After the fairly disappointing Christmas and New Year weather,
I woke up this Sunday to stunning and cold weather. The temperature was
around -10 deg. C., which doesn't happen very often in this coastal region. I
immediately decided to visit Storebøra - which I had to cancel 3 days
earlier. But the trip was already in danger before it got started, as I couldn't get
the car doors open. This was a kind of odd situation, and I had to choose
between waiting for proper daylight or apply the brute force method. I chose the
latter, and got the door open without ripping out the handle..
Finally on the road, I looked forward to a number of
things. First of all the mountain, but also seeing new places, like Årvika,
Koparneset and Fiskå. The roads were polished, and I decided to drive very
carefully. Especially down to Larsnes. As I drove from Koparneset after taking
the ferry from Årvika, I kept staring at the "Syvdsalpane" peaks across
Syvdsfjorden. Very, very beautiful.
Syvdsalpane
(Click for larger image)
Using the GPS, I found the
Storebøra trailhead, but I didn't find any place to park. A local came to
the rescue and offered me to park on his property. After a nice chat with him, I
was on my way 10:25am. The snow had a nasty crust, which kept beating on my
legs. But this only lasted for 30 seconds, as a tractor popped up in front of
me, and made a nice track all the way to 390m elevation. OTOH, skiing down
would probably not be fun, being locked onto a narrow track.
Near the end of the road, I caught up with a guy on crutches.
This was his walk #100 with crutches on this road, and he told me that he was
confident that no one else had done that. "You're probably very right about
that", I replied and learned that the crutches were not permanent hiking gear.
Good for him.
Almost at end of the road
(Click for larger image) At
end of the road, the landscape opened up in front of me. The mountain presented
itself, shiny white with a lingering touch of morning red. The snow was still
hard on the surface, so I followed the ski tracks from the tractor guy. Soon,
the snow quality got better and the snow was quite firm on my way up Litlebøra.
I hadn't even seen a glimpse of Storebøra until I reached the top
of Litlebøra 11:50am. The ascent had been quite easy, thanks to the tractor tracks
and a ridge with little snow. There were mountains all around, even towards the
sea, and I could hardly wait to get to Storebøra and start taking pictures. But
first, I had to plod my way down Litlebøra on skins. An 86m descent didn't
warrant removing the skins. Especially since I needed them for ascending
Storebøra, and the temperature was probably close to -15 deg. C.
Looking back on Litlebøra
(Click for larger image) I
arrived on Storebøra summit 12:25pm, and was met by a heavenly panorama. I
looked forward especially to post-processing these pictures, as I had never seen
the mountains from this particular angle before. It wasn't difficult to pinpoint
dominating mountains such as Saudehornet, Trollvasstinden, Hornelen, Gjegnen,
etc., but there were many mountains I hadn't seen before. This was only my second
trip to this peninsula, and there will (hopefully) be many more to come.
Syvdsalpane
(Click for larger image) I
didn't have the guts to let the skis flow down Storebøra. The crust would at
times just slam me to the ground, and there were also rocks just below the snow.
I aimed just west of point 605m, until I decided to confirm with the GPS. It
turned out that it was the wrong direction. After adjusting the course, I was back
on Fjellveien road minutes later. The
descent was just as little fun as I had anticipated, but it didn't matter all
that much. The overall trip was just too good. On my way down, I met two other
skiers that would attempt Storebøra, provided they could get up and down before
dark. I got back to the car 1:12pm, and already started looking forward to
my next visit to this region. |