Norwegian Mountains - Route Descriptions - Blåskjerdingen, Skjerdingen, Tindfjellet, Byrkjevollhornet, Litleskjerdingen

Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal

Blåskjerdingen (incl. Tindfjellet) from Vatnedalen, May 25 2006

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To Skjerdingen

I had been planning to hike Skjerdingen from Vatnedalen for a long time. When my neighbours Eva & Pål announced that they were heading up to Skjerdingen, I decided to "tag along". Extended company were the dogs "Chico" and "Troll".

We met at the Krogsætra trailhead in Vatnedalen and were on our way at noon. It was a warm day. A few dark clouds were of no concern. One hiker was ahead of us, and two others were seen further down the slopes. After a boggy section, we entered the boulder section, where the boulder got increasingly larger the higher we came. I had to carry Troll across this section, but Chico managed fine on his own. We crossed snowfields that were (not surprisingly) rotten in the outskirts, but for the most part, they were of little bother. We reached the summit 14:05PM. The trailing hikers had caught up and now we were 6 humans and 2 dogs on Skjerdingen summit.

Blåskjerdingen

I asked if Eva and Pål could keep an eye on Troll while I took a look at the Skjerdingen - Blåskjerdingen route. Looking was my only ambition, but when I saw the easy slope down to the saddle, the ambition was extended. I was down in the saddle in "no time" and scrambled up the next section in a quick pace. Arriving a short ridge, I attempted to traverse it on top of the rocks along the ridge, but found it time-consuming and not strictly necessary. Instead, I walked between the rocks and the snowfield next to it.

The final section was clearly the most exposed section, but the climb looked fairly easy. Immediately, I knew that I would have to be extra careful when going down here. I scrambled up the cliff and reached Blåskjerdingen summit 15 minutes after leaving Skjerdingen.

I decided to see if there was an easier route down to the short ridge, and found it on the west side. I descended carefully down to the saddle and was back at Skjerdingen 15 minutes after leaving Blåskjerdingen. By then, I guess the others were tired of waiting for me. The other hikers were long gone.

Tindfjellet

We left the summit 14:50PM. On the way down, I decided to wander off on my own and take a closer look at the ridge leading to Tindfjellet. From distance, it looked surprisingly easy. And it started off easy, too. But half-way along the ridge, the progress made a sudden halt. A nasty drop forced me to look for alternatives. The alternatives had to be of the easy sort, as I was carrying my dog in the backpack. I backtracked slightly and found a way around.

After a steep scramble back onto the ridge, I realised I had bypassed the problem by a good distance. Therefore, I followed the high ridge back towards the problem section. This was the most narrow part of the entire route, but it was a quite trivial walk. At the point where I could look down on the problem that made me look for an alternative, I turned around. I regretted this later, as I should have downclimbed to investigate closer. Oh well, a good reason to come back.

I reached the top of Tindfjellet 15:30PM. I was out of pictures, and didn't want to start deleting pictures I had taken so far. Annoying, as I wanted to capture details on Tindfjellet's north ridge. I descended the south ridge to 740m elevation, then headed southeast into Jolegrødet and subsequently back on Skjerdingen's south ridge without losing any elevation gain. Once back on the path, I caught up with Eva and Pål. This was a nice surprise, and by 16:45PM, a fine day on a fine mountain was over.

I now had just enough time to return to Ålesund and get some food before picking up my friend Petter for our hike to Sulafjellet. It would be a long day in the mountains, with a total of 1750 vertical meters before we called it a day, late evening.