Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal

Svinetinden from Barstaddalen, Dec 30 2006

This route is described on the main Molladalstindane page.


Trip report, Dec 30 2006

Torill Berg and I had agreed that a Christmas hike was in order. Without optimal weather forecasts, we still had to be true to our agreement, and decided to visit Svinetinden. A fairly easy peak, or a "hit-and-run" mountain as I normally put it. It would be a short drive, a (fairly) short hike, and with bad weather, it wouldn't take us long to get back down.

We weren't sure about the ground conditions, and came well equipped. Ice-axes, crampons and snowshoes. Come what may. Almost. I couldn't quite picture this peak to require ropes, so all that stuff was left back home. My neighbour (the finest neighbour you could have) would look after my dog, and I looked forward to a hike with a lighter backpack load than usual. You would have to be frequent reader on this site to understand what a lighter backpack load means...

We took the 09:40AM ferry to Festøya, and were on our way 10:10AM. It was raining light, but the forest provided some shelter. Once we reached Gamlestøylen, we realized we would be in for a windy hike. We left our snowshoes behind at 500m. There was hardly any snow between us and Svinetinden summit. The temperature at Gamlestøylen was +6 deg. C, and it was all .. just crazy.

The walk across the meadow was moderately fascinating, but eventually the mountain began to rise in front of us. The Svinetinden - Rametinden arete was fascinating, and presented itself in a whole different way than when I looked at it from Rametinden, earlier in the year. Serious stuff...

We reached the top and started working on the best way to get ONTO the summit ridge. Torill had picked a route that I was only partly interested in. My plastic boots felt awkward on this narrow ledge, and not to mention my camera under my jacket, giving me less "headroom". While Torill decided to walk this ledge, I chose to lift myself up a crack. Both routes had exposure to it, and so did the short walk over to the summit point. The most narrow point was only a few centimeters wide, but only could simply step across it. By 12:40PM, we announced that Svinetinden summit was "in the bag". Torill had moved across the summit ridge like it was a pedestrian walk, but after her amazing 2006 year, it wasn't strange at all. She's come a mighty long way in a short time, and it's fun to see how people can just "take off" like that.

The strong gusts posed a challenge that had to be taken into consideration. The gusts measured (based on my experience) somewhere between 20-25 m/s, and would knock us out of position if we didn't hold on to something. After a short summit stay, we descended and moved on to the viewpoint further northeast. The snow was fairly soft, but it was quite apparent that this was crampon terrain if the snow had been hard. A slide down the north side would have been the OUCH of the century.

By the time we began our descent, the weather improved. Dramatically. Blue sky came out and so did the moon. The winds ceased, which was a bit surprising. Torill had told me that a storm was on the way inbound. Which would explain the strong gusts. But now everything was honky dory, and we had a quite uneventful descent. We were back at the trailhead 14:20PM and caught the 14:50PM ferry to Solavågen.

Pictures from the Dec 30 2006 hike

To Svinetinden

1. Barstaddalen trailhead (244KB) 2. Just below Gamlestøylen (293KB) 3. The temperature (187KB) 4. Gamlestøylen (204KB) 5. Svinetinden ahead (179KB) 6. Svinetinden, closing in (190KB) 7. Torill and Rametinden (268KB) 8. Peculiar rock (149KB) 9. In spirit .. (256KB) 10. Arnt below Svinetinden (248KB) 11. The Svinetinden - Rametinden arete (473KB) 12. Approaching the top (208KB) 13. Torill on the way to the summit (256KB) 14. On Svinetinden summit (223KB)

Wide-angle views from Svinetinden

15. Wide-angle view from Svinetinden, part 1/2 (648KB) 16. Wide-angle view from Svinetinden, part 2/2 (415KB)

Descent

17. Torill descending Svinetinden (386kB) 18. Arnt descending the crack (251KB) 19. Sunshine above Haram (126KB) 20. To the lower viewpoint (209KB) 21. The east ridge (212KB) 22. Svinetinden summit (292KB) 23. Descending (273KB) 24. Shift in weather (488KB)

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