Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal

Rødlandstua via Varden, Mar 11 2008


Back to the main Rødlandstua page.

 

Varden seen from my front door

Varden seen from my front door (Click for larger image)

I've looked at Varden..

almost every day since I moved to Ålesund. On this nice afternoon in March, I was standing in the doorway wondering where to walk the dog and "entertain" myself. The steep ridge up to Varden caught my attention, and I decided to go and check it out. 

Arriving Høyvika, this ridge was too steep to even consider an attempt. But since I was here, I might as well visit Rødlandstua. I had already walked the path from this side, and decided that we should come down this way. That was the "walking the dog" part. For the "entertainment" part, I chose to head up the forest next to this ridge. Because of the trees, it was impossible to see if this would be a hard or an easy walk.

A cliffband..

halfway up the forest had potential for making the trip a hard one. But (sadly), I found an easy route and the forest ended up with being no challenge at all. I arrived the top of Varden 16:38PM, after carrying the dog all the way up, of course, and after one hour on foot. It was OK to be up here. In my opinion, Varden offers better views than Rødlandstua, which has some tree issues.

Rødlandstua

The walk to Rødlandstua involved jumping from turf to turf, trying to avoid the wet snow. I passed Lake Svartevatnet on the east side, and found a route up the cliffs on Rødlandstua's north side. 17:00PM, I was on top of a familiar hill. And the dog would walk from here.

The path still had some patches of snow, but the dog managed. It seems like his will to get back home to the nice and soft blanket defeats any (descent) challenges a mountain has to offer. 17:33PM, we were back at the car, having followed the marked path down Smørdalen.

Pictures from the Mar 11 2008 hike

Slideshow, all pics

To Varden

0. Trip tracks (172KB) 1. Arriving Høyvika (225KB) 2. The trailhead (340KB) 3. NOT getting the big picture (428KB) 4. Looking for a way up (330KB) 5. Easy going from here (436KB) 6. Troll, saving energy (449KB) 7. View down to the trailhead (317KB) 8. Ålesund region seen from Varden (172KB)

Wide-angle view from Varden

9. Wide-angle view from Varden (1665KB)

Zoom views from Varden

10. Zoom view from Varden (1465KB) 11. Zoom view from Varden (2082KB)

To Rødlandstua

12. Passing Svartevatnet (216KB) 13. Looking back at Varden (351KB) 14. On Rødlandstua (229KB)

No Javascript:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

 

westcoastpeaks.com Other Møre & Romsdal mountains Other Norwegian mountains