Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal
Silsetfjellet, Feb 23 2008
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Windy on Silsetfjellet
(Click for larger image)
Weather..
The weather in Ålesund this Saturday was not good. The wind ruled out any mountain exceeding 1000m elevation. I'm not a wimp, but I'm not into dog abuse. As I'm "saving" tops in the south, I had to go north/east to find a new mountain. I made the decision to visit Silsetfjellet by Eide. The height was reasonable, the walk seemed easy enough, and besides, I've never visited Eide before.
I was confident that the weather wouldn't be worse up there. In fact, I just might be lucky and get sunshine! Showers dominated the coastline, so there was just no telling. The more I thought about it, the more optimistic I became. I need a few moments of motivational talk to look forward to a 2,5 hour travel (one way) to visit a mountain in bad weather.
Sigh...
It was snowing as I drove across Ørskogfjellet, and raining while I took the ferry across Romsdalsfjorden. It was snowing light as I drove from Molde, and when I arrived at Eide, I had some blue sky. The patient ones do get rewarded!
The good book (Olsen/Pedersen) told me how to get to the trailhead, and by 11:50AM, the dog and I was ready to visit Silsetfjellet. The weather was still holding up. The dog (Troll) strolled happily along the forest road, but when it was time to enter the forest, he made it clear that he had no intentions of going up there. The backpack is the solution to most of my problems...
Stortua
Once I left the boggy parts behind, the walk became nothing but nice. The blue sky lingered on, and the snow was firm and nice to walk on. Someone had been up here earlier in the day, so I could just follow tracks. We reached Stortua 12:37PM, and as it was a bit windy up here, I left the dog in shelter while I took pictures.
Suddenly, a huge dog scared the craps out of me. Fortunately, the huge dog was a nice dog which got along well with Troll. I had a small chat with the owner before I headed towards Silsetfjellet.
Silsetfjellet
It wasn't difficult to tell that it was a different world almost 200m above Stortua. The white veil above the ground suggested that the wind owned this mountain. We were merely visitors. We arrived the top of Silsetfjellet 13:24PM, and I immediately put the dog in shelter. It wasn't too bad, but the wind was strong enough - strong gale with whipping snow.
The plan was, as always, that Troll would descend on his own. And so he did willingly. The only problem was that the whipping snow blinded him. I felt truly sorry for him when I watched him stop with his eyes closed, then burying his head into the snow. Shelter, at last.
I carried him in my arms, with his butt facing the whipping snow until he was able to open his eyes again. All of the sudden, we were below the rough zone, and the descent became just enjoyable. Even for the dog. We were back down by the car 14:16PM, and returned to Molde shortly after. The ferry to Vestnes was reached with the finest precision, as I didn't have to stop between I entered the ferry lane and until I had parked on board the ferry. It was a long drive, a windy hike but still a very rewarding visit to the Nordmøre region.
