Norwegian Mountains, Møre og Romsdal
Vorakinna on skis from Sandnes, Jan 9 2011
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Vorakinna
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Nine days into the new year and I hadn't been to a new mountain yet. It was almost unbearable. But today, I would mend the situation, and I was prepared to take on any sort of weather!
I didn't fancy a long drive (difficult driving conditions these days...), and I had been "saving" a few nearby mountains for occasions such as this one. Vorakinna by Syvdsfjorden belonged to this category, and this would be my target for the day. It was tempting to drive to Fiskå and follow the same forest road that helped me eventually get to Litlebøra and Storebøra. But the drive to see new terrain was stronger, and I chose to head out from Sandnes. A straightforward route, by the looks of it. A forest road would take me above the forest, and then ... voila.
The route from Sandnes
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I took the 11:45am Årvika - Koparneset ferry, and after driving 3,2km along a hilariously icy road (it was almost impossible to stop the car), parking never felt better. I chose to park by a bus-stop along the main road. The road up to the houses seemed easy enough, but I was quite done with icy roads for a few hours.
I headed out 12:07pm and found the forest road (toll) right away. A tractor had left excellent tracks, so skiing was easy. More worrying was the fact that the snow outside the road seemed knee-deep. The plan was to follow the forest road until it ended, but a) it would be a detour and b) a detour with this much snow was not what I had in mind.
But so far, skiing was easy and - what a background!
Along the toll road, with Syvdsalpane behind me
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After 1,6km, I noticed a side road going up to my left. I didn't expect it run for very far, but that was quite OK. There was much less snow in the forest, and even if the forest was dense, I would probably save a lot of energy. As predicted, it ended rather soon (after 350 meters), and after a short forest section, I topped out next to a cabin. Vorakinna was straight ahead of me, and so far the weather was OK. But I didn't expect it to stay that way for long. I could see snow showers in the Syvden mountains when I parked the car...
Out of the forest
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On my way upwards, I decided to stop by Storehornet (a less prominent top above Sandnes) knowing that it could cost me the views on Vorakinna. I could literally feel the bad weather moving in, even if I didn't see it yet. I reached the top of Storehornet (444m) 1:23pm and I quickly concluded that this would be the last views I would get on this trip.
On Storehornet
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As I began my Vorakinna ascent, the snow shower came over me and visibility turned extremely low. That is; I could see features (sticks and a cairn) well ahead of me, but it was impossible to distinguish between air and snow. The Norwegian word is blindføre, and I realized that the descent would not be as fun as I had hoped...
I was actually a bit worried about the descent. My tracks ran across Storehornet, and as I had no plan to descend that way, I would have to get off the ridge without any tracks to follow. It was by no means steep terrain, but I had noticed cornices and now it would be impossible to see them...
When I approached the cairn, I was mighty glad that the ascent seemed to be over, but then I noticed another cairn 400 meters to the south. Oh well...
A -false- summit cairn
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I arrived on the summit 2:08pm - 2 hours after heading out. I had no ambitions to linger around on this top, and I quickly turned around. After passing the "false" cairn, I lost my tracks and ended up much further to the west. Great! I don't know how many snowballs I tossed, but eventually I got back on the meadow safe and sound and got reunited with my ascent tracks. I followed my ascent route all the way down the forest and returned to the car 2:50pm.
