Location: North 65.93371, West 017.99777 (GPS at the summit)
Difficulty YDS class 2.
Climbed May 17, 2016.
Information:
How to get there:
This peak is located in Northern Iceland. From Akureyri, drive north
on Hwy. 1 (on the east side of the fjord), continue north on Hwy. 83 when
Hwy. 1 turns east. Shortly after Hwy. 83 moves a bit away from the fjord,
locate Hwy. 835 forking right and going through a valley that runs south-east.
A pretty deep valley cuts north at a place (farm) named Skard. This is the trailhead.
One may park at the left side of the road where a small (farm) road runs into this
(small) valley. The location is N65.87868, W017.97278, elevation about 60 meter.
Route:
First, head up the small farm road that runs on the right hand side of the creek.
Continue until you see a small bridge
that crosses this creek. Cross here and follow
a path that climbs the ridge above you.
This ridge curves uphill, forming the lower part
of the south ridge of the mountain. Follow this ridge uphill until you reach the plateau
elevation, then continue across smaller humps until you finally reach the highest point
located at a large, flat plateau. Comments:
The day before, we had been driving up the east coast along Hwy.1. We had planned to do
an easy peak that had a road, since the day would mainly be used for driving.
This peak was called Gunnolfsvikurfjall, however, when we came
to the turnoff, perhaps not surprisingly, the road served a radar station on the top and
the people of Iceland did not want visitors there.
We stayed in a small guesthouse near Framnes, absolutely
on the north coast.
We arrived from the south and got a view of the mountain well
before we were there.
We had planned to ski Grjótskálarhnjúkur, but as we parked at the trailhead
we realized that the south facing ridge was free of snow for most of the elevation gain.
Consequently, we decided to climb this mountain on foot.
We left at 0845 and finally made the snow-line at
about 800 meter of elevation.
Looking back, we could judge our progress as the valley below
opened up.
The snow was easy to walk on, a couple of slopes needed some care since the snow was still
quite firm after last night. We then had a pretty longish, mainly flat hike
to the summit, a very featureless high point on a large,
flat plateau. We were there at
1130, so 2:45 up. We rested 30 minutes, looking around to nearby mountains across the valley,
equally steep on the side, then flat on top. We also looked across to
Kaldbakur, a peak we would climb later today.
The descent was uneventful,
but easy.
We were back at the car in 1:50, no skiing yet, but
we should find a nice mountain to ski in the afternoon.
Here is a quick summary of peaks climbed in our trip to Iceland.
