Location: North 62.38100, East 007.49339 (GPS at the summit)
Sunnmøre, Norway
Climbed March 16, 2018
Photo: Eric Vetterlein
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Information:
How to get there:
Locate the famous Trollstigen road connecting Åndalsnes with Valldalen (south).
If travelling from the south, one typically takes the ferry across from Stranda.
Drive up Valldalen. In winter, one should drive to the end of the road (the remaining section
being closed in winter.) Note that the road is closed (due to avalanche danger) about 4-5
kilometer before the end, as there is a bypass road (forking right) that is used on this
stretch in winter.
The road ends at a farm called Langdalen, one can park here. This location
is N62.36414, E007.56011, elevation about 420 meter.
Route description:
A small road forks left from the trailhead and descends towards the river. Follow this road
to the cluster of small mountain cabins called Nedstestølen.
Cross the river on a bridge here and continue up the valley, partly steeper uphill,
along a small road (big trail?). This way you will gain the more level valley higher up.
The next section is to climb into the basin at about 900m of elevation where
Heimste Berilldalsvatnet is located. This is the steepest section of the route.
Gain elevation as you traverse the hillside, then follow the easiest route
of ascent in a big zig-zag fashion in order to gain more gentle terrain.
Next, turn left and survey the slope above you. There are natural, connecting
formations that may be skied to gain higher ground near a local horizon
mostly staying left.
You ski up a slope here having a
glacier with ice-blocks out on your right.
The view back into the (upper) valley is quite good.
Higher up, gradually turn right.The slope is now more gentle as you approach
an almost flat section of the route.
There is a long steep cliff guarding the summit.
Cross an almost level (very slight uphiil) plateau, then ascend a nice slope to gain
the north ridge. Ascend this ridge,
you will pass near two antenna towers. What remains
is a rather short slope to gain the highest point. Comments:
I did this climb with my friend Eric (from the USA). We had driven from Bergen
the previous afternoon and set up camp in the excellent house belonging to
Børre Torsvik.
We left the car at 0830. The snow in the initial climbing traverse was tricky, the top
layer of snow tended to side out and wide skis with skins are not very suitable under
such conditions, my "fjellski" would have been better. Still, we made a nice line going
uphill and soon we considered the next slope ascending to the left of the glacier tongue.
A brief rest was called for,
charging Eric with a few calories.
This was easy and the snow conditions improved a lot as we gained more elevation.
We skied across the more flat area, then onto the ridge.
The two anennas came unexpected,
it turns out that they were put up about 5 years ago as part of the monitoring
system to check on the mountain Mannen. Mannen has been predicted to avalanche big
time into Romsdalen in the not so distant future.
We summited at 1430,
so 5 hours up. Next was 30 minutes at the summit to
enjoy the fantastic scenery
(see panorama pictures below). We left at 1500,
the skiing down and back to the car took one hour, much of this on the
final, flat section in the valley.
