Location: North 69.62289, East 020.58169 (GPS at the summit)
Vaksdal, Norway
Difficulty: (YDS) class 2
Climbed March 29. 2019.
Information:
How to get there:
The starting point is Olderdalen. One may drive E-6 north
from Nordkjosbotn, Olderdalen is on the north side
of the small fjord Kåfjorden. One may also reach this
place by ferry across from Lyngseidet.
Route description:
Locate the start of a
lighted skitrack just beyond the
houses in the direction of the mountain. Take this track
going left, initially following the base of the mountain.
In the (skiing) season, you will almost surely find tracks
that ascend the slope picking its way between the birch trees
as well as smaller cliffs.
Higher up, the route will
pass by a bench and a cairn before
proceeding up the valley.
Next, climb out of the valley, as you ascend
along the pretty gentle slope that climbs the flank on your right, in
order to access the pretty broad ridge that will connect all the way to the
summit.
Comments:
I skied to the summit together with Ivar Marthinusen from Trondheim.
We were attending the (annual) national meet of the DNT mountaineering
groups at Solhov in Lyngseidet.
This was an organized trip with about 14
participants. Being a pretty large group, our progress up the mountain was,
unfortunately, very slow. The trip leaders also called for a lunch break,
despite the forecast calling for worse weather later in the day. For such
a short trip as this, fewer stops and possibly dividing the group into
two, would have been desireable. As it turned out the group needed to
turn around about 700 meter short of the summit. This decision was absolutely
correct, given the time and the weather.
At this point, it was agreed that Ivar and I would leave the group in order
to bag the mountain.
We proceeded, at a higher pace uphill and into very poor visibility. Searching
for the summit, we stopped next to a big boulder to prepare our skis for the
return run. Fortunately, a brief clearing showed us the small summit ridge just
a few meter ahead. Thus, we visited the small cairn and the proper summit before
skiing downhill.
The wind now increased dramatically, with storm gusts and our initial descent was
slow due to a complete whiteout. The
conditions improved as we got lower and we enjoyed
some good skiing
before the final descent among the trees. We were back down by
the ferry with more than 30 minutes of margin.
