Location: North N61.51671, E007.90839 (GPS at the summit)
Difficulty: YDS class 1
Climbed September 30. 2017.
Information:
How to get there:
Locate the Hwy. (No. 55) connecting Lom (east) with Skjolden (west). This
road is closed in winter. Driving from the west, you pass the Turtagrø
hotel at approximately 890 meter of elevation. Continue around a left bend, then
find a difficult to see, small road that exits right before the next sharp
left curve. Descend down this dirt road and park off the road before the
gate that restricts traffic on the remaining section of this road. This
location is N61.50483, E007.82234, elevation about 935 meter.
Route description:
Continue along the road into Helgedalen valley and also uphill to
about 1220 meter. The trail forks left (uphill) from the road, this
point is well signposted. Cross a small creek, then stay left where
the trail forks, again well signposted. The trail now climbs more steeply
up the broad west ridge of Fanaråken. The trail is nicely made with
steps in a few places, but also a bit rougher among rocks in some section.
You will arrive at the summit plateau where there are (at least?) 4 huts.
The summit point is located behind the larger, upper hut. Comments:
After the ENUMATH conference at Voss, I took two participants
along on a drive in order to see some Norwegian fjords as well as
to do some hiking. My two companions were Steffen Müthing from
Heidelberg and Rob Scheichl from Bath.
We established our base camp at Utladalen Camping, a place that can
be warmly recommended. The forecast was pretty bad, I thought our
Saturday hike would be quite a rough experience.
Before dinner, we rented 3 bikes and rode to the Vetti farm. A short walk from
there to see the famous Vettisfossen waterfall.
We left at 0930 and experienced a strong headwind as we walked into the
valley. As we ascended the wind was less of an issue and best of all, we had
no wind. We ascended into the clouds and as we got near the summit, the wind
increased again. The upper part of the route was coated with ice on
the rocks making the hike quite slippery.
We arrived on top at 1215
and walked around approximately 30 minutes. None
of the huts were open and the
weather was quite unpleasant. We descended at
1245 and by now the wind was stronger. Combined with the slippery rocks,
this made for a somewhat cumbersome descent. We were all happy when reaching
the level where the rocks again were free of ice. As we walked back out the
valley, it started to rain. We reached our car at
1530, all feeling that we had our dose of fresh air for the day.
