Sunnmøre

26 – 31 August 2022

Almost as soon as I returned to Flatland from an unhappy return to Edinburgh, I was on my way back to Norway. Back in 2020, I had planned a wildcamping excursion to Sunnmøre, the gateway to the best of the fjords. Unfortunately, my intended departure date was less than a week after Covid infection rates in the Netherlands swelled above Norway’s threshold. I was forced to cancel the trip, but ended up with a KLM voucher for the costs. The voucher expired in January, so I arbitrarily booked flights for summer. KLM does not fly north of Trondheim, so it was the perfect excuse to revive the initial plan.

I had managed to visit Ålesund in the interim as part of a Covid-era Christmas trip. Perhaps unsurprisingly, winter in the fjords featured perpetual torrential rain and rising Covid cases. I accomplished very little, particularly in the fjells. Unfortunately, this trip would fare only marginally better.

26 – 30 August 2022

From the start, the signs were not in my favour. Because I had arbitrarily booked dates due to the expiring voucher, my planning timeline was thrown off. I had a loose itinerary outlined from my previous trip, and the idea was that I would flesh that plan out whilst in Edinburgh. When my trip to Scotland was turned on its head, I struggled to find the motivation to formalise those loose ideas and the plan was left as a general outline.

The morning of my departure, things did not improve. Dutch railworkers had been striking all summer and of course my departure date would be hit. In their race to the bottom with DB (German Rail), I think NS (Dutch Rail) has a commanding lead. After arriving considerably later than expected into Schiphol, I was met by abhorrent queues for security, extending well out of the terminal building. True to form, the Dutch had failed to plan ahead for the post-Covid summer and were either unable or unwilling to adapt when it became obvious that their planning was flawed. After jumping the queue (I asked staff) I was the last through the gate.

On arrival in Alesund, I had just enough time to pick up both food and gas before catching the bus across the fjord to Barstadvik. I hiked a few kilometres up to a clearing that I remembered from my winter trip and set up camp. The rain that had been threatening started as soon as I finished my dinner.

Proceeding, I had a moment of serious indecision at an unnamed lake under Romedalstinden. My intended route was to skirt around the side, before climbing to a pass. The lake was frozen over, with the shores littered with colossal boulders. I was struggling to make out anything that could be considered a pass on the far side. Given that it was late-August, I really didn’t trust the frozen lake. I figured it was my best option though. I made it across without incident, and on the far side, there was just the hint of a climbers track, headed up the scree-field. I took it and ascended into the gloom.

With rain picking up on the other side of the pass, I decided to find a campsite early. A decision helped by the steep terrain – it would probably be at least two hours before I would find another suitably flat spot. I set up camp under a hanging glacier and got back to the kindle. As I waited in the rain, I was caught in two minds as to how to proceed. I had covered considerably less distance than predicted and needed a complete rethink to my itinerary.

The next morning, the rain had stopped, but the clouds had descended. I walked closer to Store-Strandal, and reacquired phone signal. Whilst checking weather, my garbage phone started continuously rebooting – a common problem. I hooked it up to my powerbank and, with frustration, stuffed it into my pack. Somehow this resulted in the phone exceeding its login attempts and kicking me back to the PUK code. Given that I had information relating to my final-night AirBnB and outbound flight stored on the phone, I was quite unimpressed.

As I started to backtrack, I remembered that, in my infinite wisdom, I had decided that one of my essential pieces of kit was my backup USB drive. That odd item would prove my salvation: one of the documents I backup is a notepad list of passwords, including my PUK. I would just need to find a way to access the file.

The weather finally clears as I exit the fjells

Returning to Molladalen, I made camp for the night. The last weather forecast I had seen before my phone bricked indicated that the cloud should lift overnight.

I woke to blue skies, just out of reach above a heavy layer of fog. My goal was to reach Festøykollen, but Jønshornet made for an extremely imposing wall of rock. My map indicated that there should be a climbers track… somewhere… I was struggling to see one though, and the fog certainly wasn’t helping. Ultimately, I decided to descend to Barstadsætra. I could then take the road to a different track up the fjell. By this point, the weather had cleared into a spectacular morning. I made camp and then set out to bag Festøykollen and Svinetinden.

Views from around my final campsite

30 – 31 August 2022

Leaving the fjells behind, I descended back to Barstadvik where I caught the bus. The intent was to wander Alesund searching for a computer I could plug my USB in. Since my bus transferred in Moa, I figured I would ask at the info desk. Sure enough, after some initial confusion, the attendant was able extract my PUK and I unlocked my phone! Crisis averted.

I dropped my pack at the AirBnB, laid my soaked gear out to dry, and headed for Aksla: the classic Alesund viewpoint. After cooking a semi-proper dinner, I headed back to Aksla to enjoy the sunset. In hindsight, I should have headed to Sukkertoppen in the afternoon instead of Aksla. The sunset views were everything I had hoped for and went a long way toward balancing the disappointment of the fjells.

Sunnmøre Alps, finally bathed in superb lighting – where was this during my hike?

The classic view of Ålesund from Aksla

It was not the trip I had hoped for, but the final evening in Alesund really rescued the trip. Looking back, this outing hardly matched some of my other solo-exploits, but I still have favourable memories. I can blame the shortcomings on the weather and bad luck, and not without justification. Ultimately though, disappointments in Scotland led directly to a lack of planning on my part. It would be more accurate to say that the poor weather saved me from feeling remorse for not accomplishing my mountain goals.

I have a lot of takeaways for future trips: