Rotterdam (or Anywhere) – Page 52 – Adventures in the Netherlands & around the world

Breitinden (Ringvassøya)

02/09/2012 Hanneke

Last Tuesday I set out to climb Breitinden on Ringvassøya. This mountain is not in Ti på Topp, it was one of the mountains they lacked photos of for the new hiking book that’s coming out this autumn. Armed with a map and brief directions, I followed a pipeline up to Damnvatnet, one of the lakes that provide drinking water for Tromsø.

It wasn’t far to the lake, and you can actually walk over the dam, which was fun 🙂

From here on, there was a faint path up the ridge towards Breitinden, but I kept losing it and in the end just made my own way up. It was quite clear which direction I had to follow, but it wasn’t always easy to find the best route. I often tried to avoid climbing every little hill on the ridge, but that didn’t always work well 😀 It made me appreciate Ti på Topp even more, though I am slightly embarrassed to admit that 😉 It’s just so much easier when there is a path and/or markers to follow!

There were nice views towards the valley that leads to Ringvassbu. Higher up, I came across some large patches of snow – and there was ice on the melt ponds!

There was some steep climbing on loose rocks just before the top, but I made it 😀 It took me almost 4 hours to rech the top, and the view was spectacular. Unfortunately the light was very flat though, so they photos didn’t turn out that well. There was a guestbook on top: the last entry was dated August 2009… would I really be the first visitor in 3 years? I suspect this top is more popular in winter, when the book might be inaccessible due to snow.

Most people who signed the book were on their way to Skulgamtinden along the ridge that you can see in the second panorama below. Didn’t look very inviting to me!

After a nice break, I started my way down. I took some photos of cracked rocks, and this amazing “goretex” moss that I found several places. It seemed almost watertight, with big drops lying on the surface – if you’d push the drops with your fingers, they’d just roll away like marbles! Amazing 🙂

To my relief I found a much better route coming down, and even a faint path at times! I stopped to take some photos of this tiny reflecting lake, just above Damnvatnet. It really starts to look autumnal now…

Here is the map and the height profile of my hike… Total time, including breaks, was 7 hours.

Sunset Panoramas

27/08/2012 Hanneke

Yesterday was a grey and rainy day, but I knew the edge of the weather front was approaching Tromsø – and that there were clear skies on the other side! So all day I kept an eye on the radar images, but the front was moving incredibly slow. In the late afternoon it finally stopped raining, and I decided to go up Åsfjellet. When I got to the top, I could clearly see the edge of the front lying over Tromsø, with clear skies to the west (over Kvaløya). Still it took ages before the sun came out – and it came out because the sun sank below the clouds, not because the front moved away 😀

(Click to enlarge, these panoramas really deserve to be viewed full size!)

Åsfjellet is a short walk (it takes just over an hour to get up, 45 minutes to get down), I still had energy left, and I suspected the frontal clouds would colour nicely in the sunset. So I quickly decided to climb another mountain: Movikhammaren, similar in height and length to Åsfjellet. The sun was setting while I ran up the steep path next to the river…

I quickly made it above the treeline and indeed, after the sun disappeared the clouds started to get a deep orange colour – so pretty!

The views were truly breathtaking all the way to the top, with the colours changing constantly until they became pink…

Then purple…

And finally the clouds started to lose their colours, while the horizon remained orange, and the lights on Tromsø island were slowly turned on.

What an incredible evening 🙂

1000-meteren

25/08/2012 Hanneke

On Thursday I drove to Lakselvbukt, around 70 km from Tromsø. Quite a long way to drive to climb a mountain, but it was worth it. The mountain is called 1000-meteren but is actually only 954 m high 😉

The day started sunny and quite warm, but more and more rain showers popped up during the day. None of them hit me though 😀 It was fun to watch the showers on the other side of the fjord…

On the way you pass the 800-meteren (which really is 857 m high, to compensate for the 1000-meteren perhaps? 😉 ), on a very narrow ridge. The path goes below this ridge, it would be madness to follow the top.

There were lots of information signs on this mountain, very nice! Most of them were about Sami language and culture, I have now learned that Jiehkevarri means Big Glacier Mountain and that there is a special word for “snow to make coffee of” in the Sami language. How cool 😀

The description states that the path is “relatively flat” between the 800-meteren and the top, so it was a bit frustrating to find that it actually dropped down 60 m, then climbed another 150. That is not flat for a Dutchie 😛 Anyway, I made it: the top!! It took me a bit more than 3.5 hours.

The views were fantastic, even though some of the surrounding mountains were covered in clouds now.

I didn’t stay on the top for very long, it was cold and windy there. Autumn is near, and I actually found areas with rime on my way up. The bit just below the 800-meteren is a bit tough, scrambling is involved here, but the route is extremely well marked.

From the ridge you have a good view of Store Holmbuktind and the glacier (partly hidden in the clouds in this photo).

And for those interested, here is a map and a profile of the route up 1000-meteren.

After in total 6.5 hours I made it back to the car – tired but very happy after a really nice hike 🙂