Where there is no path, we make one!
The Hallingskarvet mountain range dominates the skyline north of Geilo, a famous Norwegian winter resort. Since we have a small, old and cosy cabin closeby, the 35km wide, standalone summit rock is a familiar sight for us. But only this autumn we had the rare combination of available time and good weather to attempt the summit. Actually, there are several summits, Folarskardnuten with its 1933m being the highest point – far away from Geilo and not easy accessible such as the Prestholtskarvet summit we had chosen. 1859 m of altitude does not sound so much, but this year in September there were already lots of snow at the upper slope of the mountain, so mountain boots and down jacket were a must.
A special attraction on the route to the Hallingskarvet are the “sherpa stairs”, where Nepalese specialists built a Himalaya-style trail out of the surrounding rocks, scenically placed in the middle of a steep gully. A nice walk, and arriving at the summit ridge we headed left, and lost the trail immediately (was there any trail at all?). Jumping from bolder to boulder, crossing snow fields, falling into holes under the snow we made our progress upwards. The view from the summit was great, Gaustadtoppen to the south and Store Skagastølstind to the north – incredible, and not a could in the sky! What could possibly go wrong on the way down? Well, we lost direction and ended up at the ridge and had to cross a steep snow field in order to gain the sherpa stars again – thanks god the snow was deep and soft!
All in all a very good training tour for the real challenge tomorrow: the 22km hike to the iconic Trolltunga!
