Hiorthfjellet (26.03.2011)  

One of my most memorable days on Svalbard ever. Hiortfjellet had been one of the iconic mountains of all my visits to Svalbard since being a UNIS student in 2007, but somehow I'd never found people to do the trip up there with. But finally, during the week leading up to the hike, I found some students who were also interested in taking a trip to Hiortfjellet as well and quite fortunately some of them had snowmobiles, which made getting across Adventdalen a lot quicker! We had the perfect weather for it too. Another very sunny and warm day, although you'd never have guessed it was still -22. Anyway, a group of us - around 8 altogether, scootered out and over the fjord to Hiorthhamn and parked up beside one of the cabins. From there we followed the scooter tracks up to the TV station. I guess we could have cut the journey short by scootering all the way up to the station but that would be missing the point of actually getting a good quality hike on a fine mountain. The views all around us were unsurprisingly brilliant and it was just such a good feeling to be finally out on a peak which had stood on my wish list for several years.

Only when we got above the TV station did the wind really start to pick up much more. We had stopped a little before this to have a break, enjoy the views and rearrange layers, but only a short while after the break I had to get some warmer clothes and mitts back on again. Unfortunately while I was rearranging the contents of my rucksack I managed to drop one of my mitts and it was swiftly whipped away down the mountain with the wind. Fortunately I still had some soft shell gloves, so I tried as best I could to keep my hand warm by keeping it inside my pocket.

The really great time came when we got to the beautiful ridge leading up to the summit plateau, probably still only at about 600m elevation, so about 2/3 of the way up. But the long-awaited views over the other side and northwards into the next valleys finally came and it was so nice to stop and gaze at the mountains all around. We finally made it up to the top at around lunch time, stopping for just long enough to have something warm to drink and a little to eat too. There was still a little breeze though, and it was enough to chill us down very quickly, so we didn't stay too long before beginning the descent back down the ridge. Our proper stop to sunbathe came again on the snowy slopes above the TV station. It was so warm. And such a beautiful spot to look over the town on the other side of the valley and across to the well-known peaks of Platåfjellet, Nordenskiold and Trollsteinen.

It was getting on for about 3pm by the time we finally decided to start on our way back down to the scooters again, but being drenched in lovely warm sunshine all the way it seemed a bit of a shame to have to return to the town which was now in shadow. Nevertheless, we finished off our superb, magical day by gathering in the student barracks in the evening and having a trip-planning session over potato chips and soda. What a dream day we'd had! Finally I had got the experience of visiting (in my opinion) Adventdalen's most idyllic mountain :-)