Mount Kenya

Date:

01.07.2012

Characteristic:

Hike

© Hannah Vickers A six-day trip with friends from Norway, Germany and Iceland to Point Lenana on Mount Kenya, following the Sirimon route on the ascent and Chogoria route on the descent. Day 1 : Drove from Nairobi to the Sirimon park gates, a short distance from Nanyuki. Took a 3-hour walk to the Old Moses camp at 3300m where we were staying for 2 nights. Weather was pleasant with a few spots of rain but good visibility. Day 2: Acclimatisation walk from Old Moses Camp ...To a viewpoint at 3900m looking over the Liki valley. Initially good sunny weather but it clouded over by about 9 or 10am, so we wended up having lunch at the view point in cloud and some light drizzle. Fortunately we got back to the Old Moses camp again before the really heavy downpours of rain started in the afternoon. Nice sunset just before >>>

Segla

Date:

17.06.2012

Characteristic:

Hillwalk

Duration:

3:00h

© Hannah Vickers Segla is a beautifully-crafted peak along the east side of Mefjord. Its all in the name. You can't help but be mesmerized by its distinctive shape when seen from one of the other nearby mountains. For me, my first encounter with this stunner was on Breidtinden on the day before we went on the hike up Segla. So anyway, this was going to be our Sunday afternoon stroll in the mountains on the second day of the very excellent weekend trip to Senja with the fjellsportgruppa i Troms. It all started with a very laid back start, pulling back the zipper on the tent door and being greeted to the most wonderful sight of the beach at Ersfjord. It was all a bit too good to be true, and my spirits were only marginally dampened by the fact I had to drink instant coffee on this morning because I didn't have >>>

Breidtind

Date:

16.06.2012

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

6:00h

© Hannah Vickers Today marked the first day of an incredible weekend in the mountains on Senja, and what better company to spend it with than the fjellsportgruppa i Troms? The weekend kicked off with a relatively early start meeting up at ICA Langnes to split into 3 cars. Yngve and Fredrik were both leading the trip together, and on first meeting them I already had the impression that this was going to be a trip with a lot of laughs and good humour. I was not wrong. Other than them, there were two other guys - Gregers and Werner, and two other girls joining in Tromsø, a Czech PhD student called Ilona and a just-graduated student named Solveig who had just finished her Bachelor studies up on Svalbard and was 'passing through' Tromsø on her way back down to Oslo for the summer. Us girls got together in my car >>>

Nordtinden

Date:

13.06.2012

© Hannah Vickers This evening my friends Lene Østvand and Mona Kaupang were joining me on a fellestur to Nordtinden, organised by Ti på Topp. It wasn't such promising weather when we started to leave Tromsø, and the mountains on Kvaløya were looking decidedly damp! But in honesty, I think I was the more pessimistic one of the three, and both Lene and Mona seemed quite upbeat about a good trip being on the cards. As we drove up on the Rv58 along the east side of Storkjølen though, a slightly brief but heavy shower of rain dispersed the hopes a little. But it got better, after passing through the tunnel and driving toward Skulsfjord, where we were meeting the rest of the group, we could actually see some patches of broken cloud and some mountains again. So hope was still there! We were supposed to be meeting >>>

Store Russetinden

Date:

10.06.2012

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

7:00h

© Hannah Vickers Fjellsportgruppa in Tromso arranged this trip to Store Russetinden, the first hike of the year to begin the summer season. I was very excited to not only be joining a group of new people and have their company, but also to be making an ascent of one of the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen from the E8. So we met up at Nansenplass at 0900 and had a short briefing from the turleder Harald before making the road trip down to Nordkjosbotn in a convoy of 4 cars. I had in my car 3 other girls; Mona from Trondheim, Maja from Denmark and Lena who was from the Balsfjord area (quite a local!). We had a nice chat while driving through a sunlit Ramfjord, and then through Lavangsdalen toward Balsfjord. All the familiar mountains were starting to come into view for me, but the difference was on this >>>

Skamtinden

Date:

08.06.2012

Characteristic:

Hillwalk

Duration:

4:00h

Distance:

5.0km

© Hannah Vickers This was a really great evening trip after work, one that nearly didn't happen because it had been a bit of a rainy day and I was thinking to postpone the hike. Fortunately, neither Ane or myself decided to call each other in the end and we met up as planned, at the K1 car park. We took my car out onto Kvaloya and took the road around the northern side of the island towards Tromvik. Up until then the road surface had some bumps but then between Tromvik and Rekvik it turned to gravel instead, so it took a long time just to drive those few kiometres further to Rekvik, where we were starting the hike from. So, straight out of the car it was cool but not cold, and it was straight up the mountain from there. It was a well-marked trail through the forest on the lower part of Skamtinden, which helped >>>

Andersdaltinden

Date:

16.05.2012

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

5:30h

© Hannah Vickers The weather was forecasted to be 12 degrees and sunshine, so I seized the moment and decided to go on a trip instead of going to work! I decided to return to Andersdaltinden, since I had not made the summit on the previous attempt almost 2 weeks earlier because of really strong winds on the mountain. Parked up at about 0915 at the bottom near the information area and began the hike up through the forests. The snow was, as I expected, super soft but seemed quite stable. But it was mega hard work, and many times during the first half hour of the hike I didn't think I would bother going much farther before giving up on the mission! However, I had my mp3 player banging out some great tunes and since there was no hurry to get back I made a point of persevering with the hike and just thought of the >>>

Blåtinden

Date:

21.04.2012

Characteristic:

Snowshoe trip

Duration:

5:00h

© Hannah Vickers The hike up Blåtinden was a something of a multi-visit trip, since I had made an ascent of this mountain in the autumn of 2011 with my sister, and remember the views as being really good, especially when you get quite high on to the upper slopes of the mountain. Then, in January I also took a hike in the hope of seeing the sun make its return back to the Arctic, but the hike had taken me a very long time (we're talking like 2 hours here), just to get up and above the forests on the very lowest part of the mountain - simply because there had been such deep snow to hike through and at that point in the season had not discovered the possible benefits of snow shoes or skis......! This time however, I had plenty of daylight and was armed with snow shoes. When I parked at the foot of the mountain >>>

Fløya

Date:

14.04.2012

Langdale circuit

Date:

07.04.2012

Characteristic:

Hillwalk

A chilled out day walk with a group of walkers I met in Langdale. We headed up toward Red tarn below Pike of Blisco first, then up the nice gentle slopes to Long Top. From there you get nice views over the Langdale valley, and then a little bit of excitement to do the Bad Step to get to the second top on Crinkle Crags. More undulating walking follows before reaching Three Tarns, from where we took a quick dash to the top of Bowfell and then back down the Band to return to Great Langdale. A nice day, but not all that challenging in terms of strenuousness. Still, it was a pleasant weather and good company too.