I had seen Store Blåmannen from Storkjølen the week before our trip, and could not help but notice how striking this mountain was. It was therefore on my 'to-do' list next time! My friend Pernilla joined me for the tour, and we drove over to Kvaløya in the late morning because the weather had been very cloudy and a bit damp, but the forecast suggested drier and sunny weather towards the late afternoon. So we parked at the bottom of the mountain by Kaldfjord and set off shortly after midday, although it was not possible yet to see the summit!
After getting above the treeline and onto the slabby rock above, the clouds began to break up and soon we got some views of the highest peaks popping out over the cloud base. The scramble was quite pleasant, and there were lots of interesting things to negotiate - crawling through a tunnel, squeezing our way through a narrow crevice....more exciting than I expected! It was quite a relief to reach the summit though, about 2.30pm. We had only seen 2 men before we got there, so we had the summit to ourselves. After taking something to eat and having some cosy hot chocolate, we made a few photos and then began the descent. It took probably just as long to get down as it took to get up the mountain, mostly because we had to take care over the steep sections, and also because the weather was improving and there was much more scenery to stand around and admire :-) A top trip, definitely one I will be doing again I hope!
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