Tromsdalstinden (27.07.2012)  

After almost 4 days of rainy weather, yet another window of hiking opportunity was forecasted for Friday evening and Saturday morning. I was sceptical of course, since the previous 'sunny' spell had not come when it had been forecasted. As things turned out, Friday was looking decidedly un-sunny until the evening...... then within about 1/2 hour the skies over Tromsø rapidly changed from overcast to clear and blue; we had a trip. My fiends Kristina and Ka Yan, who are also doing the Ti på Topp list, came up with an idea to take a night trip to Tromsdalstinden, and meet up at kl. 21 to start. Sounded quite an enticing idea to me, and I agreed. And that's how it started. At kl.21 we left the parking space in Tromsdalen and began the slightly tedious march up the forest track. It was quite a pleasant temperature, about 9 deg., so also relatively cool. It was about a 3km walk on this track until we finally took the trail leading down to the Tromsdalselva on our left, bearing in an easterly direction. Initially the path goes down a little bit, but after this it was quite a change in gradient and back up the mountain again for about 1km until we were high enough to be above the tree line and get some good views over the island and across to Kvaløya.

It felt good to be breathing in fresh air again, and the thin layer of clouds to the north scattered the sunlight quite beautifully. The views, as expected, just got better and better the higher we climbed, and I hardly noticed the time ticking away. The sunlight and exercise was having only positive impacts on mood, and I felt like I was bouncing up the mountain with energy and in high spirit! A bit of a change considering that at kl. 18 I had a headache and was already feeling ready to go to bed...... Kristine and Ka Yan were unfortunately not feeling quite so energetic, but a bit apprehensive at the sight of the route in ahead of us, which rose sharply up the north/western shoulder of Tromsdalstinden. I had to agree that it was a little bit steep at times, and did my best to convince them both that it wasn't as strenuous or as scary as it looked! That part went fairly slowly - not that it mattered of course since we had endless time to get up the mountain, but by the time we'd finally overcome the steepest part and reached the start of the ridge leading across to the summit, it was a lot windier and definitely colder. It was no longer vest top weather but time to throw on a warm jacket! By this time it was getting close to midnight, and I realised that even though there was no longer any more midnight sun in Tromsø, we would still have it because we were up high :-) It took only 1 hour more for us all to make the final walk up the ridge and traverse across to the summit.

There were some really brilliant views down to the left side of the ridge, looking across toward the Lyngen peninsula in the east and also down into Ramfjord. By this time the summit was so close and the walking was easy. I think it was around 1am when we were all together and signing the turbok which was inside the metal box. Kristine whipped out some chocolate and shared it around between us, which was a nice treat to keep our spirits up for the rather tedious descent back down the south-western arm of the mountain. We probably spent around 1/2 hour at the summit, just admiring the scenery and wonderful purple/pink/orange colours in the sky, taking photos, jumping and having some drinks and snacks to refuel us with energy. After that we were all feeling cold enough to want to move on quickly again, and so we did just that. The trail going down the other side of Tromsdalstinden was quite well-marked by red splodges of paint on some rocks, but they soon disappeared after a couple of hundred metres. But since I'd already hiked Tromsdalstinden before, I knew the key to getting down the right route was stick closer to the southern side of the 'ridge', and at least doing this we'd end up at the right place at the col between Tromsdalstinden and Rødryggen. And the good thing about this was that the views across the fjord and down Lavangsdalen were brilliant, always one of my favourites - as well as the view over towards Hamperokken on the other side of Ramfjord. Somehow that initial descent from the summit to the pass between the two mountains took what seemed like forever to walk, and it was not until about 2.30am that we reached there. On our way we had a rather awkward encounter with a couple and their 2 dogs, when they appeared to be having some sort of domestic crisis and yelling at each other. Fortunately for me I guess, I didn't actually understand what they were saying...........But from there, the trail skirted beneath Tromsdalstinden's western side (sadly not in the sunshine at this time of the morning) and followed the course of one of the many rivers which passes across some slightly boggy ground. Apart from that bit though, the majority of the path was on good, solid - but soft surface, and it was kind to our very tired feet, which I thought could only ever be a good thing. It took much longer to get down than we all would have liked, but I think we were all starting to feel pretty tired and sleepy at that point, and motivation was running a little low. Nevertheless, there was at least some beautiful scenery for all of the way down to keep us distracted from the tiredness. 3.30am and we were most of the way back down to the forest track again, and from there it was 1 more hour of walking about 4km to get back to where the cars were parked. That was probably the most boring part of the trip, but it had to be done and I think we were all very relieved when we finally got there! It had been a really worthwhile trip, simply for the amazing sunset colours and the experience of just walking through the night - not something I have really made the effort to do until now. Personally I don't think Tromsdalstinden is the most exciting mountain you could climb in the area, but it does offer a fairly long day out and lots of very good views - in all directions.