Skåla

July 26, 2024

1128m

Molde, Norway

Skåla doesn’t look to offer much from the topographic maps but it boasts over 1000 m prominence and would be the northernmost peak I’ve done, so I was kind of keen. The weather of the 26th was rainy everywhere except for the northern areas in the very early morning, so that would be the plan. Adam decided to finally join for a hike and the plan was made to start walking by 4:30 am. Of course I decided to add Tron into the previous day’s itinerary after making an ascent of Galdhøpiggen which meant an extra 5 hours of driving for the least. Erica and I did not finish Tron until 10 pm and we had about 4 hours of driving to Skåla’s trail-head. I managed to put down about 2.5 hours of driving into the next day but Erica had to take over for the final hour. We did not get there until 2:15 am and the alarm had to be set at 3:45 am at the latest in order to start walking at the planned time. Adam was already there so I must carry on with the plan, but Erica decided to sleep in as she had been feeling rough in the past day or two. There had been very minimal sleep for the two of us since the start of this trip but that has to be expected whenever I’m the trip planner.

I eventually went to bed at 2:40 am and slept for about half an hour. When the alarm went off it took me a few seconds to realize where I was and what I was supposed to do, and that’s why I always set multiple alarms because sometimes I could turn if off without realizing what I was doing. It had happened at least two times in the past when I was extremely exhausted, resulting in hours of waiting for my partners and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Despite the earliness I took my time cooking some ramen and eventually did manage to start hiking as planned.

Erica and I stopped briefly for some midnight photos on the drive

At this extreme latitude it was right around sunrise when Adam and I started at 4:30 am and the morning’s alpenglow was very insane. The north face of Skåla was also more impressive than I thought, suggesting the route being a scramble rather than a hike. I had honestly done zero research besides downloading a GPX track from Peakbook but Adam did consult with Petter about the difficulty of this route, which was supposed to be “class 2” at maximum. Adam went ahead to set the pace because I was still not fully awake, and he opted to go at a furious pace, gaining over 600 m elevation in one hour. I was surprised that I had no trouble in keeping up with the pace despite that I was barely open my eyes. In any case we crossed the lake’s outflow at around treeline and got excellent views while scrambling up the ridge on the climber’s right side of the north face cliffs. There was clearly a path with cairns but sometimes we did have to use our hands and do some route-finding.

Adam negotiating the initial swampy section of the trail

Adam plodding up the initial trail through the forest

The sun’s already above and behind those clouds

Coming to this lake under the north face of Skåla

Adam picking up the paths above the lake

Looking down towards that lake, and it was still in the golden hour

We eventually came to the spot on the NW Ridge where we finally got some views towards the coast line to the west, and the weather really decided to cooperate. We had at least a few minutes of sunshine and that really made our day, as none of us was expecting much of a view based on the forecast. We picked this objective only because it wasn’t supposed to rain in the morning, but the forecast did state 100% cloudy. With the boost in stoke level we dashed up the talus field and made the broad summit, which was anticlimactic as the summit itself was rather rounded and boring. I had to walk around the edges staying at least 10 vertical meters lower to fully soak in the views but Adam opted for a break behind one of those gigantic cairns. It was cold and windy up there and not very pleasant.

We got some views of the inlet to the south

Another view of the lake and the morning skyline, from the NW Ridge

Adam plodding up the flatter section of the NW Ridge

Adam on the NW Ridge with the fjords views behind

The fjord view towards the outer ocean to the west

Adam coming to the gigantic summit cairn. There are a few of those

Store Venjetinden to the south looks big and steep…

Romsadlshorn is a technical climb even by the easiest route

Snøtinden, the highest peak of the peninsula to the north

After taking in enough of the views we decided to quickly descend before the rain came. Again I made Adam to lead the descend as I was tired of thinking, and Adam made a good pace down the scrambling sections. I was wearing trail-runners but Adam opted to wear his mountaineering boots, so I took off after picking up the trail and got back about 15 minutes ahead. Erica was still sleeping and I was expecting that. I decided to go back into the tent as well and ended up sleeping for at least 2 extra hours. I was fully expecting having to break camp in the rain but it never came, and in fact we even got some sunshine and that dried off the tent. We leisurely got up at around 10:30 am. I made another meal of ramen, tomatoes and canned fish for Erica and eventually managed to start driving before noon. The drive towards the next day’s objective, namely Kolåstinden involved taking two ferries and the rain did eventually came while sitting on the first ferry. However, the weather magically improved as we drove towards the second ferry and we made another spontaneous decision to jack up the ambition, that was to grab another P600m objective, namely Tverrfjellet.