Vindsåshornet

After our lunch stop we decided to head up in the direction of the tallest peak. As we were climbing we passed many powerful waterfalls; the sound not dissimilar from a jet engine. On the quieter stretches though I noted the clarity of the tiny streams that fed the larger watercourses further down. This place beautiful both in its grandeur and its details.

Shortly after however it became apparent that we had taken a path other than that which we intended. Some of the way markers are painted onto rocks, and we suspect we missed some that were covered by the patchy snow lower down. This put us on the wrong side of a large waterfall, whose nearest crossing is back down the mountain side (around 300m above the fjord, by this time were in the region of 600m above it).

Time had also gone on; by this point it was around 19:45, so we concluded there was no time to back-track and do the walk we had planned (at least not to do it and be sure of being off the mountain before darkness fell). Given that we decided to press on with the route that we were following.

Normally the route we were following was less technical; graded a difficulty 3 out of 4, but in April it is covered in over a foot of snow. This made for heavy going, and before too long we had an equipment problem. Chris’s over-trousers don’t tighten at the ankle (ironically, my much older, cheaper ones do); this allowed snow to get under the trouser hem and over the top of his boot. As a consequence melted snow had left him with wet feet.

By this point we were (we estimate) around 700m up the slope (the peak of this particular mountain lies at around 1,400m. This high, and in these temperatures having soaked feet is no small issue, so we decided that 700m is high enough and turned around at about 20:15. On the bright side, the rain had stopped by this point.Read more