Røldal – Topptur

Over the weekend Anti and I went to Røldal for some topptur or what we Brits call Ski-mountaineering! We drove from Bergen on Saturday in the r ain, and this continued till we got to Røldal! I was not impressed but I was with the valley or dale running up from Odda. I remember how beautiful this valley was when I first visited Norway on my motorcycle in 2004. This place is truly magical, and the somewhat decaying industrial town of Odda somehow seems to this in really well. Its quite an amazing town, it has this very fine old part with wooden buildings and then this huge industrial estate right in the middle and for what I can see its decaying with all these cranes smashing it apart. You drive above this town, to this lack, which is surrounded by just amazing waterfalls (Ice climbing alarm! Beeb beeb!), huge rock walls (Rock alarm! Beeb! Beeb!), and endless boulders (bouldering alram! Beeb! Beeb!). Its just great! We didn’t actually stay in Røldal but in a DNT hut called Haukeliseter, which is right by the road, and has a restaurant and café. It also had a sauna with a huge glass window in it so you could sit and go wow and ooughh! Also a hot tub!

Anyway Anti and I went for a wee Topptur, but as it was raining I was running low on get up and go, so begrudgingly went. We had no map or clue what we where getting into. At first it was flat, but we then started climbing up, I dug some snow pit ad waffled on about how I would not like to be on a convex, followed by concave slope to day in large numbers. There was loads of avalanche debris around, but thankfully old, so we carried on, it started to get really steep, and we both started making noises about it being steep! So we topped out, and both decided not to ski back down what we had flogged our way up! And made the dreaded mistake off looking for another decent, without a map, weather deteriorating and visibility starting to fad! This was bid mistake, as the ground suddenly became very steep, so I traversed over to a gully, which looked okay, and started to descend, very carefully! While traversing I started a very small surface avalanche, more a surface slump, and they are not uncommon this time of the year, with the top section of the snow becoming very warm and slushy in the daytime sun, I shouted back to Anti to avoid this slumping, as although not enough to bury you, enough to sweep you off a cliff, which had handily appeared! After this I started to feel that sick feeling and that voice was starting to say, your fucked! Then I noticed I was right in a concave part of a slope, below a convex section, and this slope was sizable. Everything I had s aid to avoid before! I just went into survival mode and instructed Anti to ski from rock out crop to rock outcrop, we both pepper potted down the slope, it was really steep, and all the time we triggered these sluthing avalanches that ran out 200-300 m down the slope. Eventually we skied out, and I was much relieved. After wards I explained it all to Anti who was much relieved that I had not told him everything that was going on through my mind as he would have become extremely anxious. Back at the car, I looked back and noticed the gully we descended was twice as steep as the one we had backed off. Lesson learnt!

On Sunday we teamed up with Anti’s friend from Stavanger called Tobion. Tobion is ultra fit! And this New Zealand guy turned up, called Kes. Kes talked a lot, more than me, and always about how much things cost! We set off for some peak, again with no map, but I had the GPS so I logged our journey in case of bad weather. At first is was very easy angled, but then Tobion made some bee line for this face and off he went. He never broke stride all the w ay up the hill, even on the really steep section! Anti, Kes and I found the steep section, really steep and I had a moment of blind panic when I had to turn on the steepest part. I actually dug a pit, sat in it and then turned around! Kes made comments like he would climb down this bit, and if he had a rope he would use it. We all agreed a fall would be very serious, and when we traversed above the cliff, a fall would have been helicopter time! The weather was fantastic, and eventually we climbed above the difficulties and onto the summit, were Tobion had been sitting probable for some time. Tobion and Kes zipped off, and Anti and I had some lunch and slowly made our ay down on almost perfect conditions. I made a few moves! It was great. Approximately 5km to the summit from the road, resulted in 5km run back to the car. Perfect. The steep section was steep, and need quite a lot of care and defensive skiing. A fall here would be serious, and you could easily fly for several hundred meters until you hit the valley floor!

A good weekend!