Start of route to Ulvestadsætra and Grødet.
The path that short-cuts the route along the forest road.
Turn left here to get onto the path to Grødet.| Grødet from Vatne via
Ulvestadsætra Grødet |
| Estimated net time | 2-2½ hours |
| Difficulty | No difficulties. |
| Drinking water | Access to drinking water from some small streams along the forest road. |
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (October 2009). |
| Parking | Room for many cars at car park at trail head. |
| Start height | 129 metres |
| Vertical metres | 565 metres for the roundtrip. |
| Trip distance | 5.7 km |
| GPS-file | X |
| Map |
|
| Route photo |
Start of route to Ulvestadsætra and Grødet.
The path that short-cuts the route along the forest road.
Turn left here to get onto the path to Grødet. |
From Ålesund drive road E39 towards Åndalsnes. Turn left onto road 661 towards Tennfjord/Vatne/Brattvåg at Digerneset and continue for 8.7 km until you get to the intersection of roads 661 and 659 at Eidet (by Tennfjord). There is a toll booth 1.6km after leaving road E39 (NOK 30, October 2009). At the Eidet intersection turn right towards Vatne, staying on road 661. Follow this road across the small bridge above the short river 1.7 km from Eidet. From the bridge continue another 650 metres, ignoring the left turn to stay on road 661. At this point the main road makes a sharp right, but there is also a smaller road heading uphill straight ahead. Turn left onto this smaller road, and turn left immediately after leaving the major road. Drive 300 metres and turn right, and then turn left after another 200 metres. Drive 700 metres uphill along this road until you get to a car park. Park here.
You will see a forest road heading east, blocked by a gate. Pass this gate and follow the forest road uphill. When the forest road does a sharp left after approximately 1.2 km you will see a path continuing straight ahead. Follow this path, which is a short-cut, and you will soon re-join the forest road. After having re-joined the forest road continue another 450 metres, passing the two cabins at Ulvestadsætra. You are now in an almost flat section of the forest road, and you have a very vague path forking off to the left. The thing to look out for is a three metres wide grassy patch going up into the forest. Follow this vague path and you will soon find a wooden pole with red paint. The path is now getting gradually more defined, and there are a number of objects with red paint. Follow this path all the way to the summit, which is marked by a proper cairn.
The descent is best done by reversing the ascent route.
For skiing you should follow the same route as described above.
Elisabeth, Njål and me decided to visit Grødet on this nice autumn Sunday. After some messing around locating the trail head we enjoyed the easy hike along the gravel road towards lake Ulvestadvatnet.
From my previous hike to Grødet (together with Stig back in 2006) I remembered that locating the start of the path above Ulvestadsætra wasn't straight forward, and since I didn't remember the exact point where we were going to exit from the gravel road I decided to ask one of the hikers we met. My straight forward question was "Can you please tell us where the path towards Grødet start?". She just looked at me with great puzzlement, like I had asked "where is the path to Changi-Mangi?", and said something along the lines of "what/where is Grødet?". In response I pointed towards the mountain above us, and after a little back and forth she said that this area was called "Heia", and that are no paths going up there. No wiser, we continued, and understood that we had to rely on my memories from the 2006-hike.
When we got close to Ulvestadvatnet we turned left, and soon found the path leading up to the summit. We also realised that we should have made the exit a couple of hundred metres earlier, but that didn't matter much. This fine path took us all the way to the summit, which was a very windy place. But we managed to find some shelter behind the relatively large cairn, and could sit down and enjoy an apple and a chocolate.
When we got back down to the gravel road we met a couple, and again I asked about Grødet. The husband was almost as puzzled as the woman we had met during our ascent, and this time I got convinced that none of the locals called the mountain in question "Grødet", but used the name "Heia" or "Ulvestadheia". It's interesting how names on maps sometimes are disconnected from the real world ...