Husnebba trail head above Ytre Kavli.
| Husnebba from Ytre
Kavli
(ski) Husnebba |
| Estimated net time | 3½-4 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No technical difficulties, but be aware of the steep drop down Husnebba's south slopes. | ||
| Drinking water | Don't expect access to running water during winter, but in spring there's likely to be running water. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (April 2015). | ||
| Parking | You can either park around the start of the toll road, or you can drive up to the car park 800 metres up the toll road. | ||
| Start height | 187 | ||
| Vertical metres | 625 metres for the roundtrip, assuming you park at the car park at 187m. | ||
| Trip distance | 14.8 km, assuming you park at the car park at 187m. | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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Measure from the E136/64 junction outside Åndalsnes centre and drive road 64 in the direction of Åndalsnes and Molde:
- At 7.0 km turn right where signed for "Grøvdal".
- At 7.3 km turn right.
- At 7.9 km turn left towards "Grøvdal".
- At 9.5 km turn left towards "Måsvassbu".
- At 10.2 km turn left onto a toll road (NOK 40 per 2015).
- At 11.0 km park on the large car park.
From the car park ski along the forest road at the far end of the car park. Cross the stream on a concrete bridge after 500 metres and then turn right in the signed junction 80 metres later. Ski east along the forest road all the way to the last cabins at Kavlisetra, in total 5 km. You're likely to find tracks throughout this section of the route. From here continue east and stay below (north of) Husnebba. Ascend Husnebba via its north slopes and make your way across to the unmarked summit at the far end of the short ridge.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
Sigurd and I had arrived at Bjorli late the night before and the plan for this Saturday was to ski Kjøvskartinden. And with nice and sunny conditions at Bjorli we headed down to Isfjorden after breakfast. But the weather here wasn't as nice as at Bjorli, but still only grey and definitely good enough for a go at the long route ahead of us. And several tens of other skiers were clearly of the same opinion, of which maybe most of them were heading for Kjøvskartinden as opposed to Kyrkjetaket.
When skiing into the valley towards Kavlisetra we saw other skiers ahead of us, including a group of six skiers, and we knew we had a group of five skiers behind us. There were also at least one other skier ahead of us.
After we had ascended the initial 250 vertical metres of Kjøvskartinden's south slopes the visibility was rapidly getting worse and at the bottom of the next steep section, from 1050m, three of the skiers in the group of six had started to descend. Both because of hard snow, but even more so because of accelerating white-out. And Sigurd started to get problems with his split board because he didn't have ski crampons. He tried his luck by walking amongst some boulder out on the left hand side but this wasn't as effective as my ascent after putting on ski crampons. Because of this I decided to continue uphill, and didn't have any problems with the hard snow, but visibility was becoming a serious problem. But I had the remaining three of the group of six just ahead of me and was able to hear and see them now and again. But when they stopped at 1250m I forced myself to re-think my options; I had never been here before, and I assumed there would be cornices in the summit area, and with visibility down to less than ten metres I decided to be sensible and turn around.
Descending was real hell and I was doing more sideways sliding than proper skiing, but still fell several times, not having any idea in terms of orientation. Down at 1100m I re-joined Sigurd and we agreed to head back down, but that I would make a short de-tour to Husnebba. Sigurd decided to visit Aksla instead, since he had seen some possibilities for steeper skiing there, and with better snow than what we had just descended.
After my de-tour to Husnebba, including some falls thanks to flat light, I started the long stretch out the valley, including overtaking two of the group of five. They told me that the other three in their group had been very determined to get to the summit of Kjøvskartinden and were very unlikely not to go all the way. I then skied down to the car and waited a few minutes for Sigurd, and chatted with a Swedish group who had made it to the top of Kyrkjetaket.