Hysåsen & Kistå trail head in Sødalen.
Start of path to Hysåsen.
| Hysåsen & Kistå from
Sødalen Hysåsen Kistå |
| Estimated net time | 2-3 hours | ||
| Difficulty | The route is in general wet and boggy, but the only touch of difficulty is a couple of sections up to Kistå, which might be categorised as YDS 2+. | ||
| Drinking water | There are a couple of streams along the route with OK water. | ||
| GSM coverage | Good coverage throughout the route (October 2015). | ||
| Parking | Room for a few cars at trail head. | ||
| Start height | 91 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 550 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 4.9 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From the Kristiansund/Molde/Kvalvåg junction north on the island Frei drive 3.2 km towards Molde. Turn left towards Sødalen, fork left after 1.8 km, and park at the end of the road after yet another 700 metres.
Start your hike by following the rough forest road that continues after the car park and turn a little right onto a rough path after 100 metres. Follow this path uphill, through the pass, and down on the south side of the pass. Note that the path is marked with red paint on the trees as you descend. Turn right when you get to a forest road and follow this forest road 330 metres. Turn left across a slightly boggy section and turn left again once you join a better forest road (after some 30 metres). Follow this forest road 200 metres and turn left onto a path signed for Hysåsen. You now have a little more than 200 vertical metres on partly boggy path to the summit of Hysåsen. You will find a summit registration book approximately 50 metres south-west of the true summit.
From Hysåsen descend via your ascent route, all the way back to where you joined the forest when coming down from Sødals-skaret. Turn left and head back up to the pass, through the pass, and head uphill on a vague path a little before the terrain gets steeper back down to the car. If you don't find the path you just have to find your best route all the way to the small summit cairn of Kistå.
From Kistå head back down to the pass, turn left, and walk back down to the car.
Elisabeth and I were staying in Kristiansund for boys-16 handball matches, where Njål was in goals for Spjelkavik. Since Njål's first game this Sunday was as late as 14:05 we decided to "finish off" my Kristiansund tops before the first game and left the hotel around 09:30, with Sødalen as the target. We found this target without any issues and started our hike at 09:50.
As I've learned from this and one previous visit to Frei the concept of dry paths don't exist so I was well prepared for the boggy sections we had to "fight" our way through. The terrain wasn't technically difficult, but with some fairly steep sections with very wet ground it was above all a question of being willing to just keep going. This "willingness" took us to Hysåsen, where we did a more direct route than what is probably considered normal when ascending, but we did the "normal" route back towards the valley and then followed the forest road to where we had to head uphill to Sødals-skaret. If I was to walk the same route again, which I will not, I might well walk the same route as we did on this Sunday.
After having completed Hysåsen and gone back up to the pass above Sødalen (Sødals-skaret) we messed around a little before finding an acceptable route to Kistå, but when descending we found the start of the vague path also down in the pass. Then it was back down to the car and back to Braatthallen for a long afternoon with handball, which brought three points in three matches over the two days.