Kjølen trail head by road E39 at Ørskogfjellet.
Final part of skiing route to Kjølen.
| Kjølen from
Ørskogfjellet (ski) Kjølen |
| Estimated net time | 1½-2 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | No stable access to running water during winter. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (March 2014). | ||
| Parking | Room for many cars at car park along road E136. | ||
| Start height | 315 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 240 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 5.8 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
|
||
| Route photo |
| ||
From the round about east of Ålesund (Moa) where roads E39 and E136 intersect drive 28.1 km east on E39/E136, in the direction of Trondheim, to Sjøholt. Continue 10.5 km on E39/E136 to a large car park on the right hand side of the road (this is 2.3 km after you have passed the cafeteria "Fjellstova"). Park here.
Start your hike by crossing the road and ski west/north-west towards the modest top in the distant. When you get closer to the top aim a little left of what appears as the highest point and find your best route up the short section of forest. When the terrain tops out continue north-west to the summit, which is marked by a wooden pole and a few stones.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
I had picked up my new skis (Åsnes Ingstad, which are mountain skis as opposed to randonee), and I was eager to test them this nice Friday. I had skipped my morning run in order to start work really early in order to leave work early, but there were still a lot of cars at the car park around 14:00.
I skied across the flat section towards Kjølen in a fairly leisured pace, partly following some old tracks. The skis worked as well as expected, but the real test would be to see how they behaved when going downhill, which eventually proved to be quite satisfactory.
The ascent of the steeper section through the forest and up to the summit plateau proved to be a little more cumbersome than anticipated, because of loose and wet snow, but with only a few tens of vertical metres there was no reason to complain. Then a short stretch across to the summit, where I spent a few minutes enjoying the slightly hazed views, before carefully skiing down the forest and fine skiing across the flatter section.