Be aware of the cornices on your right (north) as you ski along the ridge.
Kjøsen trail head at car park at 258m.
Along Kjøsen's east ridge.
| Kjøsen from Venås
(ski) Kjøsen |
| Estimated net time | 3-4 hours | ||
| Difficulty |
No technical difficulties, but the final
climb to the summit is steep and you might want to take off your skis
before you take on the final 100 vertical metres. Be aware of the cornices on your right (north) as you ski along the ridge. |
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| 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 | Room for several cars in a number of places, depending on how far up you can drive. | ||
| Start height | 258 metres, but this depends on how far up you can drive. This starting height assumes you drive up to the car park just before the gate, at 258m. | ||
| Vertical metres | 860 metres for the roundtrip, assuming you park at the car park by the gate at 258m. | ||
| Trip distance | 7.9 km, assuming you park at the car park by the gate at 258m. | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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Drive road E136 (which is also E39) east from Ålesund, and turn right towards Åndalsnes to continue on E136 when you get close to Vestnes centre. From here drive approximately 40 km (approximately 10 km shorter when the bridge across Tresfjorden opens in 2015) to Måndalen. When you reach Måndalen drive across the bridge crossing the river and continue another 650 metres. Turn right where signed for "Venås", and start measuring from here:
- At 3.1 km fork right and drive across the bridge.
- At 3.3 km turn left.
- At 5.6 km fork left.
- At 6.1 km turn right across a small bridge.
- At 6.3 km fork left towards "Skarsetra".
- At 6.6 km turn right onto a car park just before a gate. Park here.
From the car park head up to the road above the car park and follow this road 1.4 km to just before a bridge. Turn right and continue on the right (west) side of the river into a small valley. Turn right after approximately 600 metres and climb up onto Kjøsen's east ridge. Follow the ridge a little, and then skirt around point 936m (where you see two cairns) on the left (south) side. Aim for the saddle a little left (west) of point 936m and continue on the ridge, which soon gets quite steep. You might want to take off your skis at the bottom of the steep hill, approximately 100 vertical metres below the summit, or you can ski all the way to the proper summit cairn if the conditions and your skills allow it.
Descend by reversing your ascent route, or alternatively find a suitable route more directly down the north slopes.
I had been granted one of my employer's cabins at Bjorli this week-end and I set off towards Bjorli around 15:30, picking up Sigurd at Digernes on my way. Our plan was to stop and ski Kjøsen and then continue to Bjorli and a relatively late arrival.
We were able to drive up to the car park at 258m, thanks to advice from a guy working down at the small industrial building where the road crosses the river. From this car park we carried the skis up to 330m, in addition to another couple of places a little higher up. And from where we left the road at 470 metres there was sufficient snow for proper skiing as long as we stayed a little down in the south slopes of the ridge, and hence skirting below top 936m.
At 1020m I decided to take off my skis and leave them there since there was a terribly nasty crust and there was no way I was going to descend the steep upper section with snow conditions like today. Sigurd also took off his skis, but since he was going to ski down north from the summit he carried his skis to the summit. But even without skis this section was quite hard with some short steep sections where we sunk a metre deep into the snow.
From the summit we had OK views but a bit of mist spoiled some of the views, although it was sunny at Kjøsen. And with the time now around 7pm we were quite keen to get back down to the car and drive to Bjorli for some kind of dinner (frozen pizza it ended up with). The descent itself wasn't very memorable for me, having to combat different degrees of crust on top of wet snow most of the way down to the forest road. Sigurd however, reported dry powder in the upper section of his route.