Smørbottfjellet trail head in Skorgedalen.
Cross bridge 110 metres after car park.
Across the flat section below Smørbottfjellet.
Overview of the lower half of the route to Smørbottfjellet.
| Kvasstinden &
Smørbottfjellet from Skorgedalen (ski) Kvasstinden Smørbottfjellet |
| Estimated net time | 2½-3 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties, but show some care with respect to cornices towards north. And the two metres long ridge to get to the true summit of Smørbottfjellet might need caution if there's a lot of snow. | ||
| Drinking water | No stable access to running water during winter, but several streams in spring time. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage gets better the higher you get, and at best very patchy at trail head (March 2014). | ||
| Parking | Room for many cars at car park by trail head. There's in practice a fee (NOK 75 per 2014) since the only access to this car park is via the toll road. | ||
| Start height | 310 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 1015 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 8.7 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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Start measuring from the junction where roads E136 and 64 intersect, south of Åndalsnes, and follow road 64 in the direction of Molde.
- At 0.6 km leave the round about at its second exit, continuing on road 64 towards Molde.
- At 15.1 km turn right where signed for "Skorgedalen".
- At 15.7 km turn left where signed for "Skorgedalen".
- At 16.4 km pay toll at the automatic gate (NOK 75 per 2014).
- At 19.0 km park at the far end of the large car park.
Start skiing by following signs for "Måsvassbu" and turn right across a wooden bridge after 110 metres (signed for "Måsvassbu"). Continue north and make sure you stay right (east) of the river coming down from north. Aim for the saddle between Kvasstinden and Smørbottfjellet when you get up to about 700 metres, and then bear left towards Kvasstinden when you get close to the saddle. Ski up Kvasstinden's south-east slopes to the summit. You will find a couple of small cairn along the short summit ridge.
Descend back down to the saddle and find your best way up Smørbottfjellet's south-west slopes. You will find a proper cairn and an old trigonometric point marker (might well be covered by snow), but the true summit is located 20 metres further north-east. In order to get to the small summit cairn you need to cross a slightly narrow passage, where some care might be required if there's a lot of snow.
Descend by skiing back down to below the saddle between Smørbottfjellet and Kvasstinden, and then reverse your ascent route.
I expected excellent weather this Sunday so left home early in order to get started before the sun had started to melt the snow. Mist around all mountains made me less optimistic, as I was driving along Romsdalsfjorden, but fortunately the mist started to lift as I started my skiing. By the time I got to the summits it was mostly warm sun.
I met a number of other skiers while descending, confirming what I had heard about the popularity of in particular Smørbottfjellet.