Parking and trail head.
| Liafjellet from Apalset Liafjellet |
| Estimated net time | 2-2½ hours |
| Difficulty | No difficulties. |
| Drinking water | Unknown, but probably no access to proper drinking water. |
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (December 2009). |
| Parking | Room for 3-4 cars at trail head. |
| Start height | 146 metres |
| Vertical metres | 390 metres for the roundtrip. |
| Trip distance | 4.5 km |
| GPS-file | X |
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From the E39/E136 junction, at the round-about east of Ålesund, drive 20.4 km on roads E39/E136 to the road 661 exit to Skodje, at Dragsundet. From here continue 4.3 km on road E39, until you have buss stops on either side of the road, and a road going off to the left, heading almost parallel to the direction you arrived. Turn left here, onto the mentioned road. Follow this road uphill for 1.1 km until it ends. Here you will find a small car park on which you can park.
Start walking by following the path in a north-west direction. After some 350 metres the path turns north, east, and then north-east, leading on to the south-west ridge of Liafjellet. Follow this path all the way to the summit. The summit is marked by a trigonometric point and a cairn.
The descent is best done by reversing the ascent route.
I was continuing my Christmas bagging of small local hills, since there was not enough snow for skiing. This Friday I decided to go up one level from the previous days' 250-350 metres tops, to 500+, as I assumed I would still not have any problems with too much snow.
Ideally I would have started my hike dead early, but because I wanted to enjoy the little day-light I could get I waited until late morning before leaving home, and started my hike at 10:40. There were no cars at the small car park, as expected on Christmas Day morning, and the whole hike was done without seeing any other living creatures than an eagle above the summit.
As for the previous days the weather was stunning, although there was a touch of wind today. But as is often the case when the west coast of Norway has fine weather in December it is cold, and cold means water is freezing, which in turn often means that the paths can be covered with thick and dangerous ice. This day was no exception and, as opposed to my hike the previous days, today this was an issue. On a number of occasions I had to leave the path to find "dry land", but as is so often the case you get more and more relaxed as time passes. Today I paid the penalty during my descent, when I had a nasty fall during a lapse in terms of concentration. Luckily nothing was broken, but my pride, but one of my fingers got a bad beating when I landed on my hand. After this accident I consistently stayed off the path, since this was the area with most ice, and managed to get down to the car without any more mistakes.
When I got home it was a quick change of gear and then off to Gamlem for ice-hockey with the rest of the family.