Route from Hovdesetra towards Skarven.
| Skarven from Lia (ski) Skarven |
| Estimated net time | 3-4 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | Several sources of running water below Hovdesetra during spring. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage in the lower section and at the summit, else unknown (April 2014). | ||
| Parking | There's no proper parking but you will find space for a couple of cars. | ||
| Start height | 10 metres (if starting down by the main road) | ||
| Vertical metres | 1090 metres for the roundtrip (if starting down by the main road). | ||
| Trip distance | 9.8 km (if starting down by the main road) | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From the bridge across the river at the south end of Innfjorden, on road E136, drive 1.7 km in the direction of Ålesund. Turn left onto a gravel road immediately after a small bridge and find parking without blocking for other traffic. Alternatively drive 230 metres to the end of the road by a house and park there (you need to ask for permission as this is private land!). A third option, which also requires permission from the owner of the house, is to drive across the grass below the house and continue on the rough forest road. A 4WD is required. If driving uphill make sure you fork left in the road junction 230 metres above the house, and then continue as far as your car is suited for. There are several places to park along the road.
Wherever your skiing starts continue on the forest road up to the buildings at Hovdesetra at 570 metres. From here turn right and ski directly north up to a small saddle at 950 metres. Then turn left (south-west) and follow Skarven's wide north-east ridge to the unmarked summit.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
This was a Friday evening hike, together with Elin and Lene. When we left the main road down by the fjord and started looking for somewhere to park we got the idea to continue up the road and see what we would find in terms of parking. When we got to the house at the end of the road Lene walked across to the house and asked the owner if we could park there. She then asked if we were going skiing, and then kindly offered us to drive further up, as far as we wanted. We therefore drove up to 160 metres, from where there started to be snow on the road. But we had to carry our skis all the way up to 360 metres before we found continuous snow worth skiing.
Skiing up from Hovdesetra was OK, and above the forest the snow was very hard without being icy. Unfortunately we chose a route going a little left (west) of what's probably ideal, and it got steeper than comfort on the hard snow. We therefore had to traverse a little from 900 metres, which wasn't as easy as we had hoped for because of the hard snow. But we made it to the north-east slopes in acceptable style and then easy skiing to the summit.
The summit views were excellent, and the start of the descent, where you feel like you're skiing straight down towards the fjord, is a very nice experience. And the hard snow made skiing nice and easy. Down in the forest the snow was a little softer, but this section also offered good skiing. And finally the forest road had hard snow, which made it relatively easy to control the speed. Then home for a late dinner and a couple of beers.