Nordtinden (13.06.2012)  4

Written by hmsv1 (Hannah Vickers) GSM

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Ascents Nordtinden (640m) 13.06.2012

This evening my friends Lene Østvand and Mona Kaupang were joining me on a fellestur to Nordtinden, organised by Ti på Topp. It wasn't such promising weather when we started to leave Tromsø, and the mountains on Kvaløya were looking decidedly damp! But in honesty, I think I was the more pessimistic one of the three, and both Lene and Mona seemed quite upbeat about a good trip being on the cards. As we drove up on the Rv58 along the east side of Storkjølen though, a slightly brief but heavy shower of rain dispersed the hopes a little. But it got better, after passing through the tunnel and driving toward Skulsfjord, where we were meeting the rest of the group, we could actually see some patches of broken cloud and some mountains again. So hope was still there! We were supposed to be meeting at the forsamlingshuset in Skulsfjord, but as none of us had been there before, we had some problems finding it at first, so we ended up having to call the guy Pål, who was leading the hike, to find out where exactly it was. Turned out the car park was tucked away on a side road and this wasn't signposted, so its not like it was the most obvious place for newcomers to find!
Finally we parked up about 5 minutes late, and the rest of the group had already started the walk, but Pål was there waiting for us and we got out and began the catch up as fast as possible. It was at first, a little chilly and as always I'd made the mistake of throwing on an extra jacket, but within five minutes of brisk walking that came off again... Initially it was a 2km walk up Skulsfjorddalen, a green but not very interesting valley running more or less north-south on the east side of Nordtinden. We caught up with the remainder of the hiking group shortly before the climb up Vågsaksla began properly. Surprisingly, the group was mainly composed of women, and with the exception of the group leader himself, there was only one other guy - I'm thinking he must either of been feeling a) very pleased or b) very left out !
Anyway, after we'd caught up and had a quick change of clothes and something to drink, the group set off together again and at quite a brisk pace too. As always some people seemed to get a little left behind the ones racing off at the front, but it just meant having to stop often to wait. Personally I think it would have made more sense to walk slower and stop less. As we got higher and higher, we were rewarded with great views out and t the northeast and over the open, low lying land which was fragmented only by lakes - the larger of them being Skulsfjordvatnet, Langevatnet and Småvatna. The path up the eastern back of Nordtinden itself was pretty uninteresting, and only the ever-improving views brought some excitement into the route. It did seem at one point though that we were under the only patch of blue sky and that made me, if not the others too - feel very smug indeed........yet another day of hiking to prove that the coastal peaks get the best weather, while looking back south to the mainland we saw huge blankets of cloud still obscuring all of the high peaks. The snow was in good form for hiking too, and it was easy to plod up the gentle slopes which was interspersed with lovely granite boulders all the way up to the summit. And from there it was quite a magical spot to stand and take in the marvellous mountains, fjords and islands all around us. It was on the chilly side though, so we all donned a few more layers before finding some sun bathed rocks to sit and have some snacks. I'd brought a flask of hot water and some hot chocolate powder, so that worked out really nicely for warming up the fingers a bit! There was hardly any wind where we'd sat which made it ever the more pleasant to soak up every minute of golden sun bliss :-) The north face of Blåmann was as stunning as ever, and it dominated the view all the way down, looking out on the right of Vågsaksla and also once we returned to Skulsfjord. I'd noticed that people had started to become a bit more talkative and mingled a bit more once we'd had a few stops and also once we got to the top which was nice - because until then it had been a bit silent on the way up!
It was a shame to stop walking once we'd got back down to the cars. All I wanted to do was find another mountain to hike up and enjoy the fantastic break in the weather which we'd been so fortunate to have had! Still, it was going to be nice to drive home and have something a bit more substantial to eat. Another great hike in yet another amazing corner of Kvaløya!

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