Hjerkinn pass: a breath of fresh air

I've just realised that the area that I've been in the last couple of days, up around Narvik and Lofoten, up to Lyngen, is the area of mountains that I flew over several years ago on the way back from Japan in mid winter. Back then I remember being really impressed by the steep pointy mountains from the air, and now I have seen some of them a bit closer. It kind-of completes a circle, somehow!

Now I need to go back there and explore deeper one day...

Meanwhile, further South in the more rounded mountains:

The voyage continues after a restful night train and a change of train in Trondheim.

A wintry scene 

A station en route

Approaching the high mountain pass of Hjerkin, where there is a train station, I came past Oppdal, ski hill again, and then in between some awesome looking mountains.

The view from Oppdal station

Arriving at Hjerkin station, it is a cute, quiet hamlet. There is a hostel here, presumably open only in summertime.

 The view from the station goes skyward:

I saw this little gem of a place on the train ride North the other day, but it was dark. All I could see was a bunch of snow, the altitude of 1000m, and not much settlement. I imagined that it was a plateau with some small terrain features, but getting here this morning, there is a lot more terrain around, so now I have something to climb and ski, to about 1230m.

Back to the same altitude as Chamonix

The station is just to below the centre of this section of map. The mountain is directly South West of there, high point 1233m.

Hjerkin hamlet from above

Some bigger terrain to the North: - oh, for a ski partner, and good snow...

 The snow isn't too special, but theres enough of it. Today the snowpack was pretty stable for avalanche conditions, as the ice has locked it in, but I wanted to avoid the obvious loaded pockets due to a weak layer of faceting crystals near the base of the shallow snow. Its going to get dangerous here when it snows a lot more and the temperature rises again...

Eventually it got tricky to skin uphill...

Boot-pack time

 It ended up being more like ski-mountaineering, especially with the high wind. It wasn't a very big descent, but it was plenty enough given the snow quality.

The climb

The top... and the sun!

The line

There was even a nice line to ski from the top point:

    

The avalanche slope had already naturally slid, when the temperature was high, probably a couple of days ago, and it was now mainly icy. Even so, I avoided the big open area in the centre. I did a lot of hop turns on the ice!

If only it had been good snow, I would have spent the whole day doing short lines - but then I wouldn't have skied the line that I did, as it would for sure have been too loaded.

Now I wait for the darkness, and the 5.30pm train to Oslo in this lonely, wild, windy, mountain cabin of a station. It was great to break the journey like this in the mountains, and it was really refreshing to be on the top of a mountain in the wind.

I feel like I've been away from Chamonix for months, but its only just over a week. I fly back to the alps tomorrow, so will write one more post when I am back in Chamonix on Friday.