After coming down from a nice tour on Togga in Sogndal, im asking Nill what tour we do next, getting answer without any hesitation; Skåla in Stryn. I like to see new mountains so I agreed before nowing anything more then it’s a nice mountain. After taking a look in the book of randonee tours in Norway, I realize its the highest mountain in Norway with its root next to the fjord and a 1800vertm. climb. So there we had the project for the next sunny day.
And its one of the most stunning splitboard tours i have done, its not a technial climb or extremely steep run down. But it starts next to the fjord in Loen close to Stryn and goes straight up to 1848meter above the sea, with nice alternative routes down
On the summit is a tower, Skålatårnet what was build in end of 1800 century for tuberculosis patients(I have not a clue how they got up the sick people there, but somehow they obviously did). Nowadays the tower is open summertime as bivack shelter for hikers. There is also a brand new DNT hut on summit, whats is unbemanned and open whole year around for hikers and skieers, with beds, kitchen and a stunning view over Jostedalsbreen from big panorama windows.
This winter it has been quite warm in Norway and even if it was in beginning of March the snowlevel was on 650meter. First part of tour was bootpacking on the marked trail, with gear on backpack to about 700meters. Even if snowlevel was on 650m the powder started already at 750meters so it was quite fast change of climate. The route to the summit is quite clear and variates in steepness between 20-35degrees.
While hiking up direction summit it many times came in my mind that this tour has a lot of similarities to climb and ride Grossglockner(Austrias highest mountain) from Kals.
Both tours has about 1800vert of hike from the parking, both are quite easy with a couple of steeper parts and both its recommended to stay in some of the nice huts and do it to a 2 days tour. Both offers amazing run down in variated terrain and an amazing view. Grossglockner over all the huge glaciers and Skåla over Nordfjord and Jostedalsbreen glacier. The biggest different was that, on Skåla we was completely alone on the whole mountain even if the sun was shining, no wind and Saturday.
We did the tour in one day, even if the new hut was really tempting to stay overnight in. When having dogs waiting for you at home, you have to make priorities. The whole tour up and down took around 7 hours with an long lunchbreak in the summithut. The hardest part was the 650vertm. downhill walking with all the gear on the back and in snowboardboots, my legs was screaming for help before we came back to the parking.(I was dumb and didn’t bring hiking shoes for the trail), so learning by doing.
What an amazing day it was!