Easter Weekend

Now that Katharine has moved back to the UK there is no long Easter holiday for her! So I worked until Thursday and she came over that evening.

Friday we lazed around the house and got some jobs done before going for a walk on Sotra. Saturday morning we headed down to Rosendal with the goal of doing some ski mountaineering in the Rosendal Alps. Got off late, then arrived at lunchtime, didn't really matter since the days are pretty long now. Drove up to Myrdalsvatnet, with a plan for a peak called Omnentinden then another called Melderskin. About two klicks from the parking the track got a bit hairy and we found a car in a ditch, so we decided to walk from there.

Walking the last bit

The first bit of the ascent was pretty grim, crashing through a tight forest with just enough snow to fall through into the holes. I was on snowshoes but even Katharine was struggling on skies and there was plenty of evidence for previous parties having removed skies and waded. Eventually we got out of the trees and the landscape opened up and things got a lot better.

Better out of the trees

The cloud level was high and the views were stunning. We came across a couple of other parties and everyone was friendly and surprisingly sociable. The party ahead of us turned back and we met another couple of guys coming down who said it was very windy on top. We carried on up but as we got onto the top of the first peak, it was super windy so we found a sheltered boulder and had a late lunch before heading down. Had an excellent run into a bowl and down at least half way through the trees before it got to tight. Had been worried about the avalanche conditions before going up but it was extremely benign. Was glad to have the snowshoes for the final walk out the forest and we were back at the car by 8. We had planned to camp and do another tour the next day but the weather was closing in fast and the forecast was crap. So we submitted to the siren call of the hot tub abd a comfy bed and headed back to the lair.

Great run down with enough snow to be fun, but not enough to be slidey-dangerous

Spent the last two days doing lots of jobs around the place, finished the bar; painted a load of bits; built a sink stand - all very rock n roll! But it was relaxing and great to get it all out the way while the weather was crappy.

Would definitely go back to Rosendal, really nice mountains