I can’t believe it! it’s still possible to run high up in the mountains! I’ve never been able to run this high up so late in the year. Its all frozen stiff but yet there is no snow on the ground.
This weekend the question where to run had been an easy choose. i had an endeavor to do in Seljord and it was still possible to run up high. so the choice was the west of Lifjell or the Skovre mountains. Lifjell it was. I knew there where some trails up ‘Røysdalsnuten’, Lifjells highest peak but the weren’t on my maps. I drove up to the closest parking-lot at Grimås (up a windy toll-road) and started running up the marked trail to Tjorbu too look for a way to get to to Røysdalsnuten. Sure enough a signpost appeared giving the direction to the top, a marked trail that wasn’t on my maps! lucky me!
It was a delightful run and this frozen turf made running soo easy and fast. Usually a large portion of the energy of each stroke goes into the ground, especially in the more moist parts of the route. Now it was all frozen solid and i could fly over it without using any energy on squashing down the ground below. My spiked running shoes even went straight over slabs of ice without a problem. I made one big tumble on the ice when i wasn’t paying attention. haha i even slid 5 meters or so down the ice, those technical clothes are slippery! Except a sore knee i escaped that ice slide quite well 🙂
I knew about some small caves with Quartz crystals in the slopes of Røysdalsnuten so i looked form them a while and found some pretty glassy crystals in one of them. While i grew up i loved looking for minerals while on holiday in Scandinavia. i guess that childhood avocation is still there.
Even though the run wasn’t that long about 14,5km and 750 meters up & down i was just as sore as a longer run. the hard underground made it go fast but it also gave my knees and muscles a harder beating. Sunday became quite a lazy day as my knees where pretty sore, some good memories of the frozen landscape. Maybe another weekend up in the local mountains if it won’t snow?
Trail route Grimås – Røydalsnuten Here
