15-Jun-2005 -- Too much snow!

After the successful first visit to 61°N 5°E I decided to drive E39 back towards Bergen, while using my cell phone to book a hotel room. However, when it became clear that all hotels in the Bergen area were full, I had to stay overnight in Voss instead.

Voss is about 90 km NE from Bergen, which meant that I would pass relatively close to this confluence! This first visitor noted that he could follow the mountain roads that were put in for the huge hydro-electric power projects in the area: These roads lead all the way up to nearly 1000 m above sea level, and ends less than 5 km from the point.

Since I'm in relatively good physical condition, I thought I could manage the approximately 10 km roundtrip in 60-90 minutes, but as I drove up the switchbacks towards the end of the road, I realized that the special conditions this year, with spring snow melt being more than 3 weeks delayed, could cause problems.

A little later I found that the road was closed by snow at a point where I was at just 750 m altitude, and still a ways from the end. At this point everything above me was covered by deep, wet spring (corn) snow, which would be impossible to cross on foot: Only wide skis and backcountry poles with big baskets could have worked here. Trying to walk to the point was obviously out of the question, so I had to turn back.