In retrospect - Road trip on the Swedish west westcoast and southern Norway - Part 4

On a lovely sunny day we found our way to Ravnåskollen in Drammen, Norway.

Ravnaskollen-crag














Driving there went through some remote area with very few houses and we had a little bit of trouble finding the site at first. The last part to the site is a gravel route, and we had to use GPS to get there. You'll pass some single houses on the last part of the way and if I remember correctly there is a lake a bit off behind some forest to your right and the rise is on your left. At one point you come to a small open gravel area that could resemble a parking lot. There was nobody at the site when we got there, so not very crowded ;)

Probably there is a path up to the rock, but we didn't look for it. Instead we took the straight route up and the walk was short, but really very steep. The steep was covered with leaves and just a tad slippery, but with some struggle we got up to the rock.
There we found several sports climbing routes and this is where I did my first outdoor lead climb.

Ravnåskollen has 9 sports routes, the easiest being 4+ and the most difficult one being a 7a+. The 4+, called "De første stegene" or "The first steps" was my maiden climb (pic). As I have not done lead climbing indoors (which wise people consider to be the way to begin) this was an easy alternative way to start.  The rock had some lichen to be cleared away at each step. Wearing gloves might be an idea too depending on your skin status.

We had brought our picnic stuff and had coffee and snacks with us. We had a great weather with sunshine overhead and shade from the trees that surrounded us.
There were lots of signs of this being a moderately frequented spot, even if not as much as the previously mentioned Vindön. Nonetheless I guess we were just lucky to have all the space for ourselves.

Ben tried a 6a+ route among other routes here. The last one he did was "Opp til utsikten" - "Up to the outlook/view point". That is a long route of over 30 meters (pic) that seems quite fun. Abseiling down is not so bad either. :-)

At some point we realized we had to travel on, we had a hotel room waiting for us some ways off. So pack the climbing gear, dust off all our stuff - there are ticks in the Nordic forests, and off we drove.

The hotel I had booked had a sauna and a pool - one night in the forest in a tent, one night in a hotel with all extras. Whats not to like?

The hotel we went to was Arendal Herregaard Spa & Resort, a beautiful building placed near to the water in Arendal.The main building is visually very pleasantly decorated. Our accommodation was not so impressive, however. The room was tiny, the building had signs of age and water damage in the door so it was difficult to lock. The place was pretty nice even so.

We got there a bit late in the evening and hurried to get to the pool to get as much time there as possible. It's funny how childishly much you can enjoy splashing around in pool of water, no matter your age, your university years or how much authority you express on a regular work day. ;-) We spent the evening in the pool and sauna until the spa area closed.

The next morning we had breakfast included and I really enjoyed the buffet. The coffee was good, they had alternatives for allergics and they made omelettes on the go if you wanted that.

Our next goal on our super short, mega effective road trip was  Froland, a spot that also can be found in Arendal. All about that in the next post.

28th of August - France - back to the north

Last day, heading home. We got up early today, or as early as one can and still sleep late, 8AM. Our check out time was 10 AM so we had time for packing, having a weirdly spartan breakfast after this exercise vacation, making lunch for later with whatever we still had in the fridge and even chatting with the owner, in French. Turns out there is a via ferrata in the town too, although I suspect it's one of those commercial ones for paying customers.

We drove to the nearest serf service car wash and did a quick cleanup of our rental car. Annemasse is quite close to Chamonix and it took less than an hour to drive there. To our irritation, the car rental office had a 2 hour long lunch break! Well, that wouldn't hamper our chances to get to the airport in time, so we took the opportunity to go eat our lunchbox and some added french fries from Burger King.

When the car was returned we walked to the train station, thinking that we could get tickets for the bus there, but alas, only train tickets are sold at that train station. Go figure...

So, we trudged on with our luggage to the bus stop, got some cash from the ATM and hopped on the first bus to Geneva. The trains between Geneva and the airport is frequent, every ten minutes or so. Getting to the airport went pretty smooth., but we were already in a bit of a hurry. We weighed my bag again and it was half a kilo too heavy. After a bit of reorganizing between bags it got to the right weight and we checked in our bags. When packing my hand bagage, I missed that I was carrying a knife in there. Funny enough, the airport personnel didn't notice it when we passed through the x-ray. Well, no worries there.

After a bit of delay we finally lifted off the ground in Switzerland and a couple of hours later we landed in Copenhagen. I had left my car on a free parking space and I was a bit nervous about what state the car would be in. Luckily nothing had happened to it, no one had towed it or anything else. We hopped in and headed homeward. :-)

15th August - France - Via ferrata des Vigneaux

Today we decided to finally get on with the physical activities. We got up relatively early, 8-ish, and got our gear ready.
Our neighbor at the hotel has a small child that woke Ben up earlier than I did woke (slept really heavily with my earplugs) and he wasn't very happy about it.
Anyhow, we got ourselves sorted out and packed breakfast gear (camping stove, coffee and such) and headed out to the local supermarket. I found some gluten free bread there after some gebrokken French.
Walking around in the store we realized we had forgotten our boots (!!) and had to head back to the hotel (all of the 100 meters) and fetch them.

And then off we drove to the nearest via ferrata worth checking out. And it was! - after a slight detour though. We got the wrong coordinates from a web page first and ended up trudging through the wilderness in a more than 45 degree angle for an hour with sweat running down our backs. Luckily we had had breakfast before starting on that unnecessary climb and had enjoyed some of my Danish coffee so we weren't very upset about it ;) .


 




 Well, after a thorough warm up in peak summer heat on the wrong mountain .... (where we found a fascinating sports climbing crag with a lot of climbers) we finally found the right way.
At that point there was a triathlon going on and we ended up in the middle of it in the little town of Vigneaux and I caught a few bikers in a picture.

We kept going up the road in near sub-saharan temperatures and at last we found a sign pointing to the via ferrata. The trail ascending to the via ferrata was a few meters from the sign. Ahead was another 20 minutes of even warmer hiking up to the starting point (and we're talking - baking in the sun!) . We continued up the trail and finally ended up at the foot of the ferrata.

After some refreshments (apple, water) we put on our gear and began the ascent. The wall was hot as it was facing south and got warmed up by the sun. The climb was sweaty, but manageable and there was a breeze every now and then. The rock face was kind of steep and exposed - as any decent ferrata should be (do not try this at home if suffering from vertigo :D ).

This particular ferrata began as one route but split into two possibilities somewhere in the middle, where one was of easy and the other one very hard. Naturally we went with the very hard one, where the fun stuff resides. Very enjoyable and quite vertical with a terrific view. There were bolted hand holds to ease the ascent, but for anyone with a head for heights and some finger strength there was the option to go without any metal aid and just use the rock face.



When we reached a shadowy spot between ascents we tried to have a piece of chocolate, just to boost the energy levels a bit, and it was so melted we ended up with sticky fingers and the chocolate was stuck on the foil.  Ben actually spooned it up with his spork ;)

At one point the ferrata went down again before reaching the last ascent. At that point we were going straight up, no easy passages. by that time we had only half a liter of water left and we were dripping sweat.

Suddenly the ferrata ended and we were thinking woho! did it. The we walked for 20 meters and realized we hadn't reached the end. Luckily it was not such a long climb anymore at that point before we reached the standard log crossing the path and marking the end of the road.

The view was absolutely magnificent at the top and the sun was still high overhead.

We considered making some coffee... for all of 5 seconds, before deciding to just drink the luke warm water instead. 2,5 dL a piece and then we began the descent back to little Vigneaux.

 Well down in the village we found a well of potable water. I was really thirsty and had my fill of fresh cold water.

We reached our rental and drove back to L'Argentière de la Bessee, but instead of heading to the hotel we drove to a cliff just above it, where there is a clock tower visible from the whole of town. We made dinner on our storm stove at the foot of the tower. Rice with onion, tomato and pork, topped with tasty olive oil.

This evening we actually ended up at a local restaurant and had a glass of wine and beer before crashing for the night.