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After sweating buckets for 3 days in a Arctic heatwave, we finally gave ourselves a day off and joined the locals on the beach! In the evening the weather broke with a thunderstorm, and the following day was much cooler, though rather cloudy.
We went back through the tunnel to Malangen, headed for Bentsjordtinden, a fine-looking mountain that is always prominent in the views from summits on Kvaløya. I had seen that it was included in this year's Tromsø Ti på Topp list. This is a list of 10 - 15 summits (of a range of heights) published each year, with the idea that you can sign up and record the ones you have done. It also means that there is some waymarking on the route - this can be really helpful for locating start points, but can feel a bit intrusive on higher ground.
We got to what used to be the usual start point for this hill at Vollstad, only to find no Ti på Topp sign, just a small notice in Norwegian. After staring at it for a while, we decided it was a polite notice from the farmer asking folk not to park there and to go 3km east to another car park. Sure enough, there is a small layby just before Broskar, with the appropriate signage!
The start of the walk is via newly created path straight up through the woods. I'd like to now how they make them - maybe just take a strimmer and cut a strip through the vegetation and rent a crowd of folk to go up and down it a few times? This path is very steep, and in one place has already eroded dangerously over a nasty drop. This needs some care, especially on the way back down. At about the 300m mark, another better worn path joins from the left, but I could not work out where it starts from. Now we were out of the trees and onto much easier angled ground, and delightful walking on short grass, with some lovely alpine flowers, including Alpine Milk-vetch and Round-leaved Wintergreen. The path becomes a bit feint, but there are regular marker posts showing the way.
After a steeper section, the route bears left into a shallow corrie and up the back of this this to reach the lowest point on the summit ridge. Here there is a dramatic view down the other side into a rocky corrie with a small glacier in it. There is some interesting geology here: pale granite veins contrasting with darker shaley rocks. The route now turns left and after a little very easy scrambling arrives at the summit. Although we weren't in the cloud, there was plenty of it about, which restricted the views a bit, but the situation was still pretty impressive. On the way back down, we visited the west top, which has a good view down into the valley below before heading straight down to join the uphill route.
Online mapFirst view of the summit from the top of the woods
Heading towards the upper bowl
Klemmartinden
On the summit ridge
The glacier
Middagstinden
Looking back down to Brokskar, with a big ship heading for Tromsø
Mist hanging around the eastern tops
Looking back at the summit
On the west top
Klemmartinden and its neighbours