Lake Femunden, day 5
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Location |
| Nordre Sålekinna | 1592m | 822m | Os/ Tolga |
| Sålekinntoppen | 1591m | 161m | Tolga |
The nice weather had seemingly come to stay, and I gradually aimed for higher tops. Stor-Svuku two days ago, Elgåhogna yesterday and today I had set my eyes on the two Sålekinna peaks. This trip would be too hard for Anne’s knees, so she looked around for kayaking opportunities nearby.
Eventually, she decided to go to Straumen, a nice squiggly river draining into lake Femunden. I dropped her and her kayak off and took the 30min drive to Øversjødalen valley.
It was a 30-40 minute drive from Straumen to Øversjødalen, and after a while I got Sålekinntoppen in view. Man, I looked forward to get to the top!
I stopped to pay toll (NOK 50,- I think it was) at the entrance of the valley road, when a Swedish guy walked up to me and started to talk. He told me that he and his wife were also heading for the top, but they would have a long walk ahead of them, as they had only NOK 20,-. Mountain people have to help each other, so I gave him NOK 50,- (krølla femtilapp y’all) and wished him a nice trip.
Thanks to maps, I knew that the route started at Øversjøen (approx. 800m). I parked there – along with several other cars and Karma and I headed out 10:49am.
We passed the local farm and found the forest path leading into the birch forest. The path was surprisingly muddy in the beginning, but after a little while it turned dry and we had a very nice walk along the Store Gravskarbekken creek.
In the distance, I could see Sålekinntoppen – one of the two peaks I aimed for. I looked forward to getting up there, but it looked mighty far away…
The path seemed to not go in the direction of the north top, which was my primary goal. So after a while, we left the path and aimed directly for the summit. We had to deal with boulder above 1000m, but it was of the gentle kind.
We reached the top 12:03pm and met Tom Benonisen on top. He presented himself as tom3041, when I asked if he was a collecting municipality tops on the peakbook.org list. Nordre Sålekinna is the highest top in Os. We had a nice chat until it was time to move on. We were both heading for Sålekinntoppen, but Karma and I had to keep up the pace. We didn’t want to keep Anne waiting…
I was able to let the views sink in before we moved on…
From a distance, the upper part of Sålekinntoppen looked a bit steep, but it was just the angle that played a trick on me.
We reached the top of Sålekinntoppen 12:48pm. Some hikers left when we arrived and I could see others on the way up. This was clearly the main peak, although lower than the north peak. I could very well understand why people chose to go here…
Elgspiggen (1604m) is the dominating peak in this region, and I wished that we had one extra day here, but we would be moving on the next day. Well, the peak will still be there when I return one day…
We followed a visible path down the boulder before we eventually joined the trail we were on earlier in the day. We returned to the car 1:59pm, after 11km, 960 vertical meters and 2 hours+ after heading out.
Anne had texted me and asked for pick-up at Straumen, where she headed out. We had discussed Kvennvika as pick-up point, but for several reasons, she went back up the river after reaching lake Femunden. When I got there, Anne was excited about her trip. Looking at the photos, I could understand why.
I took the kayak for a quick spin in the river.
But the activities weren’t quite over yet. After returning to our rented cabin at Femundtunet, we drove in the direction of Lomtjønna – that we visited a few days ago. Anne walk to the lake for a swim, while I biked (with Karma on my tail). Karma and I continued back to Femundtunet while Anne walked back to the car. A nice, short (4,1km) bike trip in the beautiful pine forest.
Late in the evening, Anne wanted to take the kayak out for one last trip. We had 5 full great days by lake Femunden, although the cabin standard was quite disappointing. The next day we headed for Telemark, with stops in Trysil and Kongsberg.
Pictures from the Sålekinna hike:
Pictures from Anne’s kayak trip:
Pictures from Lomtjønna and lake Femunden:
