Bjørnastighornet and Eggja, Aug 12 2017

Nice round trip in the Liadal mountains

Peaks visited:

It had been a while since my last visit to Bjørnastighornet. Normally, when I’m in that area, it’s Liadalsnipa that’s on the agenda. But today, I would just settle for a nice round trip hike across Bjørnastighornet and Eggja. In any case, I don’t want to take Karma up to Liadalsnipa. The normal route is spooky enough for humans…

We started out from Halse and followed the path up to lake Nakkevatnet. Liadalsnipa looked very tempting and I was thinking about how I could get Karma past the Liadalsnipa crux, should I try one day. But I did not see any other option than dragging her up in a rope. That would probably have worked well. But down would be a different story…

From Nakkevatnet, we followed the path up to the ridge and sat course (off-trail) for Bjørnastighornet’s west ridge. It had been so long since I was up here that I didn’t remember how it looked like.

After a short ridge walk, we reached the top and enjoyed the views for a little while before moving on.

We descended directly down from the summit. The mountain side is somewhat steep but it was not difficult to find an easy route.

We ascended Eggja via the south ridge and I decided to follow the ridge in the direction of Hyningane, because I couldn’t remember what the terrain looked like. I had no expectation about reaching Hyningane, but it was just nice to be out walking.

Sure enough, the ridge ended in a nasty drop and the ridge on the other side looked quite ugly. But I found that if I really wanted to reach Hyningane this way, I could descend from the ridge, into Svenskedalen (there seemed to be only one place where this could be done in a safe manner), and then ascend Hyningane via the west ridge.

On some maps, Hyningane (1018m) is called Stabben. This is wrong. Stabben is a hump directly east of the point where the ridge makes the sudden drop.

So we returned to Eggja and descended the same way I skied down in 2016.

We were back at the trailhead 2,5 hours after leaving, after a 9,2km round trip – 980 vertical meters. A beautiful hike, it was!

Pictures from the hike: 

The route

Liadalsnipa seen from Halse

Liadalsnipa

Nakkevatnet and Eggja

On the ridge to Bjørnastighornet

On the ridge to Bjørnastighornet

On Bjørnastighornet

Eggja

Saudehornet massif

Bjørnastighornet

On the ridge to Hyningane

On the ridge to Hyningane

End of the road

Svenskedalen valley

Stabben

Back on Eggja