Quick round trip hike in Jølster
Peaks visited:
| Peak | Height | PF | Location |
| Steinegga | 1165m | 153m | Førde/Jølster, Norway |
| Nipene | 936m | 192m | Jølster, Norway |
Every other weekend, I commute to my girlfriend Anne in Sogndal. I normally return to Sunnmøre on Monday afternoons, and when time and weather permitted, I try to get myself a new top in the Jølster-Førde region. This Monday afternoon, I had targeted Steinegga and Nipene near the west end of Jølstravatnet.
I drove to the place Berg and looked for a place to park. The map indicated a northbound path to Gamlestølen. I noticed a couple of guys enjoying their cup of coffee, went up to them and explained my business.
Their immediate concern was that it was too late in the day to plan for a round trip hike across BOTH tops. That is something they would normally as a day hike in the weekend. It’s always difficult to explain that I’m somewhat faster than the average hiker, without sounding like I’m bragging. So I just said that I would start walking, mind the time and see how far I got. They seemed content about the plan and gave me instructions where to find the path.
Karma and I headed out from Berg 4:28pm and quickly found the path to Gamlestølen. The path was soaking wet after days of rain and it wasn’t the most enjoyable hike I’ve done.
At Gamlestølen, I found the path heading northeast and followed it to a cabin, where the path ended. From here on, it was off-trail.
Steinegga summit was now 1,4km ahead of us, to the north. After we had hiked a while, I thought the top was really close, but when the summit came into view, I felt a touch of disappointment.
But eventually, at 5:53pm, Karma and I reached the top of Steinegga.
Plenty of daylight left, so we continued towards Nipene. It was quite foggy, thus I decided to use the GPS to make sure I didn’t waste any time by going in the wrong direction.
The west ridge ended in a sudden drop, but I found the path that took us safely down into the pass below.
We followed a muddy path up to the small lakes by Nipene, where I took a direct course towards the 936m high point.
From Nipene, we went southeast across Blåfjellet and aimed for the Bergselva river. I expected that we would find a place to cross, but it was not tempting to even try. So we stuck to the west side of the river and all of a sudden, a very neat path appeared in front of us.
We were back at the car 7:50pm, and there wasn’t much daylight left. Very happy about two new mountain tops, I started on my 3-hour drive back home.
Pictures from the hike:
