Autumn break, day 6
Index
| Peak | Height | PF | Municipality |
| Styggmann | 871m | 410m | Kongsberg, Norway |
Continued from day 5
Friday: Our stay in the rented cabin on Lifjell had come to an end. It had been 4 nice days and I had “bagged” 7 new pf100 tops since leaving Sunnmøre on Sunday.
Our next base-camp would be Langesund Bad at Langesund. Spending a couple of by the Telemark coastline was Anne’s idea, and having noticed a couple of low pf100 tops in the neighbourhood – I was OK with the idea.
The transport leg from Bø i Telemark to Langesund would be 75km along the shortest route. However, we decided to drive to Kongsberg to visit Styggmann along our way. Getting Jonsknuten, Jøronnatten and Styggmann in one week was just awesome. I had been thinking about these tops for many, many years but never gotten around to visit them.
We found the Styggmann trailhead near lake Lille Lauarvannet and the plan was to take Sigvartstien – the shortest route to the top. According to a local we spoke to, the route should be easy to find.
We misunderstood the information and left the forest road too early. We were now on our way to Hoensætra where we learned that in order to get to Sigvartstien, we would have to follow the forest road – in the direction we came from – for a while.
We had to make a decision. There was indeed a path from Hoensætra, but it was longer and we were in a hurry. So we followed the gravel road in the direction we came from, but after 0,5km we began to question the idea. We didn’t even know if the Sigvartstien path had a signpost.
So we decided to return to Hoensætra and follow the regular path up the forest. This path took us up in the valley between Breidstulfjellet and Styggmann.
And finally (!) the path turned northeast – in the direction of Styggmann.
The terrain was nice, though. And the top of Styggmann looked really cool!
We reached the top after almost 2 hours and were really happy to be up here!
The hut on top is just so cool. It can be rented through Tønsberg og Omegn Turistforening. It is not built for a comfortable night in the mountains, but it is possible to spend the night here. You have to pick up the key in Tønsberg, though. The hut is located in a protected area and you leave literally nothing but footprints and take nothing but memories.
From Styggmann, we could see Jonsknuten – 10,7km t the north/northwest – which we visited 6 days earlier, on our way from Sunnmøre.
The Sigvartstien path was marked “Rønsætra” but we understood that this was the path we would follow back down.
The upper part was a bit cumbersome and not exactly enjoyable.
But further down in the forest, it was all good.
And then we returned to the forest road, we could see that there was a signpost. We had turned around 0,6km before this signpost but in the end – a) we were really not in a hurry and b) a round trip hike is always (at least in most cases) better than going up and down the same route.
Trip statistics: 10,7km, 600 vertical meters, 3h:10m
Pictures (Canon EOS RP/Iphone8) from the trip:
Langesund Bad
We drove back to Heistadmoen and continued south through Hvittingfoss, Svarstad and Siljan before reaching Porsgrunn – from where Langesund was a fairly short drive.
We checked into Langesund Bad and was given a room in one of the annexes.
The quality of the room was not impressive, by any given standard but we already knew this. The room alone would not determine our score and we looked forward to dinner and just being close to the Skagerrak.
There is a lot of history here, which I won’t go into. You can read for yourself.
The dinner was a fixed 3-course meal and there was nothing extraordinary about it, other than it tasted DAMNED GOOD!
After dinner, it was already dark and we would have to wait until the next day to see what the neighbourhood looked like.
Continued on day 7
