Finally got to visit this prominent Bindal mountain…
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | MAP |
| 02.08.23 | Stortuva | 804m | 706m | Bindal, Norway | MAP |
Other trip reports from this area: Hardangsfjellet, Straumsfjellet, Hongfjellet
Wednesday: After a busy week in the Bodø – Saltdal region, we were now back in Brønnøysund, at my mom’s place. This would be a short stay, as we had more places to go on our last week of our vacation.
During breakfast, we discussed the plans for the day. Anne wanted to rest, and mom was going on an organized hike in the afternoon. As such, I was free to do whatever I wanted to.
And what I really, really wanted to do – was to hike Stortuva – aka Tuvfjellet. I don’t know how many years I had been thinking about going there. As the mountain was in Bindal and not in Brønnøy, it didn’t have my highest focus, but with a prominence of more than 700 meters, it was of great interest.
After an hour’s drive (++) along FV76 (Tosenveien), I reached the Hongbarstad exit and hoped that it was possible to drive all the way to lake Sørengvatnet. Information I had retrieved suggested that this was possible.
It was a bumpy road, and then I passed a signpost that suggested that I wasn’t allowed to drive here. I chose to ignore it, as walking the long way into the lake was not an option.
Eventually, I parked at lake Sørengvatnet and realized that my preparations for this hike were poor. For starters, I had forgotten to bring my camera. Secondly, I had no idea where to go. I had just imagined that I could just “get going” and find my way. But I had a steep mountainside ahead of me, with a waterfall in the middle.
I had brought my GPS, though. And my phone. Today, I decided to double-track, meaning I was both tracking on the Garmin GPS and on my Navida phone-app.
I decided to bet my luck on the terrain on the left side of the waterfall, and there was also a path that I decided to follow.
This path only led me to a cabinet with some kind of instrumentation and it stopped there. Now, I had to find my own way up the mountain.
The terrain that allowed for hiking, gradually led me away from the summit and I looked forward to adjusting the course.
After a while, we were done with the cliffs, and I could get an overview of the terrain. We were now “far” (everything is relative) away from where I wanted to be. Our next task would be to get over to the ridge leading to the top.
Although route finding was essential, the terrain wasn’t extremely complicated.
And finally – we found water…
About the time of the below picture, I realized that my GPS was no longer in my backpack. OK, it was a really old GPS. It was actually a “decommissioned” GPS, as my newest GPS had run into an USB-issue that I couldn’t solve. I think the port itself was damaged. Still, I hate the idea of losing something just because I forgot to fully close the backpack. I just had to let it go as I would not turn around and look for it now…
Little by little, we were closing in on the main ridge. While this terrain was technically easy, it was still complicated. Ups and downs throughout…
But eventually, we had the top in view. At least – we thought so…
When we reached the top that I though was the high point, the high point was still a few hundred meters away.
But eventually, we got there! And the views were just awesome! From Heilhornet in the south to Andalshatten in the north…
What we saw towards the east, I don’t know. Just a bunch of mountains, stacked, packed and racked…
When we turned around, I was really eager to give locating my GPS a shot. I knew the point where I realized it was gone, but the terrain onward was complicated, with high grass at times. The realistic chance of finding it was close to zero.
Along with the GPS, I had also lost my bag of treats for Karma. My hope was that if I retraced my steps – using the mobile GPS app, the dog would locate the treats and hopefully – also the GPS.
So, when we got to the point where I had noticed that the GPS was gone, I zoomed the mobile app map as much as I could, and I guess I was down to a meter precision. After a little while, the dog stared into the grass. There were the treats, but no GPS.
The dog got her overdue treats and I decided to continue with this method. I had to guide Karma all the way, as she had more fun things to do than retracing our steps. After 10-15 more minutes, Karma was staring into the grass again. And there was the GPS! There was no way I would have seen it alone.
I petted her for several minutes until she found all the petting uncomfortable. And then we moved on…
Returning to the car, I was super-happy about finally having hiked this mountain! It was only now that I realized that I had made some good progress on the Norwegian PF600+ list this summer. This was the 6th new top on that list.
I returned to Brønnøysund as a very happy dude!
In the evening, we took mom out to the Svang restaurant, for a 5-course meal. She really seemed to enjoy that and the food was excellent! This was the perfect ending to our stay in northern Norway this summer.
Trip statistics: 11,8km, 1080 vertical meters, 3h:12m
