One of the best trips this year!
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 17.08.25 | Heirsnosi | 1456m | 156m | Årdal, Norway | – | MAP |
Sunday: I’m just gonna say it right away – this was a *beautiful* trip and I cannot recommend it enough!
But first, let’s clarify the terms. “Tusenmeteren” denotes the road from Øvre Årdal and up to “Toppen” at approx. 1000m elevation. “Tunnelvegen” is an old road from “Toppen” to Torholmen”. Together, these two roads form the old road between Årdal and Valdres, closed in the 1960’s and restored around 2020 as a scenic tourist and cycling road.
Anne and I planned this trip in advance, using two cars. We would leave one car where the old “Tusenmeteren” road begins – at approx. 400m. Then we drove up and parked at the east end of Torolmen. There is a road here that connects with “Tunnelvegen”.
This was big fun!
The road/trail was a bit muddy in places, but once we reached Sletterust, there was no more mud.
From Sletterust, we connected to “Tunnelvegen”.
I really like mountain roads with no uphill involved! This old road more or less sticks to the 1000m contour all the way.
The scenery was awesome!
And then the Hurrungane mountains began to appear…
We knew there was a tunnel involved, and after a while, we reached it.
We had brought headlamps, which were quite useful. The light on my bike wasn’t really fit for dark tunnels.
Suddenly, a flock of sheep came running towards us. I hoped they were used to cyclists, but they were only partially. Fortunately, the sheep came out of the tunnel as the same flock as they entered.
We had a terrific view, once out of the tunnel…
The plan was also to hike Heirsnosi. The logical thing to do would be to leave the bikes in the valley just east of the top. That would give us the shortest route to the top. But Anne, thinking there was a good path from “Toppen” wanted to hike from there.
The views got more and more spectacular…
Eventually, we reached the top of “Tusenmeteren” and left our bikes on the very top of the road (1055m)
Then we proceeded on foot. We didn’t see any path and the lichen was draining us for energy.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of lichen.
Then we noticed a reindeer, all alone. Why was it all alone?
The ridge felt a bit endless…
After a while, we got the Hurrungane mountain range in clear view. Awesome!
Heirsnosi felt like a long walk. It was only ~3,8km to the top, but it felt like twice that.
Maybe it was all the stops for pictures that made it feel like a long walk…
But eventually, we reached the top! This was my 50th new top in 2025. Pre-Covid, my goal was 100 new pf100 tops per year, but after Covid, I had to settle for less. And as life got back to normal, I figured that was an OK number. Less driving.
We also had a good view to other parts of the Jotunheimen range (Hurrungane is just the western part)
We could see the trailhead 12km to the east, but I couldn’t see my car. Hopefully, it was still there…
Anne was more focused on the other direction – towards Jostedalsbreen and the surrounding region…
We also had a good view towards Berdalseken and Raudbergsnuten. The first one is already in the bag. The second is on my to-do list.
It was time to get off the mountain and we (more or less) followed the same route back to “Toppen”
We now had 600 vertical meters of fun biking ahead of us.
Better get started!
A super-fun route!
We reached Anne’s car, left our bikes (locked) and drove up to Torolmen. Anne went for a bath, while I drove back down to get the bikes into my car. Then we met up in Øvre Årdal and drove together back to Sogndal.
I really enjoyed this day. I was super-happy about everything!
Trip statistics: 24,7km on bike, 7,5km on foot, 645 vertical meters, 4h:52m
