Road trip to Kongsberg + other nice trips
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Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 08.09.25 | Skriki | 1232m | 514m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 09.09.25 | Deighovd | 517m | 138m | Nesbyen, Norway | – | MAP |
| 09.09.25 | Anfinnatten | 1130m | 281m | Flå, Norway | – | MAP |
| 09.09.25 | Skomakernatten | 1123m | 65m | Flå, Norway | – | MAP |
| 09.09.25 | Hiåsvarden | 617m | 195m | Sigdal, Norway | – | MAP |
| 10.09.25 | King’s mine | – | – | Kongsberg, Norway | – | MAP |
| 11.09.25 | Dronningkollen | 752m | 180m | Flesberg, Norway | – | MAP |
| 12.09.25 | Hesteggi | 907m | 149m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
| 13.09.25 | Middagshaugane | 1124m | 110m | Årdal, Norway | – | MAP |
| 14.09.25 | Amlaholten | 508m | 265m | Sogndal, Norway | WCP | MAP |
Skriki (1232m), Sep 8 2025
Monday: I try to visit Skriki once a year. I went up there last year with Anne and Karma, but this year, I went all by myself.
I do like this mountain. It feels lower than its actual 1232m. Maybe because the route to the top is fairly short. On the other hand – the ascent route is steep.
The forest part is not too bad though. The path climbs steadily up the forest and the path is OK.
Maybe the path is a bit overgrown in places. But not close to being an issue.
A flock of sheep gave me a lot of attention. I wondered why. They were fairly close to the valley, and they ought to be used to hikers. Maybe they’re longing for the valley grass and wondered if I were the one to bring them down…
I kept moving on, eager to get to the top.
Finally, I had the last hillside ahead of me. It’s steep but the goal is “right up there”.
I only stopped for a picture of lake Skriksvatnet.
On the way up to the summit, my hip pack decided to sabotage me by popping open the buttons on my pants. I didn’t notice, of course. At the top, I bumped into a lady and wondered why she seemed oddly eager to avoid eye contact. A few seconds later, I discovered the reason — my fly was wide open. Not exactly the majestic summit moment I had pictured!
Once the “issue” had been discovered and fixed, we had a short talk. As we were both heading down roughly at the same time, we talked some more about places to hike.
Eventually, I said goodbye and jogged down the mountain. I felt bad passing the sheep without making an effort to understand why they were so obsessed with me.
A good hike!
Trip statistics: 8,2km, 915 vertical meters, 2h:10m
Deighovd (517m), Sep 9 2025
Tuesday: Travel day. I had planned to take the whole day off, drive to Kongsberg and maybe get 5-6 new tops along the way. But aargh! I was called into an 11am meeting which had nothing to do with my work. If it had been any other meeting organizer than my boss, I would have rejected the invite.
But I am loyal to my manager and joined the meeting. 40 minutes later, the meeting was over and I left Sogndal.
I drove across Hemsedal and down to Bromma, where I turned onto the road to Eggedal. I always take this road when I go to Kongsberg, and so far, I had “done” the majority of the pf100 tops alongside the road. There were however a few ones left, like Deighovd.
I drove Brøtovegen and rang the doorbell on the first house I saw. An elder couple came out and seemed quite happy (and surprised) to get a chance to talk about the hike – short as it was.
Based on their advice, I parked at the bottom of the road leading to Brøto, followed the road up to the house, but turned right onto a distinct tractor road. But first, I had to climb a gate. The mere idea of a gate is to open and close it, but every so often, the farmers just seal the gates tight. I am not sure why.
Minutes earlier, a school bus had arrived. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, but just after having climbed across the gate (it was cumbersome, because of some wire on the other side), a kid yelled at me. “Who are you?”
I yelled back, explaining that I was going up to Deighovd. “All good”, I added. There were no more questions.
Once the tractor road ended, I didn’t have to challenge my brain to figure out the route ahead.
Shortly after, I arrived on top.
The couple I talked to, said that there was a nice view from the top. That didn’t make sense to me, but I decided to continue eastbound and eventually I found a decent viewpoint, overlooking a part of the Hallingdal valley.
I could also see my next goal for the day – Anfinnatten – or at least one of the humps surrounding it.
I took the same route down and sat course for Anfinnatten.
Trip statistics: 1,7km, 165 vertical meters, 0h:29m
Anfinnatten (1130m), Skomakernatten (1123m), Sep 9 2025
Tuesday: After Deighhovd, I continued up the road to Eggedal and parked near the Bruhaugan road. From my previous trips, I knew that the Bruhaugan road was locked by a gate. I found a nearby parking lot and pulled out my bike.
I was so happy that the weather was nice. In rain, this wouldn’t have been fun at all.
It’s very practical to have a bike in the car. The 2,3km to the trailhead would have been utterly boring on foot!
When I got to the “trafo” (local distribution substation) at the end of the cabin road, I left my bike and continued on foot.
The path was miserably wet, but it was OK. I had 5 pairs of hiking shoes in my car.
The path was also easy to follow, but I got really confused when I saw blue paint on a bunch of trees and no path to be seen. I chose to ignore it and continue on the visible path.
Eventually, I could see the top. I already then decided to do a hike across Anfinnatten and Skomakernatten (up to my right)
I really enjoyed the terrain. The path was clearly going around the lake to my left (north side), but I decided to follow a path on the south side, then leave it (as I didn’t know where it would take me) and do the rest of the route to Anfinnatten off-trail.
A few minutes later, I was up.
There were a bunch of smaller tops nearby, but I already knew that none of them had a prominence of 100m or more.
Then I sat course for Skomakernatten. «Skomaker» means «shoemaker» and I guess “Natten” is local dialect for a mountain top. I don’t know too much about the shoe making industry to say if the shape or form of the top is resembling something that a shoemaker is using.
It didn’t take long to reach the top.
I got a good view towards Langelifjell. That’s a peak I won’t pay attention to until I’ve completely ran out of 100m prominence tops. And that won’t happen anytime soon.
I truly enjoyed the landscape! I could picture myself doing a lot of walks up here, if I had a cabin nearby. But that won’t happen anytime soon, either.
It was time to move on. It was already getting late in the afternoon, but I hoped there would be time for one more hike.
Trip statistics: 4,5km on bike, 4,4km on foot, 500 vertical meters, 1h:19m
Hiåsvarden (617m), Sep 9 2025
Tuesday: After Anfinnatten, I continued down to Sigdal, then got on the Norskogen road before Prestfoss. In this area, I hiked Tekslehogget last year. That was a nice hike, and so I wondered if a hike to Hiåsvarden also would be worth the while.
I turned right onto the Grytelvveien road, which became a toll road after a while. As the trailhead was only 2,7km away, I decided to save the money and bike instead.
After 2,7km, I could see a tractor road that I assumed would be my trailhead.
I was able to bike a little up the tractor road until I decided to leave the bike.
The tractor road was non-bikeable!
It was OK to be on foot, though. Even if the path was quite wet.
Eventually, the tractor road faded into a dual-track forest path.
Then followed a slab rock section that took me a little by surprise…
The path led me up to a meadow, and I decided to leave the path. The top was just a short hike away.
And then my 3rd top for the day was “in the bag”.
I decided to call it a day. My next stop would be the gas station at Lampeland, offering this evening’s dinner.
I headed back down, drove to Lampeland, and ordered a burger. The lady behind the desk said “your burger is free”. Wow, I didn’t know that my CircleK membership gave me free burgers. I swiped my card to pay for the coke (which I was fairly sure would be free too). Then the lady said “oops” and I had to pay for everything. “Next time, burger is free” she said. OK, I guess there will be a next time, some place, some time.
I continued down to Kongsberg, checked into the Quality Grand Hotel and went into my hotel room. As it turned out, I happened to have a couple of beer cans in my bag. Which was a pleasant “surprise”. I had a nice evening and slept like a log, except for when the heavens opened up and rain fell down like thunder. But it was OK, I wasn’t going hiking the next day.
Trip statistics: 5,3km on bike, 3,6km on foot, 295 vertical meters, 1h:01m
King’s mine, Kongsberg, Sep 10 2025
Wednesday: I checked into my company’s headquarters in Kongsberg at 8am. After lunch, we drove to the silver mines for a guided tour together with my department. I looked forward to it.
After an introduction by the guides, we got onboard the “train” that would give us 15 dark, bumpy and noisy minutes.
It was very nice to get out of the train and get on with the guided tour.
The guided tour was very nice. It was an incredible story. I’m not going to repeat it here. You can look it up on the web.
We only visited the King’s mine. Enough to get the “gist of it” …
The old elevator system was quite impressive. We were happy to use the stairs…
After the tour, we returned to the hotel. I was strongly considering hiking Haus Gabelåsen above Kongsberg, but in the end, I found it a bit too stressful, if I were to back in due time before the dinner. We had a nice dinner and social gathering before calling it a day.
Dronningkollen (752m), Sep 11 2025
Thursday: We had a non-stop schedule at work from 9am to 3pm, except for the lunch break. Then I sat course for Sogndal.
It was raining a lot. Not so much as in the morning, but enough to make me skip the plan I had to hike Dronningkollen in Flesberg.
But when I got to the Vinorsvegen road, it had almost stopped raining and so I decided to go for the hike. The road to the trailhead was long – maybe up to 9km and it was a toll road where I had to pay in cash (NOK 50, -). Good thing I still carry my bag of cash notes in the car…
On my way to the trailhead, it started raining again. Quite hard, too. But I wasn’t going to turn around now!
Finally, I reached the trailhead and headed up the forest path.
Today, the path was a creek. No less!
I was soaking wet by the time I got up to the forest ridge and could enjoy a somewhat normal path leading up to the high point.
I knew the drive back to Sogndal would be so much more enjoyable with another top “in the bag”.
Dronningkollen was an OK top. The path would probably be much more enjoyable without the heavy rain…
…and the views would probably be much better without the fog.
I took the same route down, and now I didn’t care about stepping from stone to stone. I just walked down the creek as it was impossible to get any wetter.
Back at the car, I continued my journey towards Prestfoss, and then up the Sigdal – Eggedal road.
I then noticed that there was water everywhere, almost flooding the main road. I stopped the car to check the news. And sure enough – the Sigdal and Flå regions had flooding and avalanche issues.
So far, it was only side roads that were affected. I looked forward to getting to the top of the valley and leave the water problem behind me.
I’ve seen rivers after heavy rain many times before, but perhaps never on the east side of the mountains dividing eastern and western Norway.
Once back on RV7 at Bromma, there were no flooding problems, and I looked forward to getting back to Sogndal. But I got a feeling that I should check for any road work in the Sogn region. And sure enough – The Fodnes tunnel would close at 8pm and the first convoy would run at 8:40pm. After 10pm, it would be closed until early morning.
I used Google Maps to estimate my time of arrival and found that I had time to stop to fill up diesel and grab something to eat and be there for the 8::40pm convoy.
The convoy was aligned with the Fodnes ferry departure, and I was back at Anne’s place around 9:40pm. It was “only” a 300km drive (not counting the 18km to and from the Dronningkollen trailhead) but I was quite tired when I got back to Sogndal.
Trip statistics: 3,3km, 230 vertical meters, 0h:43m
Hesteggi (907m), Sep 12 2025
Friday: After work (in Sogndal) I decided to hike Hesteggi. I hadn’t been up there in 2025, and I have been up there at least once a year since 2013.
It was a nice afternoon, and I expected to get up and down without meeting any rain showers.
I was so hot going up. I strongly considered taking my woollen shirt off. I was just seconds away from doing just that when the first rain shower came along. Then it got quite cold, and I had to put my wind jacket on. Talk about a sudden change of weather!
By the time I reached the Loftesnesfjellet viewpoint, it had stopped raining.
I continued to the top and I didn’t bother looking at the time. There was no chance that I would have done the ascent route in 1 hour or less.
I didn’t have a particularly good day on the trail (meaning I wasn’t going fast) and now I was just waiting for the next rain shower.
It didn’t take long before it came, but it didn’t take very long before it passed either. I was overall happy about the hike. After the trip to Kongsberg, I was back on track to reach my weekly goal of 3500 vertical meters.
In the evening, Anne and I spent quite some time, trying to figure out where to go hiking the next day. I checked all the tops I hadn’t been to in Sogndal, Luster, Årdal and Lærdal but Anne found most of them to be either too high or the hike too long. But in the end, we settled for Middagshaugane (1124m) in Årdal.
Trip statistics: 8,8km, 790 vertical meters, 2h:08m
Middagshaugane (1124m), Sep 13 2025
Saturday: This hike is featured on a separate post…
Amlaholten (508m) on bike, Sep 14 2025
Sunday: After the long hike across Middagshaugane the day before, I didn’t have any urge about going on another long walk. Moreover, rain was forecasted for 2pm and so I decided to bike from Sogndal to Amlaholten and asked Anne if she could pick me up at Kaupanger. I looked forward to this trip!
I biked to Kjørnes and then to Vikane. The trail up to Fimreitevegen is rough and difficult to bike in places, and I had to push the bike a couple of places.
Rather than following Fimreitevegen down and get on the back roads to Kaupangerlia, I decided to bike along Mannhellervegen until I reached Sogn Folkemuseum. From there, I connected to the back roads.
Passing the soccer field, I noticed they are developing several pump tracks and flow-style bike trails for kids. I enjoyed seeing that. It’s better that kids can seek adrenaline in closed circuits like these, rather than doing other dumb things.
I had good speed down to the centre of Kaupanger, and touched 53km/h. To me that’s good speed. To real bikers, that’s nothing. I get that.
I followed the Festingdalsvegen road to the very top and got on the main trail towards Amlaholten. So far, biking was easy.
But further up, roots, rocks and steep hills made it difficult to stay on the bike, so I had to push it in places. But eventually, I reached the top.
The safest thing would be to bike down the way I came up, but if not now – when would I ever try out the biking route from the top?
I decided to take my chances. The upper route had a couple of spots where I lost balance. In the lower part, I felt comfortable. But I didn’t have the speed and flow that bikers talk about. Don’t need it either. I’m soon 62 and avoiding broken bones is much more important than feeling crazy.
As it started raining a bit, I called Anne (from the top) and asked if she could pick me up in Kaupanger. It was perfect timing. I had only been waiting for a minute before she showed up.
Trip statistics: 27,2km on bike, 850 vertical meters, 2h:28m
