Gaustablikk, day 4
| Date | Trip |
| 22.06.26 | Sedalsbrotet |
| 23.06.26 | Gaustatoppen |
| 24.06.26 | Heddersfjell, Toreskyrkja |
| 25.06.26 | Store Åråhovde, Ørnenipa, Skipsfjell |
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 25.06.26 | Store Åråhovde | 1001m | 115m | Hjartdal, Norway | – | MAP |
| 25.06.26 | Ørnenipa | 1333m | 228m | Tinn, Norway | – | MAP |
| 25.06.26 | Skipsfjell | 1115m | 94m | Tinn, Norway | – | MAP |
Store Åråhovde (1001m), Jun 25 2026
Thursday: After breakfast at the Gaustablikk resort, we drove to Tuddal Høyfjellshotel to hike Store Åråhovde.
Anne felt she had an upcoming plantar fascia and I offered to lend her my bike. Her bike was back at Gaustablikk.
I didn’t mind walking and asked her to see if she could go ahead and locate a path up to lake Åråhovdetjørni.
I met up with Anne 1km from our starting point. The tractor road had come to an end, and we could see blue paint, indicating a forest path. Excellent!
The forest path was easy to follow. But where would it lead us? We had no information about the best route to the top.
When we got to the lake, the path continued on the north side, but as the mountain was on the south side, we decided to just head off-trail up the forest.
The terrain was not too bad and eventually, we could see the top of the mountain.
A very good start to the day!
I really enjoyed this start to the summer vacation. 4 new tops in 5 days, plus a nice revisit to Gaustatoppen.
This summit almost marked the tree line. There wasn’t much that was rising above the forest and bush.
We could see a path down the north ridge and Anne wanted to follow it.
The path took us down to the lake on the west side, and here we met the marked path.
The path was a little boggy in places, but we enjoyed the terrain.
Returning to the east end, we had our ascent route in plain view. Not too terrible terrain.
On our way back to the hotel, we could see that Gaustatoppen was fog-free and that this was clearly a good day to visit the 1883m top.
Trip statistics: 4,5km, 260 vertical meters, 1h:27m
Ørnenipa (1333m), Skipsfjell (1115m), Jun 25 2026
Thursday: After the hike to Store Åråhovde, we returned to our hotel at Gaustablikk and got ready for our next trip – Ørnenipa. We would start out on our bikes, as we assumed there would be no parking near the Ørnenipa trailhead.
The bike trip was only 2,5km but saved us from a rather boring walk.
Eventually, we reached the start of the forest path.
The path climbed gently up the forest…
… and offered a good view down towards Gaustablikk and lake Kvitåvatn.
After a little while, Ørnenipa came into view.
I tried to steer clear of an insignificant hump near Ørnenipa…
… but couldn’t…
Anne headed for the top…
Soon, I caught up with her…
It was time for a “headcount”. Had we covered all the tops in this region now?
Well, we hadn’t reached the top of Ørnenipa just yet…
… but minutes later, it was “in the bag”
I went on a local photo mission…
Then Anne said my phone was ringing. It was my boss. He called me to say that I had gotten a pay raise. As if the day wasn’t good enough already…
I went back to photographing with an even wider smile across my face…
On our way down, two Ptarmigans tried to get our attention. “This way, please! This way” …
I pretended to fall for the trick but also play a trick on them as well. They could see me and suddenly they couldn’t. Where was I? Well, not exactly where they had thought I was…
We moved on. And then I wanted to visit another insignificant hump, albeit a tad more “significant” than the other hump.
I looked back on Ørnenipa…
… and then tried to spot Anne.
After reuniting with her, next on the agenda was to visit Skipsfjell.
Anne had done some research on her biking day, the day before, and knew exactly how we should get there.
And now we found the “Gausta” letters that Anne had been talking about, but not seen yet.
Then we moved on to the top of Skipsfjell.
There are several humps up there…
… and I had to visit them all, just to be on the safe side…
It had been a wonderful day so far, but now we both wanted to call it a day.
The hotel was calling on us…
On our way down, we had to stop by the “Gausta” letters one more time.
And as this was our last day up here – one final picture of Gaustatoppen…
Our 4 days here were just wonderful and we will think fondly back on our stay here.
Trip statistics: 6,4km on foot, 7,2km on bike, 710 vertical meters, 3h:18m