Norwegian Mountains, Hordaland
Stavsnuten (1661m), July 24 2010
To the main Stavsnuten page (maps, route descriptions, other trip reports, etc.)
The route, as seen in Google Earth
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It was the last day of our 3-day Hordaland visit, with base-camp Røldal. After having visited Holmanuten, Elvershei, Breifonn and Kvitenuten, the time had come to take a closer look at Stavsnuten. I had not been hiking in this area since 2003, when I visited Verjesteinsnuten, Store Nup, Nupsfonn and Sandfloegga. It was very nice to be back!
We had hoped that we could drive into Middyrdalen, but the gate was closed. There are few things I dislike more than roads not available to the public. If they had set the toll fare to NOK 100, I would still be happy to pay. It's not walking 3km along the Middyrdalen road that bothers me (it's a beautiful valley and I'm sort of fit), it's just the fact that just a very small group of people can drive this road while the rest of us can't.
Heading into Middyrdalen road
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I decided to not let the closed road annoy me, and we enjoyed the valley walk and the beautiful day. After 3km, we decided to leave the road and find a route up between Stavsnuten and point 1587m. The terrain wasn't very complex, but as we didn't have any crampons, we wanted to avoid hard, steep snow.
Our route up from the valley
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Stavsnuten was indeed a rocky place, but we didn't have any problems in finding a good route and keep steady progress. Once we reached lake 1468m, we turned southeast and followed the ridge up to the summit. My summit GPS waypoint reported 24-JUL-10 12:00:00, which was 1h:20m after we left the Middyrdalen trailhead.
Arriving on Stavsnuten summit
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The view was superb, and now that we were close to the Hardangervidda plateau, we could see prominent landmarks such as Hardangerjøkulen and Hårteigen. And of course - the major Rogaland peaks to the south.
Hårteigen seen from Stavsnuten
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Looking at the Nup peaks (Veresteinsnuten, Store Nup, Nupsfonn) brought back some fine memories from my trip there in 2003. I sure miss my good old hiking buddy...
Troll on Nupsfonn - July 2003
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After a nice stay on Stavsnuten, we descended our ascent route and returned to the trailhead 1:34pm - 3h:30m after heading out. Our plan stated that this was the last peak on our Hordaland journey, but I managed to convince Anne to join me for a trip up to Sveigen also ;)
