Møsevatnet and Folgefonna glacier

I’ve got a phone call from my friends a day after my exhausting trip to Ulvanosa. They said that they are going to Møsevatnet next weekend and I’ve got proposal for a join them on this trip with an overnight stay in tents. There could be only one answer to such an offer.
Møsevatnet is a lake that meets the Folgefonna Glacier on its southern side. Earlier, we talked about a possible expedition to those areas, especially since there is an 8 km trail that goes almost to the glacier tongue. It seemed extremely attractive if you combine the whole trip with an additional climb up to one or two mountains in the area.

We agreed to meet at the lake parking lot on Friday evening, spend the night in tents there, and set off on the trail the next day. About two kilometers from the end of the route, there is a cabin where you can spend the night for free, and my friends voted for this option. In case the cabin was occupied, we were supposed to take the tents with us and camp somewhere nearby. We had a common trip to Skomakernibba recently and I mentioned that they are not very familiar with hiking in the mountains. So the distance we had to travel from the parking lot to the cabin was only about 6 km. I packed my backpack, charged my phone and powerbank. I checked the weather forecast for the weekend. Everything was buttoned up.
On Friday afternoon I packed all my stuff into the car and drove to the Skånevik ferry quay. I was crossing Skånevikfjorden on the same ferry a few days earlier on my way to Ulvanosa. This time my destination was not Utåker, but the small village of Matre, as the ferry ran in a triangle between the three locations. Matre is connected with Dimmelsvik by road and somewhere in the middle of it there is a side road leading to the Fjellhaugen ski area. Another side road goes to Lake Møsevatnet. The road was wide for a maximum of one car and only small bays allowed vehicles to pass on there. I drove along several lakes with dams. There were campers parked in the bays by the road. I was close to Møsevatnet when the road turned into a tunnel that looked like a gate to hell. Narrow for one car, the passage was unlit and I was hoping that nothing would be coming from the opposite direction. Behind the tunnel there was a hydroelectric power station and another surprise. The last stretch before the lake parking lot was inclined at an angle of 20 degrees. Driving up the hill with narrow serpentines, I was afraid that the car would break away from the road and roll backwards. I happily got there in one piece. There I was greeted by friends and views that are hard to forget.

From here you can see the glacier tongue descending into the lake. The sun setting shortly after my arrival behind the veil of clouds gave us a great spectacle and an opportunity to capture some nice pictures. Next to our cars, in the parking lot there were two more campers from Germany. Two things puzzled me: how did they use these motorhomes to drive up the steep road here and how they found this place at the end of the world. I put up my tent on the hill behind the parking lot, we ate delicious grilled salmon for dinner and ended the evening trying to warm ourselves by the fire. It was going to be a cold night.

More than twenty degrees of heat during the day do not guarantee warm nights. I hardly slept, buried in my sleeping bag, wondering why I hadn’t taken warmer underwear for the night. On the morning we ate breakfast, packed our bags, and after seven we set off, laden with backpacks, on the trail. After the first several hundred meters, the route forked into two branches. They connected a little further, which gave travelers a chance two options. We chose the easier way, but it turned out that it assumed crossing a river, which at that moment seemed impossible to cross. We had to go back and attack the more difficult and slightly longer version. The trail leading from Lake Møsevatnet to the glacier is spectacular. The route initially runs through a typical mountain landscape at Lake Møsevatnet, crosses a bridge over the mass of water that flows into the next lake, makes an arc and descends in a fairly sharp gully 100 meters lower to the shore of Lake Midtbotnavatnet. It is along the shore of the latter that most of the route runs. The turquoise color of the water charmed me as soon as I saw this phenomenon. The desire to take a bath in the lake and cool down my body remained with me until the end of this trip.
We walked slowly. The landscape was delightful. Attracting me with every step, the greenish water of the lake tempted me with refreshment while hiking in the hot sun. Apart from the initial elevation change and the descent to the shores of Lake Midtbotnavatnet, the rest of the route was more or less on one level. So it wasn’t too hard. Of course, we were carrying large backpacks that weighed their own, which made the march a bit more difficult. Finally, after a few hours of hiking, when another group of hikers appeared behind our backs, we saw the cabin where we were to spend the night. The hut turned out to be tiny, just about two by two and a half meters. We found the door open, which meant we could occupy it. Inside we saw a bunk bed with mattresses, one additional mattress that could be laid on the floor, a table, two stools and a small stove connected to a gas bottle. The whole thing was completed by a wooden terrace at the entrance, where we spent most of the day.

A group of hikers passed us, following the trail to the glacier, which we could see from this place. In front of the cottage there was a valley with a silver ribbon of icy water, the effect of melting glacier and snow, which was still visible in the higher parts of the mountains. The river’s wide current meanders westward, feeding Lake Midtbotnavatnet. There was a bitter cold wind blowing from the glacier in the vicinity of the cottage, but I still had a great desire to plunge into this river.

While resting on the terrace, we saw other hikers following the first group. Usually they walked lightly dressed, only with water bottles, or with a small backpacks. They were going to come and go back. After all, it’s quite a light and pleasant walk.

After some time of lounging on the terrace, I suggested a further journey to the glacier, without backpacks. My colleagues, however, were not very eager to make another effort. They have already achieved their goal for this day and it seemed that I would go on my own, but after long persuasions, it was finally decided that they would ‘try’. The three of us started. Unfortunately, after a few hundred meters there were two of us and very soon I continued the walk alone. I reached a bridge over a small canyon where the river was raging. Two steel ropes supporting the bridge were fixed directly in the rock. The bridge itself hung from these two ropes and wobbled with every step.

Getting to the glacier was not difficult or tiring. Counting from the cottage, the route is just over 2 kilometers. All the way, however, I was accompanied by an icy wind, contrasting with the hot sun at the first stage of the journey. People coming back from the glacier were wearing jackets. I got there soon. The glacier’s tongue was about a hundred or two hundred meters wide. There was a lake in front of the ice wall, the water flowing from the melted ice, and then in a rapid stream it turned into a mighty river along which I got here. There is no option to get closer and touch the glacier because of natural barrier, c lake with cold water came from the ice.
At the glacier itself, the wind was even stronger, as if it was the cause of the wind and chased away the curious travelers. At the lake, I found white sand creating a beach-like landscape. When I touched the sand, it turned out to be in fact dust of stones ground by heaps of ice. It was much finer than the sand found on sea coasts.

I went back the same way to the cabin. I have put off my plan of getting to some summit for an undefined future. According to the map, the mountain that I was supposed to attack was still quite a bit further and I needed a smaller backpack for that, and this one remained at home.
However, I decided that I would check how cold the water in the river is. I went down to the bottom of the valley with a towel and, finding a suitable place, entered the water. I spent maybe a minute in the current and managed to dive all the way up to my neck, but I couldn’t feel my legs when I came out on the shore. Fortunately, the sun has restored normal blood circulation.

Killing time until the evening, I went for a short walk around the area. We ate lunch, then dinner, and wrapped each other in their sleeping bags. It was much warmer that night.
I got up around six and with the camera in my hand, I slipped out the cottage. There was nothing tempting to climb the mountain behind the cabin. There was no path leading there and it was quite steep in some places, but I found a place where I could capture the glacier and the rays of the rising sun in the frame. I couldn’t climb higher, so I turned back. We ate breakfast, packed our backpacks, and reluctantly headed back. It got crowded again on the trail. From time to time we passed people heading for Folgefonna. The parking lot at Lake Møsevatnet was crowded that day by visitors. Every now and then someone new came and there was no room for more cars. There were daredevils who came here with canoes to swim to the ice tongue at the other end of the lake. I admit that I envied them. In the parking lot, I changed into fresh clothes, ate something and we were able to move on, freeing up valuable parking spaces for others. I left a unique place behind me, as if straight out of a fairy tale. Mountains, turquoise lakes, rushing rivers with silvery waters, a suspension bridge and a glacier. Can you ask for something more on a weekend trip?

Download file: GPS_2020-08-15_Mosevatnet.gpx