Romtveitnuten & Reinsgravnuten
Accessing Store Nup in recent days has been associated with the journey on the E134 road, which runs through the Haukeli Mountains. A few-hour break and a break to the mountains turned out to be only an addition, not the purpose of that trip. As you can see quite a successful addition. And as my next trip along this route was approaching, I figured it would be fun to repeat the story, but this time with a different hill, preferably less demanding. I grabbed the map and soon had another target defined. It was called Reinsgravnuten (1109m above sea level) and was located only a dozen kilometers north of Edland, on Lake Songavatnet.
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In order not to waste all day traveling, I left early in the morning and around seven o’clock I was already in Haukela. It took some time to find the way to the hill that I was interested in, and it turned out that construction works were underway at Lake Songavatnet, building a huge dam and the last section of the road was closed. The area, however, was speckled with holiday houses and I thought that the owners of these houses must somehow commute to their property. I noticed the contact number at the barrier barring the entrance and called. The voice on the other side of the line informed me that he would be arriving soon to open the passage. I waited for about twenty minutes and was about to get back, but finally a man came and opened the padlock at the barrier, let me go to the other side, and told me to follow him. With such assistance, I reached the end of the road, which was far too far from where I wanted to start my journey. Then, however, I noticed that from this place I could climb the hill that interests me, and additionally try to visit the neighboring peak Romtveitnuten (1218m above sea level).
The builder who operated the barrier padlocked the crossing on and on this side, leaving me in the outback, and disappeared. I found a large parking lot to leave the car and almost immediately spotted a path up towards Romtveitnuten. The map in the cell indicated that the trail does not lead directly to the summit, but continues deeper into the wild mountain backwoods. The climb wasn’t steep, so I decided to go this way first and left the original plan to climb Reinsgravnuten for dessert.
I walked the trodden path as far as I could. The terrain quickly turned into a treacherous swamp, so I abandoned the trail and, navigating between the heather-covered slope, the birch trees around and sporadically growing birches, began to climb up.
The view of the lake could look much better if the sun was shining in the sky. As a spite, I found myself on a cloudy day, even though the forecasts only said that it was partially cloudy. By the time I got to the top, the weather was playing another trick on me, bringing me low clouds with the wind. Soon the fog surrounded me, and I could only dream of any sights. It was only thanks to the map in the cell that I knew where I was and managed to get to the top. Soon after, the clouds began to clear and I saw the lake again and some views around. I got to the next peak and decided to go back.
I went down to the road and decided that I would go up the second hill, the already mentioned Reinsgravnuten. The mountain is much lower and the hike was much easier. In addition, a path led me from the very beginning. Reinsgravnuten is a narrow peninsula cutting into the waters of the lake, and probably on more clear days, the view from the top must be quite delightful. On that day, however, the cloudy sky was not conducive to contemplating the landscape. I got to the top and turned back almost immediately.
I got to the car, drove to the barrier and called the builder again, who this time did not make me wait too long. Soon after, I was racing again on the E134 road crossing Norway from east to west. As to spite shortly after leaving the Haukeli region, the sky brightened and the sun was with me until the end of my journey.
