To the Stavskar and back
A well-prepared plan is essential. When preparing for the next hike, I had to take into account the weather forecast, and the one for the coming weekend did not look very promising. So it was necessary to cancel (or rather postpone) the trip to Jotunheimen. A trip to Hemsedal was also out of the question. Even the Haukeli region seemed to be affected by unfavorable weather, so my eyes turned further south and there I discovered Valle, where according to weather forecasters it should be quite tolerable during the weekend. I started my preparations by choosing the route. There are several interesting routes around the village. I chose to go from Berg to Stavskar cabin and then to Bossbu cabin and then back to Berg. The whole thing was about 30 km and I wanted to do this distance in two days. I prepared a tent, a sleeping bag, a camping stove and some food. I packed my photo equipment and was ready to go to the site on Friday right after work.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan. On Friday morning, when I threw the whole trip stuff into the car, it turned out that I could not start the engine. I struggled with it for a long time before he finally started. I was hoping that he would not make any more such numbers for me. And indeed, after work it was a bit freaked out, but it started much earlier and I was able to go.
The journey to Valle took me five hours. At the parking lot in Berg, I ate a quick dinner, packed my backpack and hit the trail. At least I wanted to get to the Stavskar hut before it gets dark and set up a tent somewhere nearby. It was about 6 – 7 km to go. I did not know then that my intricately constructed plan would soon crumble into ruins. The mountains had their own plans for me. So far, I have enjoyed the hike, walking along a relatively flat road. The sun was about to go down, and although it was cooler than expected, I didn’t care too much. I had a sweatshirt and I put on a cap shortly afterwards due to the cold wind blowing from the west. There were also gloves and a light raincoat in my backpack, and although I did not expect rain during this trip, it was a great as windstopper.
At one point I had to leave the comfortable gravel road in favor of a narrow forest path. Over time, the trees stopped growing so densely, and soon after one steep climb, I stepped out into the open space. Well, maybe not completely open, because the path ran along the bottom of the valley, but the only vegetation that accompanied me from then on did not exceed half a meter in height. I was walking along a mountain stream, crossing it in two places. I saw Stavskarhytta beyond Lake Rennvatnet. It had already started to dusk, but I hoped that I would be able to overcome the pass that was just behind the hut and find a place to sleep there. Passing by the hytta, I saw someone inside, and a moment later I passed a young girl and a dog by a tent set up nearby. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one going to spend the night in the neighborhood.
I was climbing the slope looking for a suitable place for a tent and found a piece of flat land covered with some heather just below the pass. I figured it would be the perfect spot. Just in time, anyway, because it was getting dark and it was getting colder. I took the tent out of my backpack, unfolded it and…. And then it started.
There was such a wind blowing up all over the place that if I hadn’t held the tent, I would have lost it. Yes, it had been windy before, but not that hard, not so wild and not so violent. It’s like the god of wind just gathering strength and waiting to show me who’s in charge. And he reigned indeed, because despite my strenuous attempts, I was losing the fight against the wind and the tent.
I realized that unless I find a more sheltered place from the wind, I have no chances to setting up a tent. In addition, it was not only getting darker, but also my fingers stiffened with the cold. I left my all stuff in place, preventing it from blowing away, and ran to look for a better spot to spend the night. A few minutes later I had a new place and went back for my backpack and tent. I decided that I could do without a tent, however. My limp fingers slowly refused to obey me, and it would take me too much effort to fiddle with all these clasps. In addition, I have long wanted to try an overnight stay in a sleeping bag under the open sky. I took the self-inflating mat and sleeping bag out of my backpack, rolled up the tent that was to serve as my pillow, and got ready to sleep.
The wind, which had caught me so before, did not let go and even though I was a bit sheltered from it, I still felt its gusts. In addition, for this trip I took an old sleeping bag, in which I am constantly freezing, so now I felt thermal discomfort. Even though I was wearing a second pair of socks and pants, I couldn’t get warm. Most of the night, I rolled from side to side and tucked cold limbs under me. Nothing helped and soon my motivation to continue walking the next day dropped to zero. I decided that as soon as I get to the morning I pack my stuff and come back.
However, this was not the end of the trouble that the Valle Mountains served me. Sometime after 3 am it started to rain. Not so much but enough to get my sleeping bag wet. It was still too dark to get up and walk, so I lay on. Finally, around four o’clock, I decided to get up. I changed, packed everything into my backpack and wrapped in a rain jacket (this one I had a hope to not use) I started my way back.
Somewhere in the halfway to the car, the weather started to improve, but it did not convince me enough to continue with my previous plan. I got to the parking lot and, to wipe my tears, decided to visit another place on the way back, a wooden stave church in Eidsborg. But I’ll tell you about it another time.
