Myrdalsvatnet to Søylevatnet (21.05.2017)

Written by hbar (Harald Barsnes) GSM

Start point Ulsmåg skole (70m)
Endpoint Lone (82m)
Characteristic Hillwalk
Duration 4h 14min
Distance 12.0km
Vertical meters 617m
GPS
Ascents Brattlandsfjellet i Fana (375m) 21.05.2017
Flåfjellet, Bergen (418m) 21.05.2017
Nordre Skavdalsfjellet (419m) 21.05.2017
Søre Skavdalsfjellet (419m) 21.05.2017
Stordalsfjellet (376m) 21.05.2017
Visits of other PBEs Brattlandsfjellet utsiktspunkt (370m) 21.05.2017

Myrdalsvatnet to Søylevatnet

Cairn south of Stordalsfjellet
Cairn south of Stordalsfjellet
The summit of Stordalsfjellet
The summit of Stordalsfjellet
The summit of Stordalsfjellet
The summit of Stordalsfjellet
View north from Stordalsfjellet
View north from Stordalsfjellet
Fjellklovevatnet
Fjellklovevatnet
Rare bird at Stordalsfjellet..? ;)
Rare bird at Stordalsfjellet..? ;)
View from Flåfjellet
View from Flåfjellet
View from Flåfjellet
View from Flåfjellet
The summit of Flåfjellet
The summit of Flåfjellet
The summit of Flåfjellet
The summit of Flåfjellet
View north from Flåfjellet
View north from Flåfjellet
The summit of Skardalsfjellet
The summit of Skardalsfjellet
Flåfjellet seen from Skardalsfjellet
Flåfjellet seen from Skardalsfjellet
Trail marker, but no trail..?
Trail marker, but no trail..?

Started by taking the bus to Ulsmåg skole and walking up to Myrdalsvatnet. From there I followed the gravel road north before locating the start of the trail towards Stordalsfjellet. The trail was easy to follow and I quickly arrived at the summit for some nice views, even though the rain and the low-hanging clouds did not help.

I continued along the trail towards Flåfjellet, with the only difficult part being the short, but quite steep, decent by Fjellklovevatnet, where light climbing was required to cross the valley. When ascending on the north side I lost the trail, but had no problems finding my way without it. The summit of Flåfjellet provided even better views than Stordalsfjellet, though again the views would clearly benefit from better weather.

Next, I continued towards Skardalsfjellet. Here the trail reappeared, but that did not stop me from getting confused regarding which peak to visit, as to me the peak further north looked higher. I therefore first started towards this one, but after checking the map, figured out that I had almost passed what was indicated as the highest peak, and had to make a short detour to ensure that I did not miss the summit of Skardalsfjellet.

The map indicated that there was only one meter difference between the two peaks (420.4 m vs. 419.3 m), but to my eyes the northern one still looked higher. I therefore could not resist also visiting this one, and thus continued north. Here the trail was actually marked, however I could only see the red markers and very little traces of the trail itself...

From the northern peak of Skardalsfjellet I decided to continue down to the smaller peak at Brattlandsfjellet. No trail that I could find, but I had little trouble finding my own path. Nice views from the summit, which even included a large cairn, but clearly this summit is not very frequently visited.

I now had two choices, either turn back south and follow more or less the same route back (or perhaps going via Furedalsvatnet and Furedalen), or continue north to Søylevatnet. As I had already started the decent, I decided to continue north. There were no trails, however there were lots of deer tracks, and I tried to follow these when possible. At times the terrain got quite steep, and at one point very steep, and I was left with no choice but to double back and hike, or rather crawl, back up the hill to find a different route.

After this incident I started keeping a closer watch on the GPS to ensure that I would not have to repeat this exercise, but even then it was far from straightforward to find the best route. The density of bushes and trees also increased the further down I got, adding to the difficulty. But in the end I finally managed to arrive at Hardangervegen and Søylevatnet, only to figure out that I had arrived at the worst part of this road in terms of moving around without a car. In other words: heavy traffic and no sidewalks in either direction...

On top of this, I figured out that it was more than half an hour until the next bus would arrive at any nearby bus stop. After inspecting the map, I decided to head north, as there I found a small side road that allowed me to escape walking along the main road. I ended up going all the way to Lone, before finally catching a bus back to the city center.

To conclude, the hike from Myrdalsvatnet to Skardalsfjellet can be highly recommended, even a visit to Brattlandsfjellet, but I would very much advice against repeating my decent to Søylevatnet. Perhaps a better option would have been to go directly east from Brattlandsfjellet and try to connect with the trails in Furedalen.


View from Brattlandsfjellet
View from Brattlandsfjellet
Cairn and trig marker at Brattlandsfjellet
Cairn and trig marker at Brattlandsfjellet
View from Brattlandsfjellet
View from Brattlandsfjellet
View from Brattlandsfjellet
View from Brattlandsfjellet
Grimevatnet and Søylevatnet seen from the descent from Brattlandsfjellet
Grimevatnet and Søylevatnet seen from the descent from Brattlandsfjellet
Espeland seen from the descent from Brattlandsfjellet
Espeland seen from the descent from Brattlandsfjellet

Start date 21.05.2017 14:03
(UTC+01:00 DST)
End date 21.05.2017 18:18
(UTC+01:00 DST)
Total Time 4h 14min
Moving Time 3h 40min
Stopped Time 0h 33min
Overall Average 2.8km/h
Moving Average 3.3km/h
Distance 12.0km
Vertical meters 617m

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