Bikepacker - Seljord/Hjartdal

About

3-day tour in the Seljord/Hjartdal area, passing the mountains of Skorve, Brattefjell, Vindeggen, Gaustatoppen, Heksefjell and Mælefjell. Although most of the tour is off the beaten track, it also offers chance to stay at three of Telemark’s most distinctive hotels, in Seljord, Nutheim and Tuddal. That’s if you choose not to camp, which there are ample opportunities for all along the route.

The tour has some big climbs, so it’s worth considering your starting point and direction. I’ve chosen to start from the centre of Seljord and tackle the climb straight up towards the Kivledalen valley and the mighty Mount Skorve. Enjoy the views back across Lake Seljodsvannet down towards Lake Norsjø. If you’ve got your walking shoes with you, you can hike to the two plane wrecks: the American bomber and the German passenger plane that crashed just over a month apart in the autumn of 1944. The sites are marked on hiking maps.

On Millonvegen road, we follow the east side of Lake Sundsbarmvatnet to Langlimvegen road. Continue down past Mandal chapel to the end of Åmotsdal. From here, the tour continues up to Nutheim with its famous inn and the E134, which in 2018 will still have significant traffic on the section of road we’re now entering. Once in the Ambjørndalen valley, we turn off to follow the River Hjartdøla towards the Breivatn dam and Lake Breivatn.

At the crossroads at Bubrekke, we turn off towards the dam, but it is possible to continue for a kilometre or so to Bjordalsstulen mountain farm to enjoy some farmhouse cream porridge, a Norwegian delicacy! Then continue on the road along Lake Breivatn to Lake Presttjønn. Here you need a map to find the path where you have to carry your bike and equipment for a kilometre or so of difficult terrain to Hormbrekke, where the route becomes cyclable again. Continue on good gravel roads along Lake Hågåvatn to Gamsbukta. Perhaps you’ll take your time to catch a fine trout or camp overnight by the lake. Here, too, you have to carry your bike and equipment through the terrain to Hågåvassulen, where there is a poor-quality tractor road. This soon becomes a good-quality gravel road, which takes us to a fork in the road at Kovflott. Here we take the road on to Gyvingjuvet and over the River Kova. From here, we can take a detour up to the dam at the end of Kovvatn, a large lake with protected wildlife in the Brattefjell and Vindeggen Landscape Protection Area. Here you can see the summit of Vindeggen rising in the background. If you’re lucky with the wind direction, you may get to see the area’s distinctive strain of wild reindeer. Back at the fork in the road, we continue down to Bondalsvegen road and out to the centre of Tuddal. In the opposite direction, Bondalsvegen road heads in towards Reisjå and the Gausdalen valley, where you can view the beautiful and steep west face of Gaustatoppen, perhaps from the top of Bonsnos.

From Tuddal, we follow the asphalt road down the Tuddalen valley and all the way to Sauland. From here, the road heads up the Slåkådalen valley, past Mount Heksfjell to Lake Slåkåvatnet, from where you can see up to Sigurdsbunuten hill and Mount Mælefjell.

Now it’s time to carry your equipment and do a little orienteering again! For the time being, you also have to wade across the river at the end of the lake, but there are plans to build a simple footbridge in the near future. Rejoin the road, which continues along the River Grunnåi. Straight across the valley we see Mount Skorve again. The route to Reinstaul isn’t too steep but from there it drops approx. 450 metres over 3-4 kilometres until we’re back down in the centre of Seljord.