On the ut.no-app, we had found many hiking routes in the region of Utne. As the weather forecast predicted rain, and I don’t like climbing slippery rocks, we chose a relatively flat trail: from Vahaug to Tostöl. To get there, you drive on a very steep gravel road to a tiny parking lot. Along this gravel road, there’s a modest toll gate: you can pay through some digital Norwegian system (which we didn’t have), or put cash in an envelope.
The first hour, we were walking in the mist. It was the most quiet place that we’ve been during this holiday: no other cars on the parking lot, and we didn’t meet anybody during our entire walk. There were no roads, no houses (at the end of the trail there were a few deserted houses, holiday houses maybe?), no cellphone coverage and we realized that if we’d slip (walking on the wet rocks was a bit of a challenge) it would not have been easy to get help there. For that reason, and also for the views, it was nice that around noon, the weather got better: it was dry, windy and the sun came out. Those wet, slippery rocks got dry in no time.
At a certain point, you reach a tiny lake with a few deserted houses. From there, it’s still almost an hour to Tostöl and as we were curious to see the destination of the trail, we continued until the end. The end turned out to be another lake with some deserted houses, so if you’re doing this trail and have had enough, you could decide to turn around at the first houses, because after that it’s, as we say in Dutch, ‘more of the same’.
But, we didn’t regret going ‘all the way’. It was cool to be ‘away from it all’, we loved the solitude of the place. Looking back, we both agree that this hike was our favourite one of the entire trip.
