SLEEPOVER AT STORSYLEN

Text and photos by: Martin Fossen

Arrival and distance

Drive to Stugudal Landhandel in Tydal and follow the gravel road to Nedalshytta by car or bicycle in the summer. From the cabin, just follow the signs until you arrive at  Syltjønna and follow the path up.

11 km and 1000 altitude meters from Nedalshytta

Equipment (for this trip)

Mountain shoes
Sleeping pad (thick) + summer sleeping bag (old 1&1/2 season :))
Shorts (Norrøna Falketind), t-shirt, light trousers (Norrøna Falketind), warm hooded jacket (Houdini, extra shirt (Monsen), caps.
3 water bottles of 1 liter - it was a bit sparse for an overnight stay with hiking the day after....
Pre-made "matpakke", sausages and a soup bag and of course Kvikklunsj !!!

Ready for a trip in 30 warm but good degrees! From Nedalshytta, just follow the signs to Storsylen.

The hike

I drove from Røros (Rugldalen) at about 12 o'clock and started walking at about 3 O'clock in the afternoon. You walk through the yard between the buildings and will see the first sign towards Storsylen. Wooden planks have been laid over the wet parts which makes it easy and clean to walk until you reach the mountain where there is a nice wide path most of the way to Syltjønna.

Mostly nice easy path to Syltjønna. Even if you are not planning to go to the top of the mountain, it is still a fantastic trip in a mighty mountain area.

I walked at a leisurely  pace and just enjoyed the weather and the surroundings. Occasionlly I met some hikers returning from a day trip or overnight stay. It may well be they came from Storulvåns Fjällstation on the Swedish side. You always say "Hi" when meeting people in the mountains! I took a good break at Syltjønna and tried to drink lots of water before I filled the 3 water bottles I had with. I did not know if it was any more water on the way up and I would traverse to Nordsylen the next day.

Reindeer at a frenzy speed!

As I sat there, ready to start on the way up, I watched at the family who were a few hudred meters away. Suddenly a reindeer came at full speed towards them! It ran straight towards the children, but broke off and continued through the "camp" before bouncing back towards the foot of the mountain. I do not think the parents discovered it until it was gone again.

When the commotion had subsided, I decided that it was time to start on the steep path. I remembered it was hard to walk up the last time I was here, so I planned to take it easy.

When you stand by Syltjønna, it is almost impossible to see that there is a path up, but it`s there. Just follow the path you came on and it materializes when you get a little closer. It is also marked in red so it is fairly easy to find if the visibility is ok, which it definitely was on this day.

Red marked path up. It's steeper than it looks and I often took small breaks. It's wild that they run up here in 1 hour and 10 minutes in Storsylen Up!

Finally alone, and Geocaching at the Norwegian-Swedish border

Since I started late in the day , there were no one left on the mountain when I walked up and reached the top. On the plateau between Storsylen and Nordsylen there was a fantastic view and still warm. I had drunk almost the whole of one bottle already and realized that I had too little water to quench my thirst, especially because I did not find any more springs on the way up either. Well, one can  manage 3 days without water they say, so I should probably manage.

It is a wonderful feeling of freedom to be all alone on the mountain!

I climbed up the last stretch to the top and saw that it was nowhere near as narrow as I remembered it from the last time. There are several flat areas where you can lie down for the night, without worrying about rolling downhill, or off the cliff on the Swedish side.

I arranged my dinner, a thermos with hot water and a bag of soup with sausages in it, ready made from home. The soup was quite salty - good for electrolyte filling, but not so good for thirst, something I experience the day after.

It turned out to be good cellular phone coverage on Storsylen and I had to check if there was a Geocache there, but I could not log in due to a bug in the app. Therefore I was guided via text message from Vibeke. I  went down again towards Storsylrøysa where I thought it was. On the way down I saw that I (unfortunately) was not alone. A couple came up in sneakers, they had run up, spent about 1.5 hours or something. We talked a bit, before they went down again. Luckily I ended up staying all alone at the top for the night. I found the cache by chance, not far from Grensevarde 155B

The dessert of the trip is when you have reached the ridge. Then jyou just follow the path further to the top. Just before the top is the border guard. And nearby there was a Geocache!

Sunset and sudden awakening

Now it was just to enjoy alone time at the top and wait for the sunset. I walked around and looked out over the edge on the Swedish side, down on the glacier that lies there. Let my eyes follow the traverse both south and north observing how the warm light from the sunset settled on the mountains. There was a very sharp transition from where the sun hit and where the shadow begins which was is fascinating. I wondered if anyone have climbed the east wall of Storsylen. I have asked myself the question many times. If not, why not? I knew I was not capable of judging the risk of this particular project, but it is a thought that lurks.

A dragonfly also stopped by, fascinating at this height. I love such small details and experiences in nature. Small plants, animals, insects and weather changes. That's what it's all about. The landscape is just the background for all the exciting things you observe and experience on a trip.

With 15 degrees Celsius at 12 o'clock at night and guaranteed good weather, there was no need for anything other than my old one-and-a-half season sleeping bag and sleeping pad. Now the whole point was to spend the night on Storsylen in the middle of the summer and get the most out of the light, the surroundings and not sleep away the summer night, but you get tired ... So I crawled into the bag. I quickly found out that the sleeping bag was not the one with the best breathing properties, to the extent that sleeping bags should have it ant all. It got quite clammy so I ended up lying straight on the sleeping pad with the sleeping bag over me. It blew up a little bit, which made it more comfortable as well.

I must have dozed off because I wake up to a loud metallic sound! Folk? Sheep? What could it have been? Did I just dream? I am fast awake and listening intensely, but I am only thearing the wind. I lay down again, but soon it's there again? The most (and least) logical explanation is that there  are people, with sheep as number two. Reindeer? No, I have to check this out because now I hear it on a regular basis. I go up to the cairn, it is not completely dark so no danger of stumbling off the edge. I amlooking around and listening. There is the sound again, and then I see that it is a round metal plaque that I had taken a picture of earlier in the evening where it says "Storsylen Klubb 1960". It had blown down and was rocking over a rock and making a sound whenever there was a little extra gust of wind. Phu! Then I stopped believing in ghosts again.

The ridge meanders north and down with Nesjøen in the background. Storsylen Klubb 1960 managed to wake me up in the middle of the night. Bottom eft, before I crawled into the sleeping bag - fantastic views. Bottom right, in the morning around 5 o'clock. The sun was probably just below the horizon before it rose again.

North and down - traverse to Nordsylen

I woke up early, around 5 o'clock I think. A little disappointed that the sun was so high up already. Nevertheless, it was still beautiful to be over the clouds and watch mountain peaks sticking up through. I ate a leisurely breakfast in the form of slices of bread and some water. It was only a little less than one liter left now so I was looking forward to getting to a water, or better yet a spring. No water tastes better than pure spring water in the mountains, my mother taught me that! There is a kind of path or at least you can imagine it when you traverse towards Nordsylen. It is relatively easy to walk, one place you have to use your hands on some easy climbe. When traversing, you actually enters into Sweden for a while before turning backe into Norway again. There is a border-stone and a mailbox (Topplåda) from the Swedish Tourist Association. There are several glaciers on the east side of the ridge. Eventually it flattens out a little more and becomes easy to walk. I came across a "simle" (femaile raindeer) which I tried not to scare by walking around her, but it took a long time before she "understood" that I was not chasing her. It was very nice to walk in the heat, all alone towards Nordsylen and just feel the nature around. Some distance after Nordsyltoppen I took off to the west and down towards the north end of Syltjønna. There was a reindeer fence I had to push through. And FINALLY I found SPRING WATER !! Filled the bottle and drank thoroughly. Ice cold clear water straight from the mountain, beautiful!

I continued further down and crossed the river that goes out from Syltjønna. I talked a little with a couple who were tenting there before I continued to Nedalshytta and the car. The rest of the trip went just fine. Great feeling to have done something a little untraditional without "anyone" knowing it. Its like having a small secret , but now I share it and recommend a night at Sylane, alone or with friends. It is entirely possible for children as well, it was a 5 year old who had been up there the day before, I was told. But they had probably stayed in a tent by Syltjønna and gone up from there.

A little warning, Sylane is notorious for unpredictable weather.

By the car I took a bath in the cold river water and drank a Solo, before I drove back to Røros.

Thanks for the trip, and thanks for reading!