The path towards Bjørnaåsen starts on the right hand side of the red
building.
| Bjørnaåsen from Bjørnen Bjørnaåsen |
| Estimated net time | 1-1½ hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties, but cumbersome. | ||
| Drinking water | Unknown. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage at trail head, else unknown (March 2010). | ||
| Parking | Parking can be slightly awkward; ideally you would like to park at the start of the path but there is a sign saying that this road is private and there should be no parking. Neither is parking allowed at the turning place where the private road starts. You must either find a small space along the road, or ask one of the house owners for permission. | ||
| Start height | 50 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 150 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 2.6 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From Bergen drive road E39 south, almost to the ferry port at Halhjem. When you see the ferry port you're at a round-about, where you turn left towards "Bjørnen". Drive this road 1.5 km, making sure you fork left after approximately 600 metres. You are likely to be able to park on the left hand side of the road; park here or try your luck further along.
From where you park continue on the road to the small turning place. Continue south on the road signed as private road, until you get to the road end. Walk on the right hand side of the houses, and you will see a path. Stay on this path for approximately 350 metres, to where a stream is crossing the path. At this point you have been heading uphill and away from the sea for a few tens of metres. Leave the path here (or try your luck a little later), and head up-hill in slightly rough terrain. Keep going south-east, making sure you head up on the left hand side of the small valley. Locate what looks like the highest point, which is not marked in any way, and can be a little hard to locate because of the forest.
The descent is probably "best" done by reversing the ascent route.
The weather this Thursday was really miserable, with rain and very poor visibility. Hence I decided to do a small forest top, which wasn't likely to give me any view even if the weather had been nice.
I drove from my hotel outside Os, where I had been staying all week while working at our Hagavik factory, and drove to what I assumed would be trail head at the end of the road. I was a bit disappointed to find "no parking" signs, so drove back along the road a little, and was fortunate to find a spot that had been cleared of snow. I then walked down the road, being very uncertain what the terrain would be like. To my satisfaction I located a nice path immediately after the road stopped, and continued along this path, some 20-40 metres above sea level. Since the path seemed to keep going along the coast I eventually decided to head up-hill, and ended up in fairly steep and rough terrain. But I knew I had less than 100 vertical metres to do, so didn't mind a lot.
Once I got up to around 70-80 metres I put on the snow shoes I had been carrying, since the amount of snow was now quite considerable. From here there were a couple of more steep sections before I got up on the summit plateau. After having walked back and forth a little and checked my GPS a few times, I concluded I had found the highest point, and descended using more or less the same route as used for ascent.
Back at the path I tried to find positive things about this hike, and didn't have to dig very deep in order to find "no wind, bagged another top, and got some exercise". But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to repeat this hike ...