Estimated net time	3-4 hours
Difficulty	No difficulties, but a little cumbersome on poor path through the forest.
Drinking water	Several sources of running water along the path through the forest.
GSM coverage	Coverage throughout the route (August 2011).
Parking	Room for a few cars around trail head.
Start height	840 metres
Vertical metres	385 metres for the roundtrip.
Trip distance	11.3 km
GPS-file	X
Map		Google Interactive Map
Route photo	Vardefjell trail head by Langvassenden.   Forest road junction 2.1 km from trail head.   Path to Vardefjell runs past cabins at Fjellstølen.

Assume your starting point is Nesbyen, along road 7 approximately 170 km north-west of Oslo. From Nesbyen drive east on the road signed for "Hedalen". Approximately 6 km from Nesbyen you get to an automatic gate where you have to pay toll (NOK 50 per 2011). Drive another 9.4 km and locate a road forking off to the left. This road is closed by a gate. Find parking on the right hand side of the road, 20-30 metres before the road with the gate.

Start your hike by following the road past the gate. After 2.1 km you cross a stream and then get to a forest road running up to the left. There is also a partly hidden sign for Vardefjell here. Follow the forest road up to some cabins, passing a gate just before the cabins, and another gate soon after. 700 metres after starting on this forest road, and a few tens of metres after a gravel road joins the forest road from left, note a vague path going off right in the middle of a right curve of the gravel road. There is a small cairn with some red paint located at the start of the path. Follow this path approximately 1.5 km in a northern direction, until you get to the cabins at Fjellstølen. Pass the cabins and continue north. Cross the stream coming down the small valley and follow the stream on a path. This path gets very vague after a while, but just continue north, 550 metres from the cabins, and you will meet a path. Turn left here and follow this path north-west, until this path merges with a better path. Follow this path to the summit, which is marked with a large cairn.

Descend by reversing your ascent route.

02. August 2011

Day #4 at Håvard's cabin above Nesbyen, and today we wanted to hike a mountain which didn't include a lot of driving, and preferably gave me the opportunity to see a new area. Håvard suggested the east side of road 7, and I found that Vardefjell would be a good candidate.

By studying the maps we found a possible route, and it did work, but had some cumbersome sections on a path not frequently used. This path also had some wet sections, but thanks to warm weather this didn't bother us much.

Just before we got to the summit we overtook two ladies, one Norwegian and one French, and we chatted a little with them, and then continued the conversation when they joined us at the summit a little later. It turned out that the Norwegian lady, now living in Paris, had marked the path up to Fjellstølen with red paint many years ago.

We had fairly nice weather during our hike, and more sun than not, but the clouds and hazy air reduced the potential fine views to quite blurred views. I'm sure the views from Vardefjell can be very nice on a fine day.

Back down at the gravel road I found some ripe cloudberries, which I picked and ate. While looking for more cloudberries I suddenly heard a shrieking noise, and started looking for what kind of bird made this sound. After a few seconds I saw some movements amongst some boulder, and soon I noticed a stoat. I managed to get quite close to it, and it continued to pop out amongst the stones, and screaming angrily at me. After a couple of minutes we let it alone, and headed back to our car.
Photos 02.08.2011