Nonstinden

Nonstinden

Paul came back from sea last weekend, and after resting a bit, we decided to make the most of the forecasted sunny (and warm!) autumn weather. We drove to Tønsvik, and reached the cabin at Nonsbu after just over 2 hours, in cloudy but dry weather. It was Sunday night, and there was only one other guest in the cabin. The cabin has 2 parts, and plenty of space, so this wasn’t a problem 🙂

On Monday morning we woke up to sunshine 🙂 We took our time to get ready, and chatted to the lady who stayed in the other part of the cabin. Around noon, we finally left to climb Nonstinden, a 1113 m high peak.

Nonsbu in autumn sun, Nonstinden is the mountain in the background A group of reindeer ran past

On the map, it was indicated that you could reach the top by two different routes, and that you could make it into a round-trip. I love round-trips 😉 so we decided to follow the path to Trollvasbu to begin with, then turn onto the steep ridge from the north, and come back on the gentler slope towards the south.

This map shows our roundtrip: up on the steep ridge from the north, down on the gentler slope towards the south

It took quite some time to reach the bottom of the ridge, mainly because we had to cross two rivers. I’m NOT a fan of river crossings, and I forgot to bring sandals so I had to go barefoot. Anyway, when we reached the ridge we soon found out just how rocky it was…

On the rocky ridge - this gets very tiring! Beautiful views towards Ringvassøya

It took 4 hours to reach the top, and we were pretty exhausted by that time. Luckily, when you get to a height of 900 m, it flattens out a lot and there are only small rocks – so you can finally walk normally, without having to use your hands 😉

After 4 hours: the top!! With some spectacular drops along the ridge

It was VERY windy on the top, so we didn’t hang around for very long.

Paul followed the ridge a bit further It was very windy on the top ;)

The views were fantastic in all directions, so we did take a lot of photos 🙂

A panorama of the panorama photographer in action :D The river delta far below

To our relief, the way down was a lot gentler, AND the surface basically was moss with small rocks. So much easier! If I ever was to go up Nonstinden again, I wouldn’t bother with the rocky ridge and just take the same (gentle) route up and down.

Paul on the ridge The way down was a LOT gentler. Time for another sandwich :)

After reaching the bottom of the valley, we still had a long way to get to Nonsbu – and the same two rivers to cross. Luckily, one of them could be crossed by jumping from boulder to boulder, which saves a lot of hassle 🙂

At this river crossing we could luckily jump across without taking our shoes off Paul in the last evening light

Nonstinden turned into Ayers Rock in the last light of the day 🙂 We finally reached Nonsbu at 19:00, 7 hours (and about 14 km) after we started our hike.

Nonstinden turned into Ayers Rock! Back at Nonsbu, 7 hours after we started...

We were pretty knackered by this point – I had also been struggling with a beginning cold which of course didn’t improve by hiking up a mountain 😉 I was almost tempted to spend another night at Nonsbu, but after a cup of tea and some chocolate, we decided to hike back to Tønsvik while there was still some light left. After a brief uphill to begin with, the route was mostly downhill and it took us only one hour and 45 minutes to hike the 7.5 km back to the car. Phew, we made it – tired but happy we drove back home and were able to sleep in our own bed that night 🙂

One thought on “Nonstinden

  1. Love the vistas. Your photos show the best of all views. Love the one of you in the middle with all sorts of little hole lakes behind you. Looks like Tom Thumb’s girlfriend with lots of puddles at her back. Also LOVE the one of Paul’s hair blowing in the wind. One before it shows quite a variety of rock types. I sure would love to hear what a geologist could tell about all that. Oh, the shale slates by the cairn are just so interesting. OH! the one showing the ridge drop is spectacular. Ooooh…amd I tired after all that walking. Yeah!..don’t try going up there the hard way. It looks exhausting. It would be nice to compare pics of Fall and Winter. I am glad Paul got back all in one piece and no hurt ankles!!!

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