Grisetskolten trail head above Griset.
| Grisetskolten from
Griset Grisetskolten |
| Estimated net time | 3-4 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. There is fine path up to the boulder at 880m, and the boulder section is stable and easy to walk. | ||
| Drinking water | Several sources of running water through the forest and up to 600m. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (August 2012). | ||
| Parking | Room for several cars at the car park by trail head. | ||
| Start height | 125 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 945 metres for the roundtrip (to the true summit). | ||
| Trip distance | 7.2 km (to the true summit) | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From Ålesund drive road E39 (and E136) east to where E136 turns right in the direction of Åndalsnes, just south of Vestnes. Follow E136 approximately 50 km to Innfjorden, and start measuring from where E136 crosses the river Innfjordselva at the apex of the Innfjorden fjord.
- At 0.9 km turn right (this is 700 metres south of the exit of Innfjordtunnelen tunnel if coming from Åndalsnes).
- At 1.0 km turn left, onto the road "Skulevegen".
- At 1.9 km turn sharp right.
- At 2.4 km park on the left hand side of the road, next to a wooden board with a map and route signs.
Start walking by following the gravel road another 100 metres and then turn left onto a path where a road forks right. This path is marked with red paint and can be followed all the way through the forest and up to the path junction in the saddle at 775 metres. Make sure you fork right at 390 metres and stay on the marked path towards Grisetskolten.
From the saddle at 775 metres turn left by the large cairn and follow the path north-west towards the south-east slopes of Grisetskolten. When the path ends at 800 metres and you get to the boulder start turning a little right (north) and find your best route towards the summit plateau. Above the boulder you will find some cairns and a vague path, which will guide you to the summit. The summit is marked by a small cairn, and is located 160 metres south of the view point marked by a proper cairn. This point is approximately 2 metres lower than the true summit.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
I was due to attend a workshop at Bjorli, and grabbed the opportunity to do a hike on my way from Sunnmøre. I had prepared myself a little, and had identified a couple of candidates, suitable for different weather conditions. The weather turned out to be OK-ish, but there was fog down to approximately 1000 metres, so anything above that wasn't terribly tempting. But when I approached Innfjorden and saw Grisetskolten in practice clear of fog I decided to have a go at this top.
Thanks to information on Fjellinordvest.net I found the trail head without any messing around, and the path through the forest was child's play both in terms of navigation and strenuousness. Unfortunately the fog came drifting in as I got above the forest, and because I knew I had to hike a section of boulder I got a little concerned about navigation. I should of cause have loaded way-points on my GPS, which I hadn't, but a second best was the fact that with a GPS you can at least back track your route if you get lost. So no concerns about getting lost, only concerned that I might have to mess around at the summit in order to find the summit. But the section of boulder isn't terribly long, and the direction is basically uphill, so it turned out to be straight forward despite the poor visibility, and when the terrain got flatter it was some vegetation and traces of vague tracks, leading to the summit.
When I got to what I suspected was the summit I had sufficient visibility to see a much larger cairn than the small pile of stones at the summit, but this point certainly looked to be lower than where I was standing. Hence I continued across to the proper cairn, where I also found an old trigonometric point marker on the ground, and again concluded that this point was lower than the one a little further south. I checked the GPS, which reported 1067m, and then headed back to the summit. The GPS reading at this point was 1069m, and I concluded that the point where the proper cairn is located is just a view point and not the summit. Further checks of my GPS tracks when I got back to my PC confirmed that the summit is approximately 2 metres higher than the point 1066m, which is marked on the maps.
After a short summit stop, with very little visibility, I walked quickly back down to the car, got changed into dry clothes, and took on the drive to Bjorli where I met my colleagues.