Estimated net time	3-3½ hours
Difficulty	No difficulties. The hike can be made easier by taking the ski lifts up to 1600 metres.
Drinking water	No access to running water during winter.
GSM coverage	Coverage at trail head, and no coverage at summit. Else unknown (May 2011).
Parking	Room for many cars at the ski-centre car park by trail head.
Start height	1060 metres
Vertical metres	840 metres for the roundtrip.
Trip distance	9.0 km
GPS-file	X
Map		Google Interactive Map
Route photo

From the round about in Stryn where roads 15 and 60 intersect, drive road 15 in the direction of Otta 37.6 km. Turn right towards "Stryn sommerski" and drive 8.0 to the Stryn summer ski-centre. Park here.

Start skiing by following the ski-slopes uphill, up to the top of the chair lift. From here continue uphill slightly to the left of the upper ski lift. You can aim to the left of a rocky area of the skyline. When you get up to this small rocky area at around 1600 metres turn left (east) and ski in flat area with an area of boulder up on your left. Ascend this boulder area when you find a suitable section without boulder, and then gradually turn right (south) onto Kvitlenova's north slopes. Follow these slopes to the summit.

Descend by reversing your ascent route, or any other route you might fancy.

29. May 2011

This Sunday was the last day of our Stryn week-end, and after no skiing for me and little skiing for Andreas, Ole-Jørgen and Sigurd (because of strong wind) we were dead keen on some good skiing today. We therefore left our camp site at Folven before 09:30 in order to be skiing already from 10:00. The boys were going to spend the day at the ski-centre, while I would make an attempt at Kvitlenova.

I considered taking the chair lift up to 1300 metres, but decided that I was here to ski and not to sit down. And given the fact that there were sunny spells and hardly any wind I enjoyed very much the relatively hard work up the hill. My only real concern was the fact that the snow was a little wet and I hadn't waxed my skins since the last time I had to ski from wet snow to dry snow, with the unavoidable results that causes for skins sucking up moisture.

As I passed 1400 metres the snow was very hard with a thin layer of dry snow. Perfect for downhill skiing given my limited abilities, but bad news for my skins. Fortunately only a thin layer of snow built up under my skins, and it easily came off almost as soon as it stuck. But by now the wind was picking up, and when I got to the plateau at 1600 metres the wind was very strong, and visibility was rapidly decreasing. But I had sufficient view to find my way towards the north-west shoulder of Kvitlenova, so navigation was not an issue. So far.

As I got above 1800 metres the visibility was down to maximum 20 metres, but I decided to push on, assuming that from this side I wouldn't risk any cornices, and aided by the odd stone sticking up here and there. At a point where I thought I would be close to the summit I checked the altitude and direction on my GPS, and saw that I was at 1878 metres, and should head more left. I continued for a few more minutes before checking the GPS again. I was now at altitude 1904 metres, according to my GPS, and I was at a small top. I therefore concluded that I had reached the summit, but wasn't totally convinced. Only when I checked my GPS back at the ski-centre did I realise that I had been a little more than 100 metres south-west of the point marked as the summit on the maps. Whether this really is the highest point, or if my point is the highest, I don't know. There are numerous mountains where the summit cairn and the map summit deviate from the actual summit.

Anyway, I decided to turn around and play safe, because of the strong wind and no visibility; there was no point skiing too close to the steeper north-east side of the mountain. For all I knew there could be cornices on this side of the mountain.

The start of my return skiing was an interesting experience; my initial plan was to descend holding the GPS in my hand and back-track my ascent track. But when I turned around I could see that because of the hard snow the small ski pole holes from the metal tip were still visible. I was therefore able to follow my ascent route by carefully looking out for the small holes. I had left the skins on and since the terrain was fairly flat it was easy to keep the pace low enough to see what I was looking for. When I was down at 1850 metres the visibility suddenly improved considerably, and I was faced with two options; go back up and make sure I found the exact summit, or skins off and get down as quickly as possible. It took me about a tenth of a second to decide to be sensible and get down while it was still easy. So skins off and proper skiing down the gentle slopes. Skiing was extremely easy on the firm snow, and soon I was down at the flat section around 1600 metres. And the visibility was still OK so I decided to stop and take one photo of the mountain, before enjoying the skiing back down to the ski-centre.
Photos 29.05.2011