Litletinden trail head at Kvanndalsstøylen.
Route up to Litletinden's north ridge.
| Litletinden from
Kvanndalsstøylen Litletinden |
| Estimated net time | 3-4 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No technical difficulties but the 40 metres ridge between the trigonometric point and the true summit is a little exposed. | ||
| Drinking water | No stable access to running water, but you're likely to find water in the west slopes. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (July 2014). | ||
| Parking | Room for several cars around trail head. | ||
| Start height | 494 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 770 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 5.7 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From Ålesund drive road E39 south towards Bergen, and get the ferry from Solavågen to Festøya. From Festøya ferry port turn right and drive road E39 in the direction of Ørsta. Measure from the ferry port:
- At 35.9 km turn left in the round about in Ørsta centre and drive road 655 in the direction of Sæbø.
- At 40.6 km turn right across a bridge and continue on road 655.
- At 48.2 km turn right onto a smaller road going straight ahead, where road 655 makes a sharp left turn.
- At 49.0 km you get to a T-junction. Either park here and continue on foot, or, if you have been granted permission to drive up to Kvanndalsstøylen, continue driving as described below.
- Turn left in the T-junction.
- At 49.3 km turn right and continue uphill (there's a gate here, and if locked you definitely need to park down by the T-junction).
- At 51.0 km park on the right hand side of the road just before you get to some cabins, and 140 metres before lake Kvanndalsvatnet.
From the car park by Kvanndalsstøylen walk up amongst the cabins on the far side and look for blue plastic ribbons which marks a path. Follow this path approximately 1km from the cabins, or longer if you find that to be better. Wherever you see a good place to head up the steep slopes turn left (east) and head off-path up to the ridge. Note that the path is quite vague in places, but the blue ribbons mark the way.
Once on Litletinden's north ridge turn right (south) and walk towards the base of the summit pyramid. From here you'll find a path leading all the way up to the trigonometric point and a proper cairn. The summit, however, is located another 30-40 metres south-east along the ridge and requires a touch of head for height, but without any technical difficulties. The summit is marked by a few stones.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
I met Kjetil at Solavågen ferry port after work this Tuesday, with the plan to hike either Litletinden or Rotbergshornet. When we got Litletinden in view it was covered in mist above 1000m and we considered going for Rotbergshornet, but convinced ourselves that the mist would lift by the time we got to the summit. It's called optimism ...
When we got to the T-junction 2 km below Kvanndalsstøylen, from where we assumed we had to start the hike, we saw a car continuing towards where we were heading. We concluded that "if he can, then we can", and started to drive uphill. When we saw the gate was open we decided to drive up to Kvanndalsstøylen, and with no pointing fingers or other no-no's from the car ahead of us we decided to park and start our hike from below the cabins.
After some discussions on what route to choose we ended up heading towards the ridge around half-way along it. This turned out to be an OK route from where we left the path, but some loose boulder gave me a considerable cut on my shin. But with sufficient determination there was only one way forward, and soon the terrain got better. And the mist started to lift proportionally with our altitude, and by the time we got to the "summit" cairn we had pretty nice view towards north. And by the time we got across to the true summit I concluded that "this is a very nice top, with spectacular views".
After a very fine summit stay we headed back down, and I started to get some concerns about the gate that had been open when we drove up to Kvanndalsstøylen; was it still open or had someone locked it by now? When I saw another car parked next to mine I was relieved, assuming that at worst the owner of that car would have a key for the potentially locked gate. But there was no need to worry, and we managed to catch the 21:55 ferry with a few minutes to spare.