Overview of first part of route to Livarden from Bontveit.
Start of route at Bontveit.
Forest road fork above Bontveit.
Start of path through forest, above Bontveit.
| Livarden from Bontveit Livarden |
| Estimated net time | 2-3 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | Possibly drinking water from the stream along the forest road. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (April 2010). | ||
| Parking | Room for many cars at trail head. | ||
| Start height | 302 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 400 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 5.8 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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NOTE: When this hike was done there was 20-30 cm snow on the ground, making it hard to locate any potential paths above the forest. Hence the section described as "off-path" below, might have a path.
From Bergen drive south to Nesttun, and then road E39 towards Os and Stavanger. Approximately 6 km from Nesttun, while driving along lake Kalandsvatnet, turn left where signed for "Bontveit". Drive 8.7 km along this road, to the highest point on the road. Park on the car park on the left hand side of the road.
Walk approximately 50 metres back along the road you arrived and turn right onto a gravel road. Follow this road around the horse-shoe, passing the first barn on the left hand side. When you get to the next group of buildings, a couple of hundred metres after the mentioned barn, turn sharp right immediately after the barn. Then head across the bridge and continue left (south). Proceed south for 400-500 metres along the good forest road, and keep following the forest road when it turns north. When you see a red cabin up on your right make sure you fork left, continuing on the forest road.
After another few hundred metres you get to a fence and a gate. Immediately after the gate there is a sign up to your left pointing to Livarden. Turn left here and follow this path, marked with red paint on the trees, through the dense spruce forest. When you get above the forest turn left and walk across to a large stone with red paint. From this stone head uphill to a small plateau. From this plateau head off-path straight up to the ridge above you. Once up on the ridge you will see some big cairns on the main ridge of Livarden. Proceed up to this ridge, passing a small lake on its left hand side, and turn right (north) when you get up to the cairns. From here walk approximately 500 metres north to the summit, which is marked by a big cairn with a red post box containing a registration book.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
Since I had to settle for a shorter-than-planned hike earlier this Saturday (Såta instead of Tveitakvitingen, because of poor visibility) I decided to add an afternoon's hike to a top within reasonable driving distance from Os. At the end I decided to hike Livarden from Bontveit, a route I assumed would be relatively short and not too cumbersome.
I had studied various maps and 3D graphics of Norway quite intensively and thought I had found a route that wouldn't give me too much off-path hiking. However, I hadn't though about the considerable amounts of snow that had fallen the last couple of days, and this made the hike much more strenuous than appreciated.
As I passed the last building close to the farms at Bontveit, and old shed, I noticed a man working there, so I asked him about the best route to Livarden. He was most informative and described two routes for me. I thanked him and proceeded along the fine forest road. When I got up to the gate he had mentioned I immediately saw the sign for Livarden, and followed this path though the forest. This was easy walking, except for a couple of places where there were small openings in the forest, these places had at least 1 m of soft/rotten snow. My first though was that this amount of snow would only be a problem down here because the trees made these spots lie in the shade all the time, but when I got above the forest I had to do a lot of walking in knee-deep soft snow, and in some of the steeper sections the snow was well above my knees. But once on the main ridge the snow wasn't an issue any longer, and I could proceed along to the summit. The amounts of snow is probably best described by the fact that the only other hiker to sign the registration book today was a skier ...