Estimated net time	3½-4½ hours
Difficulty	There are several aspects with this route which makes it less than plain sailing, but there is nothing difficult. The first thing to note is that there is practically no paths so navigation has a touch of an issue to it through the forests. Secondly you need to combat a stretch of bush and fern. And finally the summit ridge offers a fair bit of exposure, but the ridge is wide enough to allow walking along it if your used to exposed terrain. However, this ridge can be avoided by hiking a little below the ridge on the left (north) side. Down here you should be aware of slippery moss.
Drinking water	Only stable access to running water from the river by trail head.
GSM coverage	Coverage along the summit ridge. Else very patchy, at best. No coverage at trail head (August 2010).
Parking	Room for a few cars along the road at trail head.
Start height	267 metres.
Vertical metres	975 metres for the roundtrip.
Trip distance	6.2 km
GPS-file	X
Map		Google Interactive Map
Route photo	Park above this bridge in Kjersemdalen.   Overview of upper part of route to Næremstindan from Kjersemdalen.   Turn right 20m after this building and enter the spruce forest.

From Ålesund drive road E136 east towards Sjøholt. At Sjøholt turn right towards "Geiranger" and "Stordal" onto road 650. Follow this road for 7.4 km and turn left towards "Vaksvikfjellet". Drive 9.5 km along the Vaksvikfjellet mountain road (you will be going downhill towards Tresfjord), and locate a small bridge crossing the river down on your left hand side. Park along the road directly above the bridge.

Start your hike by going down to the bridge, and then cross the river. Turn left after the bridge and follow a very wet and old forest road 140 metres to the remains of an old wooden building. Continue 10-20 metres past this building and turn right into the spruce forest. Head north/north-west through the forest until you get to an open area. You will see another spruce forest above you, and this one is better to pass on the left (west) side. If you stay close to the forest you will get onto a rough path when you get to the end of the forest. Stay on this path until it ends. From here proceed through bush and fern up towards the ridge coming down south from Næremstindan. You ascend this ridge by staying a little right of it, and then cross left (west) as it starts to get steeper ahead of you. There is some boulder in this area. Once on the ridge continue north to a a cairn you will soon see out on the right hand side above.

When you reach the cairn you have the long Næremstindan ridge ahead of you. To get onto the ridge you need to descend a little from the cairn; either descend a little to the left of the cairn, or climb down more directly to the ridge from right of the cairn. Once on the ridge proceed 470 metres to the summit, which is marked by a small cairn. If the ridge feels a bit risky you can get across to the summit by walking a little below the ridge on the left hand side.

Descend by reversing your ascent route.

05. August 2010

Having skipped my daily morning hike to Heimste Synnalandsheia this Thursday, and started work early, I decided to leave work a little early and do some hiking. I didn't really have anything in particular planned, but was toying with the idea of doing Jønshornet. But the longish travel put me off it, and instead I suddenly got an idea to do Næremstindan. A check with Westcoastpeaks.com showed that the quickest route, including travel, would be to hike from Kjersemdalen.

I left work around 14:30 and drove straight to Kjersemdalen, in warm and sunny conditions. A look up the mountain made the route quite obvious, given the information I had gathered before heading off. So off I went!

The short forest road after having crossed the bridge was extremely wet and boggy, so it was a pleasure to get into the relatively open spruce forest. When I got to the second part of the forest I decided to walk past it as opposed to through it since it looked much more dense than my first section of forest. As I got just above the spruce forest I stumbled onto a track made by the local animals (cows, and probably sheep), and decided to follow this track as long as it was heading in the general direction I wanted to go. After a while the track faded away and I started my less pleasant part of the hike, through birch (not the tall type, but more like bush) and fern. The most annoying thing was the fern because it prevented me from seeing the ground. When I was through with the bush and fern there was a short section of boulder partly covered by small plants and grass, also making hiking less than ideal. But this stretch wasn't long, and I could start my traverse up to the south ridge of Næremstindan. My route up here wasn't ideal, I assume, but it wasn't steeper than what I could hike comfortably.

Once on the ridge I had a long hike up the boulder to the final ridge. This boulder was quite unstable, but not difficult in any way. But there was another thing adding "spice" to the hiking; it started to rain. Which meant I had to stow away my camera, but it also meant that the summit ridge was likely to be a bit slippery. Time would tell how bad it would be.

When I got up to the first cairn and the start of the summit ridge the rain stopped, and even on wet rock along the ridge to the summit felt comfortable. At the summit I took lots of photos and enjoyed a sandwich, before heading down, very pleased that the rain had stopped just in time.
Photos 05.08.2010