Østento trail head by road 117.
| Østento from road-117 Østento |
| Estimated net time | Less than one hour. | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | No stable access to running water. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (December 2012). | ||
| Parking | Room for one or two cars at trail head. | ||
| Start height | 71 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 50 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 1,6 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From Fredrikstad drive road 110 in the direction of Oslo. Approximately 5 km north of the city centre turn left onto road 116, signed for "Saltnes". Drive 3.5 km and turn left onto road 117, signed "Hankø". Follow this road 3.3 km to where a road head up to the left, sign for "Lerduebane" (clay pigeon shooting). Find parking somewhere in the junction.
Start your walk by following the road up towards the shooting area. Make sure you continue straight ahead in the first junction at the top of the hill, and then follow the road right a few tens of metres later. This will take you through the shooting area, and then a little downhill to a small open area. An old blue-and-yellow gate blocks a forest road going right, and a narrow path can be seen straight ahead. Enter the forest where the path starts and then make your way south, finding your best way through the partly dense forest. At the summit you will find a wooden sign stating that this used to be the location of a German view tower during the second world war.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
The plan for this Tuesday was to play ice hockey with the boys, but since "face off" was set to 14:00 I decided to visit Østento in my campaign to bag Østfold tops with primary factor >100m. Today's target would be another short walk, with uncertainties whether I would find a path or not. I had found a vague route description on the internet, but another 10-15 cm of snow since yesterday was likely to cover any less than very obvious paths. I followed the route description up to the shooting range, but didn't find the "pole" where the path was supposed to start, so just headed into the forest where I assume there is a path. But this path, if it is one, soon vanished, as far as I could figure out, and from here on I just headed in the general direction of the summit (I had plotted the summit on my GPS).
After a little bit of messing around I found what probably is the highest point, and which has a wooden sign referring to a former view tower at this location. In order to ensure I had found the summit, I continued another 100 metres, but with nothing of higher altitude in sight I concluded I had reached the summit and headed back down to the car.