Reineskarvet parking.
Start of path towards Reineskarvet.
The route towards Reineskarvet's summit plateau.
Route to Reineskarvet summit.
| Reineskarvet from Vallo Reineskarvet |
| Estimated net time | 4-6 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | Reasonably easy access to running water from the river to the left of the route up to 1560 metres, but there are sections where the slopes down to the river is very steep. | ||
| GSM coverage | No coverage above approximately 1600 metres (August 2013). | ||
| Parking | Room for a couple of cars at trail head. | ||
| Start height | 1145 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 760 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 13.3 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From Gol drive road 7 approximately 20 km west, almost to Ål, and turn right where signed for "Vats". Start measuring from this junction.
- Turn right immediately after leaving road 7.
- At 0.5 km stay left.
- At 24.2 km fork left, where you get to lake Rødungen.
- At 24.6 km fork left.
- At 25.4 km pay toll in unmanned booth (credit cards OK). Fee is NOK 70 per 2013.
- At 29.6 km fork right where signed for "Iungdalshytta".
- At 37.1 km park on the left hand side of the road, 150 metres after a small bridge.
Start your hike by walking back across the bridge, and then follow obvious path up along the right side of the river. Follow this path, a little above the river, for 1.3 km (up to 1300 metres). The path now turns right (south-east) and runs along the south wall of Reineskarvet. At this point you should continue along the river, on a much vaguer path. This path continues another 1.4 km and completely fades away at around 1500 metres. From here continue another 1.2 km on the right hand side of the river, until you get close to a large rock with a small cairn on top. At this point turn right (east/south-east) and head up to point 1714m. Then down a few metres and up to point 1788m, which is marked by a cairn.
From point 1788m you have a good overview of the summit area, including three small tops. Reineskarvet's summit is the one in the middle, which is solid rock as opposed to the more boulder clad other two tops. Find your best way across scree and boulder to the summit, or alternatively visit all tops. Note that the top to the right (1789m) has the larger cairn.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
This hike was fairly well planned, and Halvard had logged a GPS track six days earlier. And with fine weather we soon forgot the too late and too wet Friday night only a few hours earlier. But Håvard-the-driver was in fine shape!
We hit the road from Trollset above Nesbyen at 10:30, and started our hike a little after noon. The sky had more clouds than not, but the temperature was fine, and there was practically no wind.
From point 1788m, after a long but easy walk, we had the large summit plateau in front of us. Halvard pointed us in the direction of the summit, where we picked up some garbage left by previous hikers. And after a sandwich and some rest we started to plan our descent. But Håvard considered continuing to Eitrejuvet to have a look at just how steep it is, but with no intention of going down there. When we told him this would add 5 km to the hike he quickly relaxed his proposal. But Håvard wasn't done yet, and instead suggested we visited the other small tops, on our way back to 1788m. This proved to be a very wise suggestion since the first stop on our return proved to be the actual summit (we found out when back at the cabin). This obviously surprised Halvard since he's up here every year, and had only ever been to the slightly lower top. But both my GPS readings and the maps show this second visited top as point 1791m. I would have hated to have taken on this long walk and missed the summit by 300 metres.
During our descent the sky got darker and darker, and there was definite danger of both rain and lightning, but we only got a few light drops, and were all very happy with a nice hike through a lot of scree and boulder.