Estimated net time	2½-3 hours
Difficulty	No difficulties, but a few places are steep enough to require a touch of assistance from the hands.
Drinking water	There are several sources of running water through the forest.
GSM coverage	Coverage throughout the route, except around trail head (July 2012).
Parking	Room for several cars at trail head, at the top of the road. It's also possible to park along the road where the forest road starts.
Start height	275 metres
Vertical metres	500 metres for the roundtrip.
Trip distance	5.5 km
GPS-file	X (ascent only)
Map		Google Interactive Map
Route photo	Samlen trail head by road-550.

From the ferry port at Jondal turn left onto road 550 and drive 17.6 km north and park on the right hand side of the road. This is the road's highest point just north of Herand, and is 150 metres south of the Jondal-Ullensvang municipality border.

Start your hike by walking road 550 north 400 metres, and then turn left onto a forest road where signed for "Samlen". Note that you might be able to park also down here, but that will most likely be along the road. Follow the forest road 100 metres and fork right, and then turn left onto a path after approximately 30 metres. This path, marked with red "T"s can be followed all the way to the summit, which is marked by a trigonometric point marker and a small cairn. You will also find a larger cairn and one or two registration books a few metres west of the summit.

Descend by reversing your ascent route.

25. July 2012

The intention for this Wednesday, our last full day in Jondal, was to drive Sigurd to the summer ski-centre and then for me to hike Veranuten. Then back down to Jondal and hike Samlen with Elisabeth and Njål, with Sigurd getting the bus down from the ski-centre at the end of the day. But when Sigurd and me arrived the ski-centre at 09:30 the visibility was less than 50 metres, and when there were no change by 10:00 we decided to head back down to the coast, and instead hike Samlen.

The weather down by the coast was much better than up by the glacier, and we had a beautiful view of Samlen when we drove north from Jondal. But as we approached the summit more and more fog came drifting in, and by the time we reached the summit the view was in practice down to nothing. We decided to wait a few minutes at the summit, but when there were no signs of improvements we started our descent.

While descending we met two other groups of hikers, and when driving back to Jondal and looking back at Samlen we realised that by the time the other hikers reached the summit the fog had cleared and the summit would yet again provide nice views at least to the coastal areas. Given the improvements in weather we called the ski-centre, and they told us they had opened a while back. Elisabeth therefore drove Sigurd up to the glacier, allowing him a couple of hours of snow boarding, while Njål and me settled for getting dinner sorted.
Photos 25.07.2012