| Skålbotsheia &
Litlehornet from Søvikreitane Skålbotsheia Litlehornet |
| Estimated net time | 3-3½ hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | Plenty access to running water in the lower sections. No access to running water from Engesetskaret and above. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (October 2015). | ||
| Parking | Room for many cars at trail head, next to the football pitch. | ||
| Start height | 119 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 700 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 7.5 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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Drive to the intersection of roads 659 and 661 by Eidet (Tennfjord). Turn left towards Søvik/Brattvåg and continue for 4.4 km until you get to the exit for Søvik. Drive towards Søvik for 13.6 km, and turn right up a smaller road. Drive another 600+ metres and turn right just before a red barn. Continue up this road for 1.5 km, first on asphalt and later on a poor gravel road, until you get to the football pitches. Park here.
Start walking by continuing along the road you drove. After having passed a small bridge the road ends and you continue straight ahead onto a path. There are signs for "Storhornet" and "Litlehornet". This path is a bit vague in some places across the flat moor, but you will not have any real problems following it. Soon the path is marked by red paint, and you follow this path up to Engesetskaret (the saddle between Skålbotsheia and Litlehornet). In the saddle you continue a little east of south across boggy terrain. The red markers are a bit far apart in this area, and the path is vague, but as long as you stay on the left (east) side of the small valley you are OK. Just before the terrain drops down towards Grytafjorden there is a well defined path going up the south-east ridge of Skålbotsheia. Follow this path up to Storhornet, where there is a registration book and a proper cairn. From Storhornet you continue directly across to Skålbotsheia (there is no path here).
From Skålbotsheia descend back down to Engesetskaret on your ascent route. Then continue directly west towards Litlehornet summit. There is no good path here, so you need to find your best route up the heather slopes. From Litlehornet you can descend slightly further north than your ascent route, finding your best route back down to Engesetskaret. When back in the small valley you follow the ascent route back to the car.
This was a warm and beautiful Monday afternoon, and I just had to go for a hike. I had had Skålbotsheia and Litlehornet on my to-do list for at least one year, but I only wanted to visit these mountains in nice weather. Today was an excellent opportunity.
I left home straight from work and was ready to start my hike at 16:40. The path across the boggy area just after having left the mountain road was fairly dry, thanks to the fine summer we have had this year, and I made very good progress. When I got up to the flat section of Engesetskaret I lost the path on a couple of occasions, but was able to find the path again by looking for red paint on the trees. At one point I was worried I had missed the ascent towards Skålbotsheia, but I decided to continue a little longer to see if there would be a proper path following the south-west ridge. And right enough, the path leading up the south-west ridge was both well defined and marked by red paint.
The hike up towards the summit was very enjoyable, with superb views down towards the fjord and across to the Sunnmøre alps.
I reached the summit in just over 50 minutes, and after taking some photos I headed back down to Engesetskaret. On my way down I was trying to locate a path that would bring me up to Litlehornet, but I couldn't see any so I decided to just head straight up the shortest route towards the summit. I ended up having to fight my way through some bush, but for most it was quite acceptable. The amount of blueberries and cranberries (the mountain version) I was able to pick and eat definitely made this part of the hike more enjoyable than it would have been earlier in the season.
From the Litlehornet summit I followed a path towards north, but this path soon vanished so I decided to head south-east where I knew I would be able to comfortably get back down to Engesetskaret. From here I mostly ran back down to the car.