Most of the route is on forest road and path.
Trail head by the golf course in Øvredalen.
Fork right, and head across metal bridge.
Fork left onto this rough forest road.
| Sveningen from
Øvredalen Sveningen |
| Estimated net time | 3½-4 hours | ||
| Difficulty |
No difficulties. Most of the route is on forest road and path. |
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| Drinking water | Several sources of running water along the route. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage at the summit (April 2010). | ||
| Parking | Room for several cars around trail head. | ||
| Start height | 40 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 815 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 10.4 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From Bergen drive road E39 south towards Os, and then into Osøyro centre. Follow road 552 towards Hatvik, and continue 1.2 km on 552 after you have crossed the bridge across Oselva river in Osøyro centre. Turn left here, where signed for "Lønningdal" and "Samnanger", and continue 9.9 km. Then turn left, following sign for "Øvredal". Drive another 3.6 km, along lake Øvredalsvatnet on its left (west) side, and up to the golf course. Find parking somewhere, e.g. on the left hand side of the road just before the small bridge.
Start walking by following the forest road that goes left just before the bridge. Then proceed past the golf course. For the next couple of kilometres the route is signed in a very peculiar way; a number of texts/quotes, various pieces of clothing (mainly underwear), a couple of bottles of liqueur, and other items. When the road forks a little less than 700 metres from the trail head you should fork right across the old metal bridge. Continue on the forest road, some 500 metres, and turn left onto a forest road that has a large sign between two trees. The sign says "Inngong til Sveningjen" ("Entrance for Sveningen"). After another 800 metres the forest road turns into a path, and you follow this path all the way up to the foot of Sveningen, at approximately 500 metres.
When you get up to the flat section before the steeper climb up the final section to the summit you should turn a little right (east), and head up the ridge east of the small lake. The route up the ridge is marked by paint in a few places, but the route is pretty obvious. When you get to the top of the ridge the final section to the summit is obvious. There is a small cairn with a post box at the summit.
The descent is best done by reversing the ascent route.
During lunch this Wednesday, at our Hagavik factory, I managed to persuade my colleague Jonny to join me for a hike to Sveningen after work. Jonny is quite fit, so I knew we would be keeping a fair pace throughout the hike. After work we stopped at our hotel to get changed, and then set off to Øvredalen immediately.
The weather this spring evening was nice and sunny, but a little cold. However, some running into the valley soon changed any hint of coldness. When the terrain got steeper there was no more running, and soon we had to walk through patches of snow. And as we got higher we ran into more and more snow, and this made navigation a little more tricky since we weren't able to see the path. When we got up to the foot of the mountain we completely lost the path, but since both of us a used to hiking and a bit of scrambling we decided to scramble straight up from the flat section at 500 metres. There were no difficulties involved in this, just a little bit of fun.
Above the scrambling section we continued on firm, but not hard, snow, all the way to the summit. At the summit we enjoyed the fine views, before finally stowing away the camera and water bottles. As we turned around to start the descent both of us heard a strange noise; "swoooosh", and we turned around to see what was going on. We were both surprised to see a glider (aeroplane without engine) very close to the mountain. It then circled above us, and even "waved" with its wings.
For the descent we decided to follow the ridge, and right enough, this was clearly the normal route since we saw some paint marking the route. Back down in the forest we gradually picked up speed and started to run back to the car.