| Veten and Høgstefjellet
from Falkanger Veten Høgstefjellet |
| Estimated net time | 2½-3 hours |
| Difficulty | No difficulties, but the route has a lot of boggy sections. |
| Drinking water | No access to drinking water. |
| GSM coverage | Poor/no coverage in the forest up towards Høgstefjellet, else fine. Coverage at both summits. |
| Parking | Big car park at trail head. |
| Start height | 224 metres |
| Vertical metres | 600 metres for the roundtrip |
| Trip distance | 8.0 km |
| GPS-file | X |
| Map |
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| Route photo |
From Bergen drive north on road E39, through Åsane and continue north. Turn left, onto road E39, in the round-about separating roads E39 and E16. Then drive 6.7 km and turn right at the exit signed "Steinestø" and "Hordvikneset", and continue 700 metres. Then turn left, following signs for "Salhus" and "Hordvik". 200 metres later turn right and continue to follow signs for "Salhus" and "Hordvik". Drive 1.6 km and turn left towards "Falkanger", and continue up this road for 1.9 km until you see a large car park on your left hand side. Park here.
Start walking by following the asphalt road south-east for 90 metres. You then turn left and follow the path south and then east. This path is a bit boggy in places, but nothing to worry about. When you get to a flat section at the foot of the final top you keep left where the path forks, and follow this path to the summit. The summit is marked by a big cairn.
You then descend back down to where you left the road, and turn left. When the road forks you keep left, following signs for "Den Trondhjemske Postvei". A little after you have passed the second stone fence you will see a sign for "Høgstefjellet" on your right hand side. Follow this path uphill, and later north west, circumventing the mountain counter clockwise. When you are directly north of the mountain the extremely boggy path turns south, and you follow the path uphill in awkward terrain, to the summit. The summit consists of two tops, which seems to be of equal height. Visit both, and continue on this path south-east and back down towards the valley between Høgstefjellet and Veten. When you have descended the first steep section and reach a flatter area you need to decide whether to continue on the path and end up having a long walk back north through the valley, or if you will try your luck to descend more directly down to the valley. This route description assumes the latter, but this isn't really recommended; it is very boggy and you have to fight a lot of juniper and dense spruce forest. When back down in the valley you follow the mountain road back to the car.
Another couple of days working in Bergen, and another opportunity to enjoy some Bergen mountains. This time I decided to visit two of the mountains located in the far north of Bergen; the reason being that they were closest to my work location at Hordvikneset and hence I would be able to complete my hike before it got dark.
I set out from Falkanger at 17:40 at walked at good pace up to Veten. From Veten I decided to walk across to Høgstefjellet, and I hoped that I could get across without first having to descend all the way back down to Falkanger. Halfway down from Veten I found something that looked like a path going west, but this turned out to be a dead end, so I had to come back up. I therefore continued all the way down to the mountain road at Falkanger before heading south, and continued on this road until I saw signs for "Høgstefjellet". I followed this path counter clockwise around Høgstefjellet. This path eventually became the most boggy path I had ever been on, and since it kept going around the mountain I decided to leave the path I try to gain some height. After some fighting with really dense spruce I made it into more open terrain, but now I had to fight my way through juniper. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was confident that this route was leading me to the summit of the mountain. After having fought my way through the juniper I found a path coming up from west (I assume this is where I would have come up if I had stayed on the path further down), which took me up to the summit.
From the summit I followed the path down towards south-east, but after having descended the first steep section I saw that this path was continuing south-east as opposed to taking me back down to the mountain road that would take me back to Falkanger. I therefore headed left in order to find a shorter route down to the road. This was definitively a shorter route back to the car, but the amount of dense spruce and extremely boggy terrain was very depressing; at some stages I simply regretted having taken on this mountain, and I certainly made up my mind that I was never going to hike this route again!
By the time I got back down on the mountain road it was getting dark, so I decided to run all the way back to the car. This lifted my spirit a little, but I knew that potentially the most difficult part of the night was still to come; finding a car park in Bergen that wasn't too far away from my hotel. Luckily I didn't have any problems finding a car park within reasonable walking distance, and I hurried back to the hotel in order to get to my shower before I was freezing too badly. I assume I raised some eyebrows when I was checking in at the hotel, dripping wet and with mud up to my hips, but I didn't care about anything else than a hot shower and dry clothes!