Hornelen is a mountain in

Bremanger Bremanger is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The village of Svelgen is the administrative centre of the municipality. Other villages include Bremanger, Berle, Davik, Isane, Kalvåg, Svelgen, Rugsund, and Ålfoten. Bremanger is t ...

municipality in

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The mountain sits on the eastern end of the island of

Bremangerlandet Bremangerlandet is an island in Bremanger Municipality in the traditional district of Nordfjord in Vestland county, Norway. The island is one of the largest islands in the county. The highest point on the island is the tall mountain Svartevass ...

, along the

Frøysjøen Frøysjøen is a fjord (or more accurately, a strait) in Bremanger Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The fjord is about long and between wide. The fjord runs on a northeast–southwest axis between the mainland of Norway (on the east) a ...

strait, in the

Nordfjord Nordfjord (—in contrast to Sunnfjord) is a traditional district in Vestland county, Norway. Geography The region is located in the northern part of Vestland county in Western Norway. It centers on the Nordfjorden and it comprises Stad Muni ...

region of Norway. At , it is the highest sea

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

(see illustration left), and has for a long time been used as a

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern-day use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures ...

for naval

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

The horizontal distance from the summit to the sea is approximately . Approximately to the west of the cliffside is the highest point on the island

, called Svartevassegga which has an elevation of . The rock in Hornelen consists of

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

age, and it constitutes an important part of the

geology of Norway The geology of Norway encompasses the history of Earth that can be interpreted by rock types found in Norway, and the associated sedimentological history of soils and rock types. The Norwegian mountains were formed around 400 million years ago ...

Access and modern tourism

There are two possible routes to reach the summit. Both routes start from roughly sea level and can be initiated at either Berleneset or a parking lot at the cemetery at Hunskår. The easiest route follows a marked hiking trail that is roughly 7 km long and takes about four hours to reach the summit. The hiking season lasts from June to November. The second and more demanding route to reach the summit follows a publicly funded

via ferrata A via ferrata (Italian language, Italian for "iron path", plural ''vie ferrate'' or in English ''via ferratas'') is a protected climbing route found in the Alps and certain other Alpine locations. The protection includes steel fixtures such as ...

climbing route named Olavsrute, established in 2022. This route is graded F and can take up to 9 hours to complete. During the main season, a local guide can be hired to take one up the via ferrata. The route may also be climbed without a guide if one pays a maintenance fee. Due to safety concerns, the Bremanger municipality has wanted to restrict access to the via ferrata so that it cannot be climbed without a hired guide. However, in 2024, the Vestland county governor ruled that the

freedom to roam The freedom to roam, or everyone's right, every person's right or everyman's right, is the general public's right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the ...

also applies to the Hornelen via ferrata routes and that they can be climbed by anyone, even without a guide.

References

Mountains of Vestland Bremanger {{Vestland-mountain-stub

Access and modern tourism

See also

References