Preikestolen and Kjeragbolten on the cheap

 

I revisited Norway in 2018. I have to say,  places are a little bit more crowded now and paths to Trolletunga / Preikestolen / Kjeragbolten are much more organized.

Also, if you are taking a car – parking under Trolletunga is 500 NOK, under Preikestolem – 200 NOK and under Kjeragbolten 200 NOK as well.  I credit this post here with making it all so popular.

Version of the post from 2012:

 

My friends!

If you have not heard about neither Preikestolen nor Kjeragbolten, then you are living poor lives indeed. These places are frequently covered in “10 places you have to visit in your lifetime”, “20 places where you can find a lot of Poles”, and so on. It’s VERY beautiful!

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But since you’re reading this post, I will assume you knaw the place I’m talking about :). Your focus is rather on “How to?” then on “What”. So I will share my experiences.

This is item #6 on My Bucketlist

Preparations


Lets start with preparations. Kjeragbolten and Preikestolen are near Stavanger. City is one of the biggest oil centers (Norway has loads of oil in the north sea). But, aside from Oil (Americans, please, I know you go everywhere for oil, but leave your guns at carpet bombing at home), there is something more interesting:
Lysefjord – as you propably figured this out, it’s a fjord.

Mapka

On the map – from left to right:

  • Preikestolen
  • Bratteli
  • Kjeragbolten

So, how to prepare?

  1. Wizzair is a great airline that flies to Stavanger. If you have someone with a membership in Wizzair Xclusive club, awesome! We have flown there for 25 EUR per person.
  2. Read the article on fly4free – in Polish!
  3. You have to be carefull with the date! We picked 7-10. 07 and it was awesome. In Norway, there aren’t many sunny days!

Our approach:

  • We dont have shitloads of money, and Norway is CRAZY expensive.
  • In Scandinavia, there is Allemansratten law, which states that out of the city you can put your tent wherever you want. So we took tents
  • Food is also crazy expensive, so we took as much food as we could. Aim for high calorie / weight ratio. NO cucumbers, crispy bread and so on… Chocolate, dry meat is great. You will be hiking and you will need fuel.
  • We wanted to pack in carry-ons and have one registered baggage per 4 people. We put tent, sleeping bags, food and knives over there. We made a cocoon out of it. If you put it in a bag, you will have to carry a bag. So we attached everything to out backpacks and everythong that was left were 2 ikea bags.
  • In Norway, you can drink water from anywhere and its safe. You just need bottles.
  • We dont have to pay for lodging since we have tents. Hiking with 15-20 kg on your back is awesome.
  • We were there Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tueseday 6:00 we had the flight back.

And the plan

We wanted to do both Kjeragbolten AND Preikestolen, so we managed to come with a following plan:

  1. SATURDAY
  2. We land on Saturday, break apart our baggage and go to Stavanger (airport is not so close). Unfortunately, on Saturday city bus 9 is from 12:00, so we grab some Polish people, share a cab and go to Stavanger. Cost per person: 74 nOK
  3. In Stavanger, we do a little sightseeing
  4. In the evening, we go to Tau, and then by Boreal Transport we buy ONE WAY ticket (for about 90 nok) to PreikestolenHytta
  5. We go uphill with our backpacks, people look at us strangely, but its worth it.
  6. Around 10 PM, we put up our tents. Its hard to find a good spot,because of wet moss and rocks, but its beautiful
  7. SUNDAY
  8. We leave our tents with stuff in them and march towards Preikestolen. Its awesome, and almost noone except us!
  9. Going back we pass a milion of tourists. It was a great decision to see the main attraction so early!
  10. We pack our tents, go down and march towards Bratteli
  11. The way towards Bratteli is much more deserted. There is a trail, but its easy to get lost and the path is not so safe. Stavanger Hiking association says this route should take 5-8 hours, in Preikestolenhytta they say its 8-10. Sometimes thay have to send helicopters there, because people get lost. I dont recomend this route, we made it in 6 hours.
  12. In Bratteli we took a boat to Lysebotn. Boat goes ONLY on sundays and you HAVE TO CALL before. It’s this stop:: http://reiseplanlegger.kolumbus.no/scripts/TravelMagic/travelmagicwe.dll/avgangsinfo?hpl=11294709 . It’s around 60 NOK.
  13. In Lysebotn we’re exhausted, so we decide to have a little bit of luxury and pay for camping and coffee. Yeah, we’re lazy! There is a great camping spot near a waterfall.
  14. MONDAY
  15. So in order to get from Lysebotn to Kjeragbolten you need to drive on a curvy mountain road. It’s VERY dangerous to go there by foot, so we took a taxi from the campground (about 100 NOK / person). That gets you 600 m upward, but you need to go another 800 on foot. Awesome?
  16. From the parking spot at Kjerag, we went up. It’s a little bit more exhausting then Preikestolen, at times its very steep but the view is very nice! It took us about 3 hours.
  17. You can meet some basejumpers – Basejumping is very popular in Kjerag.
  18. We do our photosession and have a roll in the snow 🙂
  19. Going down is easier
  20. At 16:45 there’s a bus to stavanger. It’s 490 both ways, but you can go one way for 250. Expensive!
  21. In the evening we decide to grab a beer on Stavanger. Crazy expensive! 😛
  22. Around 9 PM theres last ‘9’ bus too the airport. We met a group of 16 Poles! Group tickets ensue.
  23. We sleep at the airport ofcourse!
Have a nice trip!

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