How long does the Preikestolen hike take?

The walking, split in half

Up takes most people around two hours, sometimes a little more, because the steepest stone staircases come early and the boulder fields slow everybody down regardless of fitness. Time on the plateau is whatever you decide, and I would allow half an hour: it is a flat granite tongue roughly 25 by 25 metres, there is a crack across it worth looking at, and there is nowhere to sit that is not rock. Down takes nearly as long as up, which is the number people get wrong. Nobody trots down a boulder field.

The one figure I will not give you is two hours. It appears on the internet, it is a fit person going fast on a dry day without stopping, and repeating it to an average visitor is how people end up on the trail in the dark. The honest figure is four to five: how hard it is.

The whole-day arithmetic from Stavanger

Do it in your head before you commit. An hour out from the city by road through the Ryfylke Tunnel, or 45 minutes if the traffic is kind. Four to five hours of walking. An hour back. That is six to seven hours of moving, before you have parked, changed your boots, queued for the machine on the way out, or stopped for anything at all. Seven to eight hours is a fair estimate for a driving day, and a full day is the honest way to plan it: the getting-there page.

On the seasonal bus the arithmetic is not yours. Departures from Byterminalen are fixed, tickets are bought online in advance, and your day is shaped by the return you can actually catch. From around 20 June to around 13 September there are enough departures for that to be comfortable. In March and April there are two in the morning and very little forgiveness: the bus page.

What each booked format actually costs you in hours

The guided hike from the cruise terminal is six hours door to door, which makes it the shortest guided day and the one built around a ship in port: the guided hike. With hotel pickup it is seven, because the bus collects people around the city first: the pickup version. The back-country route is also seven, on a longer trail with a smaller group: the hidden trail. Put the boat and the hike together and it is eight and a half: cruise and hike. The winter day is nine, because winter makes everything slower: the winter hike. And if you are not walking at all, the cruise is three and a half: the cruise.

Off a ship, the numbers get tight

Independently from a cruise berth it is about an hour out, four to five hours walking and an hour back. Call it six hours minimum against a typical eight to ten hour call. It fits. It fits with no margin, and the consequence of a slow descent or a missed bus is not an inconvenience. This is exactly the arithmetic the flagship guided day is built to solve, and I work it through properly on the cruise-ship page.

Starting early or late

In late June the light lets you start at eight in the evening and come down near midnight, which changes what a long day means: best time of day. In November the usable daylight is short enough that the whole calculation has to be done backwards from sunset.

Booking the shortest guided day

Availability below; the full set of formats is on the bookings page.

A reminder about what that widget is. It books the ride out of Stavanger and, on most of these, a guide. It does not book Preikestolen. Nobody sells a ticket to the trail: it is free, open and unguided, and you can walk up it without paying anyone a thing.

Frequently asked questions