Conquering the Kjerag Boulder Hike

I went to Norway a few weeks ago for a short but intense trip, just 5 days, but it felt like several weeks of experiences – mostly because of the hikes we managed to conquer! We started with Preikestolen on day 1, continued with Kjeragbolten on Day 2, drove north on day 3, and finished off with a bang at Trolltunga on Day 4 before flying home on day 5. If you have checked any of these hikes before, I’m sure you can imagine it was intense purely based on the amount of impressions we took in, not to mention the hike requirements themselves!

Preikestolen Views

This post will focus only on the toughest of the hikes however, being Kjeragbolten, also known and referred to as Kjerag Boulder hike, or just Kjerag. If you have never seen any photos of this place before going, you might be a bit surprised by the classic photolocation waiting for you at the top! Typically when completing a hike you’re expecting to be rewarded with some sort of epic viewpoint – Kjerag offers a whole lot more thrill than just your average viewpoint. You can decide to skip out on the thrill if you want to, however, I think it wouldn’t be fair to say you have completed the Kjerag hike unless you commit to the final bit, which is also the reward!

making out way up the moody mountain

The hike starts at a parking lot, where you will find a map showing the different levels of incline and how long they are – you will need to conquer about 600-700m total of steep altitude climbs, and a few hundred meters more of slight inclines. These steep sections are no joke! I believe most people can complete the hike if the mindset is there, but it’s definitely not an easy task for everyone! You will need to climb up rocky bits where you will need to assist your ascent with the metal railing pegged in the rock. Its a lot of fun, but can be quite challenging when its wet! Our hike up was accompanied by a fat cloud in which we found ourselves more or less the entire time. In hindsight this wasn’t a bad thing as we could never see the top of the steep parts so we couldn’t ever look up and say “hell no”, which was a consideration on the way down when looking back up, after it had cleared up.

more moody views

The final steep ascent was entirely covered in clouds by the time we got there.. spot the people on there for scale!

After conquering the 3 steep bits, we still had about 2km to go out of a total of 6km from the starting point. At this point we were walking literally on a mountain top almost getting lost in the cloud, only being able to see 10 meters or so ahead of us. At one point we actually had to stop and retrace because we had lost the indicators of the trail (which is just rocks piled on bigger rocks with a the letter T painted in red on it). Once we got back on track we finished the trek and could barely see the boulder, so we explored around that area a little and found a gorgeous glacier lake which seems to be very overlooked by visitors, make sure to check this place out if you go! When facing the boulder and fjord below, follow the stream up behind you on your left, and the source of that stream will be this gorgeous glacier Lake.

We decided to stick around as the forecast had promised a clear period about an hour after we reached the summit! Sure enough about an hour later, the clouds parted out of nowhere and we made our way back to the boulder. We found a huge stone basically, wedged neatly between 2 cliff faces, with a drop of about 1000m (3300ft) one either side! There is no safety harness or net, or anything of the sort to protect you, only you and your own balance! No need to be worried in my opinion, as no one has actually ever fallen off the boulder, but when/if you look down before stepping out onto the floating platform, you might decide not to do it! This drop is no joke ladies and gentlemen, this is SERIOUSLY one of the coolest viewpoints I have ever stood at! When you see it, its hard to fathom the height of the drop because of the angle you typically see it at, but when you head over to the side that people mount it from, you will very quickly taste the reality!

is this crazy or what?!

one of the more reoccuring thoughts that kept going through my mind was; “who the hell decided to step onto that?!” Imagine being the first ever person to find this utter spectacle of nature, and deciding “yup, this seems like a good idea – boulder between to cliffs with certain death all around me… seems legit!” – I always round back to the pure hope that whoever first stepped out there was wearing a harness and was with a lot of people ready to help! But worry not, it has been tested time and time again and it really seems like that boulder isn’t going anywhere!

made it to the topppp!!

Just behind it, there is another much overlooked viewpoint from which I had never seen photos before, make sure to snap a couple of shots here too if you go! This hike is definitely worth the effort and I highly recommend it! 5 out of 5 from me! Happy adventuring friends!

viewpoint around the back! Dont miss it!