Hornelen
Interesting facts
- The sandstone of Hornelen belongs to the Hornelen Basin, which holds an estimated 25 km of stacked sedimentary layers, an extraordinary thickness for a basin of about 1,100 square kilometres.
- The basin's sandstone is arranged in repeating cycles roughly 100 metres thick, each laid down by an ancient river system that drained towards the west.
- Geologists link the basin to the collapse of the Caledonian mountain range, when the crust stretched along a huge low-angle fault with tens of kilometres of displacement.
- The age of these rocks was pinned down by fossil plants of Middle Devonian age found in the upper part of the sedimentary sequence.
- For centuries fishermen and sailors used the unmistakable cliff as a landmark for finding their way through the outer reaches of Nordfjord.
- According to legend, King Olav Tryggvason not only planted his shield on the summit but also carried down one of his men who had become stranded on the cliff.
- The mountain appears in a ballad about Saint Olav and the trolls, published in 1591 by the Danish historian Anders Sørensen Vedel.
- The Norwegian poets Claus and Peter Frimann wrote rival poems about Hornelen, and later Jakob Sande and Arnulf Øverland also celebrated it in verse.
- Despite its fame, Hornelen is not the highest point of its island: Svartevassegga, about a kilometre to the west, reaches 889 metres.
Why it is worth it
Hornelen rises 860 metres from the edge of the sea on the coast of western Norway, a sheer wall of rock above the strait of Frøysjøen. The summit lies only about 500 metres horizontally from the water, so the mountain drops to the fjord in a single dramatic sweep, and it is often described as the highest sea cliff in Europe. From the strait below, its grey, layered face fills the sky; from the top, the view reaches over the islands and skerries of the outer coast and into the mouth of Nordfjord.
The mountain stands at the eastern end of Bremangerlandet, an island in Bremanger Municipality in Vestland county. Hornelen is built of sandstone laid down in the Devonian period, around 400 million years ago, in a basin that geologists call the Hornelen Basin. The layered beds of this sandstone give the cliff its banded face, and the Devonian fields of western Norway are an important chapter in the geological history of the country.
A mountain so prominent has gathered stories. In the saga of Olav Tryggvason, the king who brought Christianity to Norway, it appears under the name Smalsarhorn, and legend holds that Olav climbed to the summit and fastened his shield there. Other tales make Hornelen a meeting place for witches on Midsummer Night and Christmas Eve. Today the summit is reached on foot by two hiking routes, the easiest about 7 km long, and since 2022 a via ferrata named the Olavsruta climbs the rock directly.
Getting there
Hornelen is on Bremangerlandet in Bremanger Municipality, Vestland; walking routes start at Berleneset and at Hunskår. The nearest airport is Florø Airport (FRO), about 31 km away in a straight line. The nearest city is Ålesund, about 85 km to the north.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Hornelen is a mountain in Bremanger Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The mountain sits on the eastern end of the island of Bremangerlandet, along the Frøysjøen strait, in the Nordfjord region. At 860 metres (2,820 ft), it is the highest sea cliff in Europe, and has for a long time been used as a landmark for naval navigation.
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