Kyrkjetinden, Nupatippen, Aug 19 2026

Another great afternoon in the Sunnmøre alps

Index:

Date	Peak	Height	PF	Location	WCP/FP	MAP
19.08.26	Kyrkjetinden	1069m	54m	Ørsta, Norway	WCP	MAP
19.08.26	Nupatippen	845m	17m	Ørsta, Norway	WCP	MAP

Wednesday: It is not typical that I go to Ørsta the first three afternoons in a working week. It’s not far though. A half-an-hour drive.

I just could not let this nice weather go to waste and decided to revisit Kyrkjetinden and visit Nupatippen for the first time.

I hiked Kyrkjetinden back in 2011 and never blogged about it. So, I didn’t remember anything from that hike, other than having a feeling that the ascent involved boulder…

My “timeline” for the planned hike got screwed up because of a traffic accident in Ørsta. I hope they’re all okay and whoever caused it doesn’t repeat it.

I decided to bike the 2,5km gravel road from Vallabøen. If I had hiked, it would only have been 1km. But oh well. At least I would get quickly back to the car.

I chatted with a woman with a dog, resting where I left the bike. She thought I was rather courageous, biking a “non-electrical bike” all this way. I told her I was going to Kyrkjetinden. That seemed to be a bit outside her imagination…

I followed the path upwards – a path I know well after several visits to Saudehornet along this route. But today, I would not be going up to Vallahornet (and subsequently Saudehornet) …

I had no recollection of this route, whatsoever. I was staring down on the path, trying to keep a decent pace and then I suddenly found myself close to colliding with a couple and their dog. “Get off the trail”, the woman said. Was she talking to me?

“Get off the trail”, she repeated and I got off the trail. “No, not you”, she said. “The dog!” Aha. I replied that I didn’t see the point on 3 souls making way for 1 and so I stepped outside the trail. We had a nice chat. They had been to Nupatippen and could tell me that the route was easy enough.

I then asked them if they knew it was possible to get on the Vallabøen – Saudehornet route from this side. They had been thinking about it but found that it was too steep. That was a bit odd, because from what I had seen, it didn’t look steep at all.

“There is a lot of boulder up there”, the woman said – referring to Kyrkjetinden. “”Fantastic!“, I replied – “I love boulder!” She looked at me, surprised by my answer. I said that there is no loss of energy on boulder and now they understood what I meant. Then we parted.

I followed a vague path – marked by small cairns – up to the boulder and from that point on, I didn’t bother looking for markers. I just “zoned in” and focused on hiking on the rocks as efficiently as possible. If a rock moved when I stepped on it, that was “a failure”.

Yup, there was a whole lot of rock in the hillside, and I loved it…

Like the day before, fog came rolling in. Saudehornet soon got wrapped in it. On the coastline, I could see a “sea of fog”. Maybe I would wake up to a foggy Gurskøy island the next morning. Or perhaps not. I don’t understand fog.

I was hoping Kyrkjetinden would stay clear of the fog, especially since I thought the fog would stick to the higher neighbour Saudehornet – as glue.

I was almost up now. There were no difficulties involved in reaching the high point.

There wasn’t much to see, but I had reached the top and could now focus on Nupatippen.

Vassdalstinden, being wrapped in the fog was quite a sight…

I put on my 100mm lens, to get a better shot of this beautiful mountain.

And while the 100mm lens was on – a picture of Ørsta.

Then I continued along the ridge, towards Nupatippen.

I had absolutely no idea what the terrain ahead would look like, but I had imagined it would be a ridge without any major humps or bumps. What I had in front of me, was not what I had envisioned.

My first though was – this looks a bit alpine!

But when I looked more closely, it didn’t seem so difficult. It seemed like if there were any obstacles along the ridge, they could be bypassed to the right.

But why bypass when you have such a nice ridge at your disposal?

The first hump was easy enough…

The second one looked a tad harder. Maybe I would go for a bypass after all? But I decided to give the ridge a go, and it was surprisingly easy. I had to curve around a huge rock, but other than that – easy scrambling…

Then I reached the end of the Nupatippen ridge. From here on, it was only downhill. I played around with the idea of descending here, but the amount of “evil bush” below didn’t support that decision…

I had a good view towards Vallasætra and Mosætra from up here. As well as the valley between me and Vassdalstinden – a valley I am very eager to hike, in order to get a good look of Saudehornet’s “back side”

Now, it was time to get back home…

While the ridge was easy enough, it did have some narrow parts. A head for heights will come in handy…

The section on the below picture was a bit interesting. The picture doesn’t really show, but this passage is across a couple of rocks where your balance needs to be pristine. You can probably bypass it to the left, though.

Then followed the first hump – which looks scarier (from this side) than it actually was – and the long uphill to the top (927m) from where I could begin my descent.

From the 927m top, I sat course towards my ascent route. I enjoyed my descent too, although my legs were getting really tired by now. Not only from this hike, but from *all* of them. I don’t have resting days in my calendar, and I know how stupid that is…

I returned to my bicycle, and the next 2,5km took 7 minutes. On foot, it would have taken considerably longer.

When I returned to the car, I was surprised that the elapsed time was 3h:20m. The hike felt much shorter and I would have guessed 2,5 hours.

This would most likely be my last trip to Ørsta this working week. I would return on Sunday – together with Anne – to help a friend at her cabin. I looked forward to do some honest work with my chainsaw again…

Trip statistics: 6,5km on foot, 4,9km on bike, 1180 vertical meters, 3h:20m