Storvätteshågna (1 204 m) (Långfjället Nature Reserve, Dalarna)

Hike to Storvätteshågna (Gaelta in Sami), Dalarna’s and Svealand’s highest mountain peak located in Långfjället Nature Reserve.

Route starts from Grövelsjön summer parking with space for about 20 cars (less if there are many motorhomes parked).

The first 5 – 5.5 km are easy to walk – you just need to follow one of many forks that all lead to the same point – wooden bridge at Övre Fosksjön lake, at the foot of the mountain.

From there begins a 3.5km long climb to the Storvätteshågna’s top (1204m). The first 2 km are steep but the path is dry and clearly visible. There is another trail up the mountain, a winter trail (marked by red crosses), that starts just 100m further away, and seems to be slightly longer but slightly gentler – it could be the reason why more people picked that route to climb Storvätteshågna - not sure how messy it gets during the rainy summer days though.

However, both winter and summer trail join after those steep 2km at the somewhat flatter ground, and from that point there is just 1 more kilometre of gentle ups and downs (sometimes through wet terrain due to the snow melting) before Santesontjärn lake is reached.

Finally, the peak is just 5 minutes away from the lake, so many hikers choose to chill by the lake rather than at the top, but don’t skip that final part of the route, as the view from the top is really nice!

To avoid going the same way back (which would be the easiest and quickest way to return), we chose to follow slightly steeper descent path that is marked as a path to Hävlingen. After cca 1.5 km we reached signposted trail junction, and turned left onto the path to Grövelsjön.

That part of the route was a bit more difficult to follow because the trail was not always visible and markings were not that good as on other parts of this hike, but nothing too bad. Something that should be kept in mind though is that this stretch of the trail crosses numerous streams (at least with snow melting in progress), so it can probably get quite wet and muddy after lots of rain, but as we went there after week(s) of dry weather, we managed to keep our feet dry.

After 3 km we reached another signposted junction, above the lake, and turned left on a well worn path towards Grövelsjön. After cca 750m we passed the bridge at the foot of the mountain, and from there we retraced our steps to the car park.


** Keep in mind that this is a “fjäll”, which means mountain above the tree line, which also means zero probability to find a shade on a sunny day. Doing the hike on a very hot Midsummer weekend, I ended up with some ugly sunburns despite wearing sunscreen, so consider yourself warned.

Brochure and map
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