Hike Sarkofagen

The hike starts from Nybyen, the houses at the end of the road in Longyearbyen. First you need to cross the river, which is a lot of small streams forming a wide river delta. Depending of it is a hot day or if it has been raining a lot, it can be high water and tricky to cross. You continue up on the left side of the Sarkofagen mountain, through the morain landscape, until you reach the back of the mountain, from here it is not steep to hike the last slope up to the top of the mountain. Up there you will find yourself on a plateau, so you simply go to the edge that is facing Longyearbyen and here you have the best view over the landscape. Enjoy!

On the way down you can take the same way back or you can go down on the other side of the Sarkofagen mountain, there it will be a downhill with some little streams to cross before you are down at the Longyear glacier, in the summer the glacier might be slippery and then you need a pair of ice spikes to put under your shoes. Just follow the glacier down to the morain area, this is a great place to search for plant fossils! From here you can see town and to get there you just need to cross the same river as you started with, now you have made a round trip!

In the winter time it is great to do this trip on skis or snow shoes.

Since this hike goes in polar bear terrain it is very important that you carry a weapon and knows how to use it or that you go hiking together with someone that has a weapon and knows how to use it for polar bear protection.