Tag Archives: Alsstien

Walking on Alsstien

There are many interesting paths for hiking around Als. One of them is “Alsstien” which runs along the east coast of the island. The path is close to the coast most of the way with some beautiful seascapes, going along pebble stone beaches, through beech forests and past ancient megaliths.

The whole path is around 73 km long and is in the official maps divided into three sections going from

All of Alsstien 73km hiking route from OSM

The path is in very varied terrain as the video further down will show. It is marked with blue signs with a white man. In places the route is not well marked and having the maps above at hand can be well worth it.

Together with two friends I decided to try and walk a section of the path. More precisely the section from Sarup in south to one of the shelters in Nørreskoven. We were not completely sure of how long this trip would be but expected it to be about 20-25km that we could cover in 4 hours.


View Hiking Alsstien (Nørreskoven) in a larger map

It turned out to be 18 km to the first shelter in Nørreskoven where we decided to stay for the night. The good thing about these shelters is that you do not need to bring a tent as you have a roof over your head. In our region the shelters offered by the kommune are mapped here.

Shelter in Nørreskoven

There is a small area were it is allowed to camp, a fireplace with a handy grill that can be raised and lowered according to the fire. When we arrived there was a family of about 10 people who had camped in tents on the grass area.

In the shelter a local drunk had already set up but there was still room so we decided to stay next to her which turned out to be a bad idea as she kept us awake most of the night.
All in all it was part of the experience and this was the view that greeted us as we woke up.

View from the shelter

We had thought of continuing the hike the next day but we were in for some heavy rain so rather than keep going we decided to backtrack a bit to a place were we could get picked up.

I shot some video from our hike. It’s in Danish and quite long but could be useful if you want to get an overview of the different landscapes along the route:

For more information about the path have a look at Britta from Blitzschuh’s account.

Blommeskobbel Long Barrows – Neolitic Remains

If you find yourself hiking the Als Trail (Alsstien) then you will at some point stumble across an opening in the middle of the forest called Blommeskobbel where you see two huge circles of stone. These stones mark the remains of two burial mounds – or long barrows, as they are called.

This is a great place for a break on the walk and you can try to imagine what this place must have been like when it was built many centuries ago.

The trees gave some shelter but it was as damp and muddy and joyless as you could ever want. Blommeskobbel cheered me though. How could it not? The site consists of two langdyssers and two round barrows, with good kerbing, nicely exposed chambers and lots of character.

The Modern Antiquarian

The barrows are a massive 34 and 53 meters long and since the top has been removed ages ago you can see the 20-ton heavy cover stone that makes the roof of the actual burial chamber.

The barrows are thought to be constructed in the neolithic period, which in Denmark was around 3600 – 3200 B.C., as burial mounds for powerful people in the community at the time. I’ve heard people mention that Als should have some of Denmark’s oldest long barrows but have not found any sources for that online.

In 1935 the barrows were excavated but grave robbers had already been there so the excavations did not bring much new to light. They found a clay jug and a flint knife from a later age. In May the archeological museum in Haderslev did a special talk about the barrows where they presented some pictures from the excavation and restoration.

Read more details on Megalithic

If you arrive by car you need to follow the gravel road to the parking lot at the edge of the forest and then walk according to the signs from there.

The picture is taken from Dansk Naturfredningsforening.