How high is Preikestolen?
The number people get wrong
604 metres is the height of the cliff above the water. It is not how far you climb. The car park at Preikestolen Fjellstue is already well up the hillside, so the walk gains somewhere between about 350 and 500 metres depending on how you count the dips, and the trail goes down as well as up on the way. That mismatch is why people read 604 metres, brace for something alpine, and then find the difficulty is the ground rather than the altitude. How hard it actually is sits on its own page.
In feet, and in things you know
1,982 feet. Round it to two thousand and you are close enough for conversation. For scale: it is roughly twice the height of the Eiffel Tower to its tip, and the fjord below is deep enough to swallow that tower again with room over. I find neither comparison does much. What does the work is standing on the flat part and noticing that the water has no texture from up there.
Why the fjord depth matters
The Lysefjord runs 42 kilometres inland and reaches 422 metres deep, which is what a glacier does to a valley it has spent a long time in. The same ice steepened the wall you are standing on. So the 604 metres above the water and the 422 below it are the same event seen from two sides, and together they are the reason the drop looks the way it does rather than merely being tall. The formation is described on what makes it special.
Seeing the height from below
The plateau is genuinely hard to read from the top, because you are on it. From the water it becomes obvious: the Lysefjord cruise passes directly beneath the cliff, and the small pale notch 604 metres up with specks on it is the thing you were standing on. People who do both usually say the boat is where the number finally lands.
If you want the height to register while you are up there, look across at the far wall of the fjord rather than down. The opposite side gives you a scale the water cannot, because it has trees on it and you can see how small they are.
What there is to book
The trail is free and there is no ticket for it. What is bookable is the Lysefjord cruise, which passes under the cliff and involves no walking at all, and the guided hikes that drive you out from Stavanger. Everything is listed on the bookings page.
Frequently asked questions
How high is Pulpit Rock in feet?
1,982 feet above the Lysefjord, which is 604 metres.
How much do you climb on the hike?
Roughly 350 to 500 metres, depending on how the dips are counted. The car park is already well up the hill.
How deep is the fjord below it?
The Lysefjord is up to 422 metres deep, so the total vertical from the plateau to the fjord bed is over a kilometre.