On top of Norway’s mountains

Here is the follow up of my wife’s post about her exciting trip in the montains. Please click to read the post from the first part! So I just say: Diane, the floor is yours:

I would like to begin by thanking everyone who has left comments to us, it has been really fun answering them with Renny. My first psot was just to get you warmed up! I have really been looking forward to take you all up the mountain with me because that is what the trip is all about!! So fasten your backpacks on tightly and make sure you have high hiking boots on before you read any further because we are going up over 1200 meters (3,937 feet) and it might get a bit messy!!

All pictures taken by Diane – click to enlarge!

First I would like to say that the ‘trails’ we hiked on are nothing like what I have experienced before. I have mostly gone hiking in well set up tourist areas with relatively wide trails, here the trail is made mostly by the local cabin owners, many of them are animal trails which we humans borrow and mostly not wide enough to put your two feet together side by side. Sometimes the trail disappears entirely, especially when Eli takes us on a shortcut! Or when we cross a bog (wetland) where there is no trail at all, just lots of soft moss and you don’t know just how wet it is until you cross it! The terrain is very rocky and mossy and it doesn’t take long before the low trees are just bushes and after that there are no trees at all because we are above the tree line. That isn’t to say the ground is bare however, lingonberries (which taste like wild cranberries), blueberries, cloudberries and lichens, mushrooms and moss grow everywhere.

We hiked up to a lower peak first which took a little over an hour, and took a little break there to enjoy the beauty. Here we had a nice view of Gaustatoppen 1,883 meters over sea level (6,178 feet) which my friends Eli and Siri hiked last year. I was quite satisfied just to look at it from afar however!!

Renny has written already about Hardangervidda, and you can see his post here if you have forgotten! We were hiking in the Telemark side of Hardangervidda which is a high mountain plateu, once you come up you can hike from peak to peak and there are a lot of lovely small mountain lakes up there to enjoy as well.

After our break we hiked on to another peak which took about an hour more, up and up and up until I thought we certainly were hiking to heaven and my friends were really angels who came to bring me in :-) Her you see them leading the way, Eli in front because she has hiked these mountains for over 20 years and knows them like the back of her hand, well more or less.

When we made it to the top the view was breathtaking and we were hungry. We cooked hot dogs in on a portable camping burner, and made fresh coffee from the clean mountain water. That’s me sitting on the peak surrounded by lingonberries, totally exhausted!

We had a wonderful time that day and you can bet we slept well that night:-) But if you think we were totally finished you are wrong, because the next day we got up and took a little 2 hour hike again, not as high this time, but high enough to deserve a candy bar and coffee in our thermos!! I heard a saying once: Life is not lived on top of the mountain, life is lived on the side of the mountain on the way up!? Well we sure did have fun getting there!

Hope you all enjoyed these adventures as much as I did. Looking forward to your comments:-)