What I did on my summer vacation

[Snarky]

I'm hiking in the Norwegian mountains.

Snarky, that sounds great !!!
I am thinking of hiking there as well, after my way of St. James
Would be nice if you gave a comment on your experience there !
You might meet Heltenjon , good luck :-)
And never leave a trace !

So, since you ask me about my hiking vacation…

I knew I wasn't going to go abroad for summer holiday this year, still cautious after COVID, so I arranged to go on a bunch of group hikes with DNT, the Norwegian Trekking Association, of which I am a member. I've been hiking before, but it's been a few years since I did a longer hike, so I started easy this spring with a local afternoon group hike, then a full-day hike, then a two-day hike (staying in a hotel overnight), as well as a number of walks in the forest by myself. These served as training and to get to know my capabilities and limits, as well as to identify what equipment I needed to get for the real outings.

The most important thing was to ensure my hiking boots fit, and to figure out how to best prevent blisters, which can be debilitating and force you break off a longer hike. Good footwear is also essential to preventing slips and ankle injuries. And on the first long hike I did, I found out that I need to trim my toenails in advance, since my toes ended up cutting into each other and making me bleed through my socks.

This summer I've been on three multi-day hikes. All three involved staying in DNT cabins (rather than camping out in tents: this means you don't have to carry a sleeping bag, tent, or as much food, since they have food stores in the cabins), and walking with a ~12 kg backpack.

The first was a three-day hike in June through Nordmarka, the forest north of Oslo (in fact, most of it is within Oslo county) which is protected from development, though not from logging. This is relatively low-land terrain, but very hilly, dominated by pine forests and lakes.


View from Kjerkeberget, a hill/small mountain which at 631 m above sea level is the highest point in Oslo. All the landscape you see is part of Oslo. The lakes are Store Sandungen and Hakkloa.

Although this hike was not in the mountain regions, it actually turned out to be the most challenging of the three. There are a lot of ridges and narrow valleys you have to cross, so the total elevation surmounted is considerable, and the paths are a little more difficult than those up in the mountains (at least the ones I later took), particularly due to mud. The stages were also relatively long, at 15â€"16 km per day. That may not sound like a lot, but walking in rough terrain where you always have to look where to place your feet is a whole lot slower and more exhausting than walking on level streets.

Even though it was tiring, I really enjoyed this hike. It brought me through parts of Nordmarka I had not been before, and it's a landscape I adore. On the evening of the first day we bathed in the Katnosa lake (most unstaffed DNT cabins have no running water; fortunately the water in most lakes and streams is safe to drink throughout the country), and on the third day we ended up at Vettakollen, a peak at the edge of the forest which offers the best possible panorama vista of the city of Oslo.


Katnosa lake with the Katnosdammen DNT cabin. Photo by one of the other participants.

Another nice thing about this hike was that it's in the nearby area; we got to our starting point in less than two hours by regular bus from Oslo (and a short ride by maxi-taxi for the final stretch), and from Vettakollen you can just walk down the hill and you're at a stop on the Oslo metro (though I decided I might just as well walk the last bit home).

Then in July I took two four-day hikes almost back-to-back in different parts of the country (that includes travel, so it was more like three days of actual hiking in each case). The first was in Langsua, which is a national park that adjoins the Jotunheimen mountains. This was a very different landscape, up at the tree limit, where you get forests of dwarf birch mixed with pastures (grazed mostly by sheep) down in the valleys and plains, and then heathland of small shrubs, grass and moss higher up on the mountainsides and plateaus, as well as regions of mostly barren rock and gravel where only lichen and some moss grows.

It's far more open than Nordmarka, and although we had to walk up a few mountainsides, it was pretty gentle going on very clear and easy paths, and at 11â€"15 km per day the stages were not particularly hard. Occasionally we had to cross a stream or a bog, so I was very happy to have solid hiking boots. Among the trees, sheltered from the wind, there were thick clouds of mosquitos; fortunately I found the mosquito spray very effective, and they did not bother me.


Heading uphill in Langsua, having just emerged from a copse of dwarf birch and crossed a small stream. Note the red T that marks DNT paths up in the mountains.

Lots of people love the mountains and the wide mountain plateaus. Personally I find them rather desolate and monotonous, and I'm happier in more verdant landscapes. However, I did love looking out over the forested valleys below, with the lakes and the snow-peaked Jotunheimen mountains in the background. It really looks like a kind of stone age landscape, like something out of Jean M. Auel. You expect to see herds of wild horses or aurox stampede across, or a group of mammoth. In actual fact, I think there are some wild reindeer around, and there's a herd of muskox nearby, in Dovre, but the only thing we spotted, apart from sheep, was a lone moose in the distance.


Panorama from up on the Langsua mountain plateau. Too barren for my taste!

Finally, after I just returned from that trip, I went almost straight on to another outing to Hardangervidda, the great mountain plateau and national park in the south-central region of the country. This trip was a little different: instead of one continuous walk from cabin to cabin, we stayed in one place, Mogen (a staffed cabin with electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing rather than an outhouseâ€"decadence! They also serve excellent three-course dinners) and went on day hikes from there. That meant I didn't have to carry most of my stuff around, and therefore a significantly lighter backpack.

Despite the higher standard of accommodation (and the fact that I had cell phone coverage throughoutâ€"and even 5Gâ€"which I didn't in Langsua or even in part of Nordmarka), this is more isolated than Langsua. Mogen cabin sits on one end of Møsvatn, a 40 km-long lake up in the mountains (~918 m above sea level), and the only way to reach it is by boat/ferry in the summer, and snow scooter in the winter. During the ice-breaking in spring and first ice in the fall, the few people who live there are cut off from the rest of the world.


Looking down at Mogen, Arghovd, and the stream and waterfalls that feed Møsvatn lake. These cabins and farms are only accessible via the lake.

Again, we were close to the tree limit, with dwarf birch forests down by the lake and heathland and barren rock once we climbed the mountains up to the plateau. There's a lot of wetland up there, with bogs and mires as well as small ponds and large lakes with fine sandy beaches. We did a fair bit of "wilding": off-the-path hiking through the heather and moorlands and among the boulders and rocks. Even at the end of July, there were patches of snow that hadn't yet melted on some north-facing hillsides.

The notable thing here was the wind: hiking (and, for a very short stretch, climbing) up to the Hyttenuten peak (1445 m above sea level), the wind chill was brutal, and had me put on all my cold-weather gear: wool sweater, wind jacket, neck cloth, wool hat… But as soon as you're in cover of the wind and sitting in the sun, you were fine with just a T-shirt. And a little further down the mountain, in a sheltered valley, the Bergbekken mountain stream ran into a pool where several of the group took a bath, though I skipped it. (The water was about 15ºC, so they said.)


Selfie from wind-swept Hyttenuten, all bundled up. The long, winding Møsvatn lake in the background.


Descending from Hyttenuten via Gjuvsjåen lake in a sheltered valley. You can't really see it clearly in this photo, but to the left of the path there is a canyon maybe 20 m deep where the stream runs down in waterfalls.


Panorama of sheltered bathing pool. The rocks rose about 3 m around the pool where I was sitting. Diving from the big rock not recommended, with the water only 1-2 m deep.

All in all, I'm very happy with all the hikes. There were some less fun parts, but nothing very serious (the biggest problem was that the beds in Mogen were way too short for me, so that I could not comfortably lie in them, much less sleep; I ended up putting a mattress on the floor), and each trip offered something to make it worth it. It must be said I was very lucky with the weather, only experiencing rain on two days, and only for part of the day. There is no guarantee of that when you go hiking in Norway, so preparation and proper clothing and equipment is essential.

I've kept the title of the thread generic in case anyone else wants to share from their holiday.

[Ian Aloser]

Snarky,
thank you so much for this great summary !
This is definitely on my list !
Soon, I will walk the French Via Podiensis from Le Puy en Velay to St. Jean Pied de Port,
the starting point of my first Camino de Santiago.
I might come back to you later !
Thanks so much once more, hiking is a great way to travel....
Cheers, IaL

[cat]

Wow, those hikes look amazing! Good to hear you enjoyed your summer vacation. Thank you for sharing 

[Snarky]

Thanks, cat and IaL!

And good luck on your hike, IaL. I only just now realized that by "way of St. James" earlier you were referring to the Camino de Santiago de Compostela; I never heard it referred to as that before. The two-day prep hike I did earlier in spring was actually a leg of the Oslo-to-Nidaros (Trondheim) pilgrim way, and a lot of the party I was with had done parts of the Camino de Santiago as well, and had good things to say.

[Kastchey]

The photos are stunningly beautiful. Me and my wife used to hike a lot before we had the kids - 15-16 km a day is quite a distance, especially if you walk everyday. Sounds like you had a lovely holiday, thanks for sharing the story and the pics!