wolftone
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Bike ride to priekestolenhutte: challenging but a lot of fun with a bridge over the lysefjord, a big climb through a pleasantly chilly and well-lit tunnel, a roller-coaster 75kph downhill, and another nasty climb to the hut. But today's bike was just a means to the end of a really cool hike.
Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) is 604 meters directly above the fjord. And I mean directly. It's actually an overhang, so one bad step means a very long fall. Three precarious edges look all the way down the relatively straight and steep lysefjord ("light fjord") for awe-inspiring views of nearly luminous mountains. This is exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to hike a mountain above a fjord.
Despite a one-way two-hour journey over boulder slides, this is one of the most popular hikes in the country and I saw all sorts of people in all sorts of footwear on the way up. I started to be able to guess nationality from a distance solely by the shoes folks were wearing. (Myself, I wore tevas despite the prominent "no sandals" icon on the trailmap. Considering that said icon was right next to "no high heels" I figured I could do worse.) It was a very diverse crowd at the end doing a diverse range of sane or stupid things near the certain-death drop. I am shocked that there are no guardrails here, but it really would spoil the view and the local authorities claim that nobody has ever fallen.
Desperate to leave the crowd, I bushwhacked my way in search of the true summit 100m higher. Half an hour, one near-blister, and several semitechnical climbing moves later, I added my own stone to the enormous peak cairn. The views were largely the same, but the sense of personal accomplishment was much greater. (Or, at least it was until I had a Bad Eagle Scout moment and almost got lost on the reverse bushwhack down.)
Tonight's housing is at a DNT hut above the fjord with its own alpine lake. Any other country would put up a luxury hotel here, but I'm glad norway's values reserve this kind of spot for hostels and campgrounds. I am also unreasonably pleased that the hut will serve me a green salad for dinner. Let there be raw vegetables!
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Then, a long ferry ride down the fjord itself....
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The reason I stayed overnight in this isolated village is to hike mt kjerag. I had hoped to score a ride in the BASE jumpers' van, but strong easterly winds ensured that they were spending the morning sleeping off their hangovers. Instead, I walked the famous twisty road from town to the parking area. Not a single car passed me during the entire ascent. This was bad for plan-B (hitch a ride) but at least it meant that I had the road to myself, especially during the 1100m tunnel. Once again, by reaching the parking area under my own power I felt like I had accomplished something before even starting.
The BASE jumper manual describes the hike as "wake-up hill, warm-up hill, hell hill". Hell Hill wasn't as bad as advertised, mostly slabby alpine moseying among the boulders. The weather here is generally even worse than the White Mountains, so treeline is about 800m. With vegetation limited to lichen, the views of the other bald peaks were totally unobstructed. It felt a lot like Colorado, except that the other summits were a lot closer.
I had hoped to reach the "kjeragbolten", a narrow crack in the mountain with a boulder wedged in it. Thrill-seeking hikers stand on the boulder and have their photo taken. It's also where the jumpers do their thing. Unfortunately, the ferry schedule forced an early turn-around time so I didn't reach all the way. Still, I found a very nice lookout with great views down the fjord. With the sun still rising behind my back, it really showed why this is called the "light fjord". Eidfjord was steep and sondrefjord was tall, but this is probably my favorite
The entire morning hike, I didn't see anyone else. (A nice change from the carnival atmosphere of the Preikestolen.) By the time I cleared warm-up hill on the way back, the trail was a steady stream of sweating tourists asking me if they were there yet.
From the valley, I had seen a UFO-shaped building clinging to the ridgeline and assumed that it was a stavanger oil magnate's summer home. No, this is Norway. It was just the best visitor's center in the world.
A nice German couple gave me a lift in their Mercedes back to Lysebotn, so I didn't have to run down the road for more than 1k or so. On the way, I passed a team of local cyclists who were ascending the trail and yelling encouragement to each other. On a sustained 10% grade, I'm not sure I'd have enough air to do anything but mumble profanity.
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Excerpted from a daily journal of my recent hiking/biking trip through norway. Check it out for more stories, photos, complaining, and general advice about outdoorsy adventures in the fjords.
