Coming Back Down The Mountain: A Side-quest To Norway's Hallingskarvet National Park

Something I noticed while working trails in Colorado two years ago is a particular aversion to climbing down mountains. Ascending to the summit is fabulous. The path is full of fresh possibilities and vantage points. The steep terrain sets a steady level 1-2 heartrate and boulder stairs ignite a welcome quadricep burn that fuels the climb. A bubble of excitement forms as the peak appears and all there is to do is go up, up, up. And then there’s the top, offering evergreen-speckled valleys and a distant pastel horizon for climbers to feast their eyes upon. It’s a glorious moment of elated competence that’s probably fueled by a bit of a runner’s high. But the time always comes when you have to climb down. I wouldn't even categorize it as climbing so to speak, more of a hap-hazard stumble between loose tallus and slippery streams praying that I don’t roll an ankle. My knees hurt, my quads are shaky from the ascent and I’m normally a little dehydrated and hangry.

While it inevitably looms at the finale of any journey, there are ways to postpone the downclimb, for example, backpacking up into the Hardangervidda plateau and spending a few days exploring the rocky land on top. This is exactly what Anders and I set off to do five days ago when we boarded the Oslo-S express rail with tickets for Finse. Finse is a small town that’s bordered on the north by the Hallingskarvet National Park on the north and Hardangervidda to the South and only accessible via train. 

When we de-embarked at Finse after a spellbinding and snoozing train ride, we found a quaint village nestled up to the edge of Hardangerjøkulen, Norway’s 4^th or 6^th largest glacier (some sources disagreed on what "size" classification means…) who’s only inhabitants seemed to be clad in either cold-weather backpacking gear or GoreTex mountain-bike suits. When I was quickly researching the Finse and Hardangervidda area before we rushed off to buy train tickets I’d briefly wondered “Huh, how are their glaciers there? It’s not even that far North?” As I watched the train thermostat drop to 3 degrees Celsius and the lush forests around the fjord yield to barren rocky landscape with an alarming amount of white, my naïve question was answered. Anders and I de-boarded the train into a whipping sleet and bustled into the nearest yellow hut with the rest of the backpackers. Inside the cabin, I watched a lady next to me pull on two layers of long-underware, thick wool socks, heavy-duty waterproof boots, ski pants and those nifty calf jackets to guard against deep snow shoe-entry. I looked back at my rainpants, cotton Hanes socks and Solomon shoes and thought, “Did we bring enough clothes?” Nevertheless, we purchased a map from the spunky girl at the front desk of a hotel who informed us that the route on my blurry google-map print out was DEFINITELY impassible due to heavy snow cover. She redirected us to a better tracked route heading North into the Hallingskarvet instead. Anders and I were down to pivot our route northward, so we donned our rain-gear and headed out across Finse to the trailhead.

            The first few hours we hiked in enraptured awe. Hallingskarvet is definitely not an entirely flat plateau, and we were soon weaving through barren, ragged mountainscape. 

As we climbed higher the temp started to drop and the wind picked up. We ran into some happy and bubbling Germans who looked like they were headed on a polar expedition...once again, I questioned whether my rain-pants-over-shorts attire would be sufficient to survive this trip. We then naively decided to veer from the regular path to hit up a viewing spot high above the trail. As we spiraled around the peak, the gusts picked up into blasts that forced me to carefully wedge my feet in the boulders so as not to be blown off the cliff We spent a few frozen seconds on what must have been the windiest part of Norway and then quickly scrambled down. 

            At this point, my realization that we were not properly equipped for this journey changed from a mildly amusing but fleeting thought to an actual problem. It was freezing, and even after donning every single one of my layers I was still cold. We took a lunch break shortly later behind a boulder that someone had definitely already used to take a #2 bathroom break but we were so cold that we didn’t even care. 

Anders opened his pack and we started stuffing as many calories that our frozen fingers could finagle which for me meant cold rice with peanut butter and dry muesli. It must have been a spell of famished delirium because let me tell you, that combination does NOT make for a delicious meal.

            There are 2 types of fun that most outdoors endeavors can be categorized into- Type 1 and type 2. Type 1 fun is immediate fun—the activity is enjoyable in the atmosphere in which it is experienced whereas type 2 fun is fun after the fact but generally during the activity is a little miserable. We decided behind that boulder that physically we were experiencing type 2 fun, but the environment was so majestic and awe-inspiring that it definitely rounded down to a type 1.5 fun. As long as we remained in this range, we would continue. 

            We pressed on, rejuvenated by calories, and soon dropped down out of the wind and into a beautiful valley. It felt like we were in a Patagonia ad. 

A network of rivers weaved like excited dragon flies through the basin below and finally emptied into a large lake called Geitryggyatnet. 

We camped on the far side of the lake. We were soaked, even though it hadn't rained. It was almost like living in a cloud: you wouldn’t feel any rain standing still but then if you started to sprint droplets would pepper your face. I decided they must be hung in a misty suspension; aka, cloud. 

            The next day we started on a trail so much less traveled that looked like it had seen more use by sheep than humans. 

While we saw two little specks far off on a distant ridge, we didn't see ANYONE for the rest of the day which was both cool and a little eerie. The path eventually veered away from the lake and into a different valley. It got snowier and snowier as we headed northwest of Finse, and the trail became less of a trail and more of a remote caren hunt. 

We discussed how the landscape looked very much like that snowy, desolate planet from Star Wars and coincidentally found out later from the Google that that episode was actually shot in Finse on the glacier! The glaciers have shoved and shredded that land leaving shoddy mounds of talus and precariously perched boulders. It almost feels like an irresponsible little kid, throwing toys about and then losing interest and leaving the rubble.

            The next lake we had planned on camping at was frozen solid and after perusing the shore to find that there wasn’t a dry patch of land for about 2 miles ahead we stopped short and pitched our tent on the driest snow-free space we could find. 

I failed miserably at starting a fire, everything was just so wet wet wet—there was also not a tree in sight. We had collected some random branches that may have once been trail makers earlier in the day, but couldn't even make them smoke. This meant that we had cold crackers and cheese and chocolate for the fifth meal in a row.

            But then the sun came out, which can change the world. 

We had a slightly humorous moment when Anders realized that the iodine tablets we’d brought to purify our water were really for use AFTER iodine to remove the nasty flavor and weren’t actually doing any bacteria-purging whatsoever!

Well, so much for the two liters of “clean” stream water I’d drunk today, I thought. I guess we’d find out the state of things when we were both on our respective flights to different countries vomiting profusely. (Note: this has yet to happen**knock on wood.**)

            The next day was incredible. I unzipped the tent to find a sky totally blue and free of clouds and I could have cried because it was finally warm. The landscape changes personality in the sunlight, and we played around on icebergs in the lake that morning before continuing.

            The sun, however rejuvenating, was also very powerful. With not a speck of sunscreen and the white snow doubling its intensity, we got absolutely torched. Thinking we couldn’t drink the water because we had no way of purifying it, we also decided to hold off on drinking anything we were back closer to Finse where there was a hopeful looking drinking-cup marked on the map. A very dehydrated and sunburnt four hours later, we found out from a friendly mountain biker that all the water around Finse is drinkable—no purification necessary! She’d filled up from a waterfall not too far ahead, but looked quite alarmed at the sight of our crusty, red faces she kindly offered up her bottle for drinking as well. Water has never tasted so good!

            We followed the mountain bike trail back to Finse and were naively planning on setting out to climb up on the glacier, Hardangerjøkulen. After another quick chat with the guide-lady we learned that the glacier in the summer is extremely dangerous, with a plethora of deathly crevasses not to be traversed without gear and guide. (Don't judge us, we are but humble Minneotans who had never seen a glacier before in our lives.) A little disappointed, we decided we'd just go poke around at the edge. This turned out to be totally awesome. 

When the lady had said that crevasses could be hazardous, I kind of internally rolled my eyes and thought that the word “crevasse” sounded a bit pompous. However, as Anders and I ventured up onto the ice I could definitely see the treachery factor in glacier expedition. 

This was also the backdrop for StarWars’ Hoth, the snowy planet where Luke Skywalker downs one of those mechanical camels by flying a metal cord around its legs. It was the spitting image of this scene.

             

We’re currently headed back to Bergen on the train. The intercom just announced in a lilting Norwegian accent that we will arrive in Bergen “in six minutes!” I've decided that I like that they called out the interval of "six" rather than round to five or ten. It feels more precise and for some reason it gives me more confidence in the train’s proficiency.

I am also realizing that I’ve now begun to downclimb the metaphorical Norway-adventure-mountain, as I board a buss at 3:40am tomorrow morning to catch a flight to Denmark. It has the same ankle-rolling uncertainty as a Colorado 14er and I’m feeling a little weary and ill--probably a combination of sunburn, dehydration, and the fact that crackers and cheese was our main dish of the past 12 meals. Or it could be the liters of unfiltered water Anders and I consumed on trail...I will hope for the former. Once again, the descent is inevitable and I feel like rather than retracing the same path we came up, we're headed into a different lush valley on the other side of the peak. Here's to the journey.