A Stroll Up Gaustatoppen

At the end of October, I headed to Gaustatoppen with the intention of hiking it with a large group of friends - the original seven minus Angus, plus 8 others! Gaustatoppen is only a few hours away from Oslo, so the drive wasn't too bad on the Friday evening. It's actually the highest mountain in the county of Telemark here, and on a good day you're supposed to be able to see a sixth of Norway's land when you're standing at the top! 

We stayed in a really lovely cabin right next to the mountain which had an incredible view over the nearby valley, plus its own little sauna and a jacuzzi bath. Dinner on the first night was spaghetti (because really, what else are you meant to eat on a cabin trip in Norway?) and on the Saturday we made pizza, which was incredibly easy to do and also super delicious.

So anyway, on Saturday we first had a little drive around the area. Like most of Norway, it's lovely - lakes and trees and mountains and waterfalls around every corner! And plenty of opportunities for nice photos. :)

Then, we headed for the hike. I'm sad to say that this is not nearly as interesting a story as Kjerag turned out to be. I didn't find it too difficult at all - it's a relatively gentle incline up the mountain, so it seemed extremely easy compared to the last mountain I climbed! My legs are not so long or experienced that I can go as fast as some of the others in our group did, but I was enjoying trudging onwards for a while at my own lolloping pace.

However, the difficulty came when the snow started to pile up. You can see from the photos that the weather was pretty nice up to a point, and then the snow and the wind came, and the trail just became more snow than rocks (and little bits of ice flying in to your face). I didn't have any trouble with this in my hiking boots, but one of the girls only had trainers and was struggling to not slip around in those (she had a nasty fall), so we got about half way up the mountain and then the two of us turned around and headed back down. We ended up walking for something like 1.5-2 hours in total and still had a lovely time! Then once we were back at the bottom, I had to hijack a stranger's phone to get a lift back to the cabin from a couple of our group who had decided not to do the hike. So, we headed back (and straight for the sauna) and then took on the duty of getting the pizzas ready. Most of the others made it to the top of Gaustatoppen (1883m up!), but due to the weather, they actually didn't see any kind of view at all - just clouds, and a whole lot of snow! 

Saturday evening was a lot of fun. The pizzas were awesome and we basically had enough to feed a small army, the wine was flowing enough to make Jesus proud - and fun games such as 'reverse limbo' and 'The Werewolf' were played. It was undoubtedly one of my favourite evenings during my time so far in Oslo, and further confirmation that it is really the people you meet rather than where you are that makes something special. This was the last time that I got to see so many of my favourite people in one place, and it was lovely! I will forever feel blessed to have had the opportunity to meet them all. 

Hiking to Kjerag

Last weekend, a group of friends and I headed to Lysefjorden to hike to the Kjeragbolten. This was the first time I've got out of Oslo into Norway!

The group of us made 7 altogether:

• Julia (German, blonde, beautiful, sporty)
• Imke (German, blonde, beautiful, sporty)
• Käti (Finnish, blonde, beautiful, sporty) (do you recognise a trend here yet?)
• Pekka (Finnish, blonde, handsome, sporty)
• Angus (Australian, blonde-ish, handsome, sporty)
• Gavin (Canadian, brunette!, handsome, sporty)
• And... me. (English, brunette, alright on a good day, the least sporty person to ever have lived in Norway, ever) (I'm not even joking, I regularly see 80 year old ladies sporting their trainers and hiking stick things as they run off somwhere)

A spiffing group of ladies and gents

It was a bit of a trek to get there from Oslo - we hired 2 cars, left at 5pm on Friday and got to our accommodation in Brokke after 10.30pm. On Saturday morning it was another 2 hours to get to the hike from Brokke (although admittedly we did have an accidental ~30 minute detour because the sat nav lied to us). The scenery was beautiful - mountains, forests, lakes and sheep everywhere! I wasn't a massive fan of some of the roads though which had crazy twists and turns (this is a pretty accurate depiction) - nice to look at, but not so pleasant to actually drive on without inducing the need to vomit.

We hired a 10 person cabin in Brokke (Furestøyl 19) as originally we thought there would be 9 of us, and it was pretty amazing, I could happily live there. We all agreed that we wished we had more time to enjoy it but the only thing it was missing was a jacuzzi!! (We're scratching that itch with another cabin trip for the end of October, though.) The kitchen in particular was excellent for the preparation of our pre- and post-hike pasta feasts - what else could you possibly want?

 

I certainly didn't appreciate this graph before setting out

Now: the hike. My preconceptions of hiking have been based on the fact that in South West England, you get a few undulating hills but otherwise it's basically flat (AKA, it's more of a walk than a hike). I had a small concern that the hike was described as 'demanding' and 'for experts' online, and my friend Bee (who is currently traveling around Europe in a van) warned me that Norwegians don't mess around when they say something is physically demanding - I didn't listen.

When we started the hike, it was raining. And windy. And misty. That made the first hill (mountain?) really fun to go up, because the first hill (no, really, it was more like a mountain) is extremely steep, and to make it better, the rocks you are walking on are huge and extremely smooth. It's kind of hard to grip rocks like that in the rain! Luckily at some parts there are chains drilled into the rocks for you to hold on to - I am about 400% sure that if they weren't there, I would've fallen down the hill and broken my face. (Also, thank you Pekka from stopping me from slipping once, too!). At the top of that incline I genuinely thought that I might be dying - my heart, and for that matter, my legs, have certainly never worked that hard before!

Midway up the first hill, breathing hard already

This is when I discovered that 'hiking' means that after barely managing a crazy vertical rock-climb, you have to go downhill again. And then uphill... and so on. So, I got down that hill, and I almost quit right there when I stared in horror at the next uphill section. Luckily, the girls that I was with are some of the best people alive and were incredibly understanding and basically acted as my own personal cheerleaders for the rest of the hike - they literally cheered for me at points. They are excellent humans.

'This is a pretty valley' I thought, whilst trying to avoid thinking about the next bloody hill

Admittedly, the next two inclines were a whole lot easier than that first one, anyway - the first uphill is the longest and steepest by far; the second has a fair bit of grassy/muddy areas where it's easier to dig your feet in so you don't slip; and the third, though mainly huge rocks and a bit slippy again, is relatively short compared to the first and also has handy chains to help you along.

A decent view

It felt like it took at least 6 hours and a week's worth of effort but in reality, it took us about 1 hour 45 to get to the Kjeragbolten (they recommend 2.5-3 hours, I must secretly be a pro)! Oh man, seeing that rock for the first time was a great moment - the realisation that I could actually hike up some crazy hills and not die was pretty great. I'm not sporty at all and my affair with the gym has only been going on for a few weeks, so I was really proud of myself for getting there and only slipping a handful of times (and not breaking my face).

Of course, after all that I HAD to get a picture of myself on the Kjeragbolten! I'm not scared of heights so that didn't worry me and by that point the rain had stopped, but it was extremely windy on that rock. My mother was not best pleased when she saw the photo - sorry Mum!

This was the actually the
easiest hill of all the hills

We stayed there for about an hour, getting photos and eating a bit of lunch and whatnot before heading back. The journey back felt much easier, although I think we actually slipped more on the way back. I must admit, it felt pretty good to see the guys slipping too, particularly as Gavin informed me he is basically a pro-hiker that lives in the Canadian mountains all year round (fact: he is actually half mountain goat - I witnessed him leaping up the vertical side of the hill like a crazy person). The rain also stopped on the way back and the clouds lifted, which was nice.

So - in total it was 5 hours (with a 1 hour break, so really 4 hours) and 8.8km (it doesn't sound like much, unfortunately distance does not account for the fact that I essentially climbed up Mount Olympus). I didn't die! My legs hurt for three days afterwards and a week later I still have bruises from slipping countless times, but my face is perfectly intact. That's a success if there ever was one! And, most importantly of all...

 I would TOTALLY do it all again!