The following traces two longer hikes we (my wife Christine and I) undertook in the summer (June/July) of 1996 in an area of northern Norway. The logic of our choosing these two routes can't even be reconstructed by us anymore but it certainly had to do with our desire to be far enough north that the sun never set and the food for our imaginations provided by some glossy tourist brochures and the small volume Bergwandern in Norwegen from Nortrabooks (Oslo, 1993). Note that none of the Norwegian names in this text are written with their proper diacritical marks.
We live in Florence. We got ourselves to Oslo and then Bodo. The plane arrived in the evening and we found a reasonable, if not luxurious, place for the night. Night, by the way is a relative term throughout this report, since we arrived on 26 June and being a bit north of the Arctic Circle, it never got dark.
We had done a bit of research (though not an exaggerated amount) before we left so had an idea where we wanted to start. Our goal was to go from Svartisen National Park at the Glomfjord "entrance" northeast across the country to finish near the Swedish border at Sulitjelma. Planned time, about 9 days.
The first thing to take care of was a membership in the Norwegian Mountaineering Club (Den Norske Turistenforening). This proved a very good thing to do as it meant paying half-price every time we stayed in a mountain hut, so it reimbursed itself quickly. Also, we obtained discounts on maps, etc. We were quite lucky as the Bodo Club office is open only 2x per week and we hit the right day. Next time we'll join before we go, especially if we're headed directly to some small place.
We got our membership, the key to the area huts, topo/hiking maps and some advice and went to stock up on food for a week out and the last-minute odds-and-ends. By early afternoon we were on the bus toward Glomfjord. On the way there is supposedly the world strongest tidal whirlpool (maelstrom) so we made an interim stop, were more or less duly impressed, and caught the next bus to our destination. The distance is not great but the road is very winding. The bus, as all busses we used in Norway, was very luxurious and correspondingly expensive. (1km cost ca.1 German mark.)
Glomfjord is very small. We needed to get to a nearby trailhead to take us into Svartisen Glacier National Park and from Glomfjord the only (reasonable) way to do this was by metered taxi. We found one by asking at the hotel. After a ca. 20 minute ride, mostly up and inside a tunnel, we were at our starting point which, at that time, also happened to be in the middle of what we were told is the largest hydroelectric dam project in northern Europe. This really made little difference and, in fact, the construction workers were very helpful in getting us off in the right direction on the slightly altered trail course. (If you happen to get up there and find yourself alone, don't go off north in the direction of Langvatnet.)
Svartisen is Scandinavia's largest glacier. The first leg of our route took us along several valley systems on the glacier's northern side, meeting the next road ca 2.5 days later at Beiarsdalen.
The initial part of the walk, on the same afternoon/evening as our arrival in Glomfjord, got us past the dam construction site and above lake Storglomvatnet, overlooking the glacier which covered the whole southern horizon. There were no huts out there so we set up our tent. No wood either as at that latitude and climate it doesn't take much to get above tree line. Moving on the next morning, the first part of the day was over generally dry terrain. At a certain point, a subsidiary trail took us about 2 hours north into the wrong valley, until this became obvious from the topo map. The thing we should have done here was, once at the northeastern part of the lake, point ourselves at the bigwaterfall to the east--there's a cabin up on the cliff next to it and (at that time of year rather snowy) a valley above it. There were markings but we found the binoculars necessary at a few points to figure out what was going on.
Entering the correct valley and moving up to about 800 meters, we were on snow most of the time. There were views of the glacier to the right and up behind us and, once farther up the valley, ahead of us, too. After a few hours walking, another large valley came in from the left. Taking it demanded no decisions--in front and to the right there was only glacier. The valley was beautiful, and we remained on snow for the next several hours, descending unevenly and slightly all the way. With daytime temperatures about 8 C. and the nights a bit above 0, things got fairly wet at times but, making heavy use of our walking sticks, we avoided most unpleasant surprises. The weather was actually pretty foul that day but it was all part of the atmosphere. By the time we reached the mountain hut of Gratadalstua, we had covered about 18 moderately difficult kilometers. The hut, like almost all of those we were to use during the next several weeks, was comfortable, welcoming, warm once heated--and waiting for us alone.
The next morning, with the weather a bit better, the sun coming through at times, a short climb up and out of the valley kept us along the Gratadalen's eastern ridge. The view was incredible with small permanent snowfields covering the whole western side, like so much cream poured over the mountains. The ridge eventually ended after several hours walk and by late afternoon we had descended some 700 meters to a large hut not far from a main road in a beautiful, mosquito-infested valley. It was the only time we really had a problem with these creatures but were told we can't recall how many times "just wait a few weeks..." Anyway, it was nothing a little DEET couldn't deal with.
The hut, Beiarstua, was large and very nice but a bit more broken-in as it was reachable by car and, in fact, we shared its facilities with some locals out for a few days. As with most self-service huts, we got to get water outside somewhere but that was, in our experience, never a problem as there was water just about everywhere and only very few places where we wouldn't have wanted to drink it as we found it.
The maps covering the trek from Glomfjord to Beiardalen are the 1:50.000 series Topografisk Hovedkartserie, Blad 1928 I and 2028 IV. We actually used the first and then took up with the 1:75.000 Beiarn Turistkart which had the trail very clearly marked but didn't coincide with the first map exactly--which is precisely the area we "got lost" in for about 2 hours.
By the end of this day the weather had turned to "perfect" and remained so throughout the entire following day. Continuing our route in the Tverradalen, basically east-northeast, we headed into Saltfjell National Park. With the sun rather strong, we moved ahead quite leisurely, and by the time a lively discussion led us to decide to set up the tent near a still half-frozen lake at 900 meters, the highest point along this stretch of the route, we had walked about 6 hours through ever more lightly forested, dry terrain from evergreen forests into birch-sprinkled meadows with grasses a blinding bright green, out over the tree line among solitary Norwegian pines. The "night" was splendid--with the sun a veiled orange disk running around the horizon but never seriously threatening to leave us--and with almost a 360 view, we slept in the shadow of our tent.
The next morning (if it was such, as a watch is somewhat irrelevant) we descended quickly into the Tolladalen, passing the Bukkhaugbua hut. There wasn't a soul in sight, just a bridge to make a comfortable river crossing. Once again, we found ourselves following the banks of a gleaming river in the midst of birch and amazingly bright green grass. At a certain point, aside a rather large waterfall ca 4kms. from the hut, there was a short, steep climb back up into an open terrain spotted with dozens of ponds and small marshes and then a level walk of about another 4 kms. to the Saltfjell hut. The last part began by paralleling a low steep ridge on the left which at a certain point near a reindeer corral, opened up improbably, cleft by a stream. Somewhere along the 1 km. of this rift is a cave (which we didn't stop to see). Coming out, the trail saoon intersected the major north-south route through the park. To the right, a bit lower and somewhat hidden, lay the Saltfjellstua.
At the time of our arrival, the older, very small hut was being supplemented by a much larger structure. The two carpenters working there expected to have it finished for 1997. Since they had more or less monpolized the small hut and were, moreover, accompanied by a somewhat nervous sled dog, we pitched our tent nearby and used the hut for cooking. One of the two spoke good English and after eating they treated us to what (they claimed) was a local "delicacy". This consisted of the drowning of a thin slice of dried reindeer meat into hot black coffee and then drinking what resulted. It seemed more of a ritual than a source of nourishment.
At the Saltfjellstua, we picked up a major north country trail, the Nordlandsruta. It took us through what was to be one of the most challenging and spectacular parts of our trip, across a lot of melting snow and several rivers. Our map was the 1:100.000 Saltfjellkartet put out by the Statens Kartverk. Before steeply climbing up to the Steindalen on the east side of the almost perfect oval dish filled by Bjollavatnet, there is a crossing of a major southern feeder of that lake. There was a sign telling us not to mess around at high water and to cross near the mouth of the river. After the climb into the snow of Steindalen, we were confronted with a shallow, but very wide crossing from a major eastern Bjollvatnet feeder. Donning our wading slippers, at that moment there were 40 meters of water and another 50 of snowfield before being able to get our boots and socks on again. The route itself moves up to 1100 meters and stays there for a few kilometers before beginning a gentle descent into the Kjemabekken. The scenery is spectacular with black cliffs going up as high as another 400 meters on both sides. The Kjema River sprang out on our left from under a snowfield to immediately reach respectable proportions. There is a marked ford which we somewhat reluctantly took. After another 3 hours jumping stones over a lot of mushy terrain we arrived at the second ford of the same river. Unfortunately, and despite its meandering and channeling at that point, it just seemed too dangerous to cross. After an exhausting 9 hours, we set up our tent on a bluff on the north bank, with a stunning view of Kjemavatnet and forested Lonsdalen and Junkersdalen beyond it.
A bit of scouting indicated clearly that there was no alternative but to return to the first ford of the Kjema and keep to the south side of the river. We backtracked some 3 hours, re-crossed and then noticed a sign we had previously overlooked. A wooden arrow with a word on it which we later discovered meant "dry route" (Maybe "high-water route"--Christine is German and I speak it fluently but Norwegian is often even too removed to begin to decipher.) No matter, the day was sunny and warm and after a few hours and one more shoeless crossing, we were on our way into Lonsdalen. (A note here on dryness--at a certain point we encountered another sign with the same word as we were rounded the south side of the Kjemavatnet. Stick to the high/dry route. It's wet enough.) The view is breathtaking on this stretch and as we descended amid the pine meadows and approached the few houses around the Lonsdal railroad station (on the Trondheim-Bodo main line) a slowly passing train, colofully painted, stood out like a toy railroad against the endless mountain scenery.
The Lonsstua is big, modern and comfortable. The only problem was water as it arrived via a rubber tube from a stream almost 800 yards away, up in the forest. Supposedly--since nothing was coming out.at our end. After some consideration, I wound up following the semi-buried hose to its source in a streambed and got it working again. As we were low on supplies anyway, we decided to spend two nights there and use the day in between to re-supply and re-generate. There is no store anywhere nearby and hitchiking proved impossible within a reasonable timeframe. So we took the train to Rognan, a beautiful town at the end of Skjerstadfjorden, some 40 kms. to the north, enjoyed our USD 25.00 return fare rides and just added it to our grocery bill and the evening meal we took at the new waterfront hotel. (Unfortunately the very interesting-looking crafts shop was closed by the time we discovered it.) The train got us back to Lonsstua before midnight.
We moved out the next morning through heavily forested area, climbing continuously and finally reaching a broad ridge which, at ca. 550 meters, divides Lonsdalen from Junkerdalen. At a certain point, the trail forks. The right path stays higher and takes you east almost to the Swedush border and then north around the valley. It is several kilometers longer--but likely more scenic--than the left route which descends and zig-zags diagonally across the Junkerdalen to meet up again with its wayward partner at the Trygvebu hut. We stayed left as the weather started to get a bit nasty. Where this path crosses the Junkerdalen road, just after moving through the mangled terrain of a ski slope, it meets a gruesome tourist village. Behind the restaurant, through the woods, there is a wooden car bridge over the river. The road forks immediately and keeping right, we began a climb parallel to the river. After a short walk, the road was blocked to cars and, curving north, entered the narrow gorge filled by the Skieidijakken river. After another km. or two we noticed some farms up on the cliff to our right and then another bridge. (This is where the right branch of the above-mentioned path met the route we had taken.) From here, among numerous cottages, it was a short walk to find Trygvebu and set ourselves up for the night.
Our plan was to continue for another 3-4 days up the Skaitidalen, around giant lake Balvatnet and north through the old mining area of Jakobsbakken to Sulitjelma, near the Swedish border. There are a number of huts along the route.
The weather worsened--a lot--during the night. By 8 A.M. we decided to push on anyway as the rain and wind had let up a bit. The route was easy but very wet, following the river up through the narrow Skaitidalen. Even with limited visibility, the steep valley sides climbing 800-900 meters and the thunderous sounds of water coming from every possible direction kept us speechless most of the day. After some 8 km. we came upon the Argaladhytta, a structure out of some elf's fantasy. It is one of the few huts in the area left from around the turn of the century but it looks biblical. Located on the shore of a calm broad spot in the river, it appears more dreamlike than real. The valley itself widened out at here and the going got much easier for the next few kilometers until...the Huitekjakka river.
So much for our planning. The Huitekjakka springs from a lake and plunges 500 meters rather quickly. The rain hardly helped the situation. Christine was livid when she saw the crossing. I managed to get about 1/3 across at a point where it broke into several channels but the rest of the way looked nasty. Though there were some alternatives to crossing then and there, they all involved spending at least an extra day on the route. So, with a strong (but momentary) sense of disappointment of having to turn back when our "goal" seemed so relatively near, we spent the night in the Argaladhytte. As compensation, we had this fairy-tale dwelling to ourselves and spent much of our waking time reading the years of entries in the hut's logbooks and found out too, that we were not the first to be treated poorly by the Huitekjakka.
The greatest part of the next day was spent backtracking to the Junkerdalen road, crossing at the tourist center. Most of what was left was filled with another unsuccessful hitchhiking attempt to get to Fauske, to spend a night on our way to a final week's walk on the Vesteralen islands. Northern Norway is the first place we have ever been where people obviously coming out of the woods, loaded with gear, don't manage to quickly get a lift. Fortunately, the tourist center is also the start of the line for a bus to Fauske and after 2 hours, the bus took off. We passed the evening in a private room in a Fauske boarding house and the next morning continued on the bus to Harstad, the capital of the Vesteralen district. The journey, punctured by a ferry crossing of about an hour, took most of the day.
The Vesteralen are the less touristed, northern sisters of the Lofoten islands. We had read about a 4-day hike across Hinnoy, the largest of the group. As it was already late afternoon when we reached Harsad and we had no desire to spend the night there, we got our supplies and started asking around for info and maps for the route from Harstad south to toward Lodingen. We used the 1:100.000 Turkart Vesteralen-Hinnoya we bought at the local bookstore, but this proved really not detailed enough (though the route is sketched). Especially at the beginning of the tour, the marking is not the best; a 1:50.000 would have been much more useful.
We had a key for the huts on our Svartisen-Saltfjell tour but it was not at all clear that they would open the doors on Hinnoya. After some research at the tourst bureau near the bus station, we obtained the name and phone number of the man important in the local alpine club. We had no luck reaching him via phone but his path led to the local firehouse where a colleague was kind enough to confirm the usefulness of the key we had...and so we were off.
One branch of the trail starts right on the southern end of Harstad but a short city bus ride to the suburb of Midkila (departing from the Harstad bus station) brought us closer to the Maistua, where we had decided to spend the night. Taking the Midkila bus, we got off when the bus crossed the first bridge after Klubben. We walked back over the bridge and instead of following the new, main road going inland (which eventually curves broadly left into the valley), we climbed onto the parallel residential street a few meters up on the right. It proved useful to ask someone where the soccer field was. Looking up, we could make out the Maistua about 250 meters above us. The path climbed almost straight up, near the northwest corner of the playing field.
The Maistua, besides being the only hut on all of our trip that was in really bad shape (although the alpine club seemed to be fixing it up) and, moreover, having no intrinsic aesthetic value at all, also had a lock on it which our key did not open. (Be forewarned!) Fortunately, there was someone inside already and we managed to realize our plan to spent the night there.
The main path does not proceed from this hut and, strictly speaking, we should have descended back to the soccer field and picked up the trail at it's south end. To avoid this descent-reascent, we kept our altitude and made our way south through the forest. After a walk which seemed longer than it should have been, we were peering down upon a broad, grassy, sheep-grazed gulley with a very major path up the middle of it. The path was not marked but climbed toward the southwest, paralleling the northwestern side of the Hinnstein ridge.
At the end of the ridge, things got a bit tricky. (Recall we were working from a barely adequate 1:100.000 map.) We had a view of the sea channel down an unbroken, steep broad valley immediately to the left (east). However, the correct route continued generally south-southwest, pointed toward Blafjellet, at ca. 500 meters the highest thing in that direction. At a certain point along the way, we came upon a low, very rocky hill (more of a mound actually) and ridge. At the top, a look southwest toward Blafjellet's profile indicated a small saddle at one of the higher points on the northern end of its western ridge. Heading for that saddle, before getting there but very near the ridge itself, we found a wide path which passed between a rocky cleft in the ridge and started to descend rapidly down the mountain's western side. The path had some blue markings which, after a while, miraculously become red, indicating that we were back on track after all. Through all of this, on that halfway decent day, we were rewarded by spectacular views of the extremely alpine-looking peaks all along the horizon, interspersed with the blue sea of the fjords.
The sharp climb down pointed us to a road leading to a lake where a few cabins lined the shore. After rounding its southeast side, the trail (always well marked now) began to climb again through beautiful, fern-carpeted forest and then out on to the stoney, treeless plateau land so characteristic of Hinnoya--and many parts of Norway, generally. The going was pleasant if not particularly rapid on this lake-spotted terrain. To note here: at a certain point, in front of a rather steep, rocky ridge, the markings led off to the right, along the base of the ridge. After a short while, the markings stopped but the path continued. Into nowhere. We ought to have more closely examined the face of the ridge when we first came to it. Another, more consistent set of trail markings should have led us to scale it immediately, instead of going off in the wrong direction for a good half-hour. In any event, a few more hours walking on that day and another steep descent brought us to a paved road and the Bjornhaugen Hytte, on the north shore of Storvatnet. This is a large structure with 6 or 7 rooms and at least 20 beds, but we had it to ourselves.
The following day was blazingly sunny. Our well-marked route began by following the western shore of Storvatnet for about 3 kms. and then heading up the wide, grassy Kongsvikdalen. The valley is a jewel and as there is no way to go except straight ahead we could concentrate fully on the beauty of the place. The only inconvenience was the extremely marshy ground so we were doing a lot of hopping from one grass tussock to the next. After some 7 or 8 kms., we began to climb along the right side of the valley and, passing a number of very wet and sloppy spots on the semi-forested hillside of Rundkollen, we were up above the trees, amid some of the rockiest terrain we had encountered so far. The views going up were nothing less than breathtaking and once actually above the treeline, the scenery was dominated by the permanent snowfields of Snotinden and, off in the distance, numerous other Hinnoya peaks. The mountains on the Vesteralen don't get much higher than 1000+ meters but they come up right from the sea and are very rugged at their tops. Some 4 kms. more of stonefields brought us to Hakonsbu, a small, modern and comfortable structure with a few beds in a single room. The hut is almost on top of a ridge above two lakes and offers an almost unobstructed view of the region and the perpetually present sun
The fine weather didn't hold out very long, though it remained passable. We set off the next day with the knowledge that we had only a short 5-6 km. walk to Toralfsbu, a larger hut with several rooms (actually, there are 2 structures) also up on the rocky terrain. We arrived as the weather was getting steadily worse and though no one was in the hut, there were two tents set up on the lakeshore about a kilometer to the south. As we also had another day before we had to start on our way back to Bodo to catch our plane for some rest and recreation in Oslo, we decided to spend two nights in Toralfsbu. Toward evening on the first of these, a single hiker--the only one we had seen since we left Harstad--shared the hut with us. A very friendly fellow who, extremely un-Nowegian-like, was also quite talkative. The following day was relaxing if "uneventful", but as any hiker knows, a day in the mountains with the sky, light and weather in constant motion and change is nothing if not exhilerating.
On or last day of the tour, we got fortunate again with the weather. By mid-morning we had a brilliant blue sky and temperatures rising close to 30 C. The initial part of the trail left Toralfsbu up the major river valley visible from the hut's kitchen window which, amid a series of ponds near the watershed, forks. The right trail, through an obvious opening in the mountain ridge, heads southwest, toward Kanstadbotnen. We continued straight ahead and after skirting a number of mirrorlike lakes, moved out onto the ridge of Bollfjellet. From up there, we were treated with an unobstructed view of the Vesteralen's eastern fjords and the mountain backcountry of Narvik. On the horizon to the east-southeast is a well-known triangular peak, a landmark of the area (though we never did find out what it is called).
We had to search a few minutes along the ridge until we found the trail on the south side. At times, the descent was steep.Soon, we entered a valley, the Sordalen, composed predominantly of birch forest, more astonishingly green grass, incredibly yellow wildflowers and lots of luscious sorrel (Ger. Sauerampfer). The valley widened slowly and in a short while we had reached the primary coast road at Fiskefjord. Simbolically, we abandoned the ad hoc walking sticks of hard plastic tubing we had found at the dam construction site on our first day at Glomfjord and, under a blazing sun, were again reminded of the futility of hitchhiking in this part of the world. After almost 2.5 hours, we waved down the scheduled bus and were on our way back to Bodo. We passed the last night there in the youth hostel at the train station and had a surprisingly good Indian meal provided by some very friendly people who found themselves farther from home than even we could imagine.
We have written this account in the first person plural as it just seems closer to our experience and sentiment this way. Hiking guides understandably avoid such a practice but we hope that whoever might need the descriptive information we provide will be able to find it nonetheless. We make no pretense of being knowledgable about Norway, so if you have general questions, best get in touch with their great national tourist bureau and the mountaineering club. Otherwise, we hope you enjoyed reading this and we can try to tell you anything additional we might know about these specific walks if you contact us.
bob@datacomm.iue.it
Florence, Italy - March, 1997.