A Tale of Two Hikes
In the silence of nature, I am able to hear my inner voice questioning its existence and curiously observing the world. I forget the day-to-day expectations of life that chip away at my time and focus on all the things that make my soul feel alive. I feel humbled and connected to both myself and my place on this enormous planet Earth.
Grimsdalshytta
A new co-worker and his wife recently moved to Norway and were interested in seeing the nearby mountains. The Norwegian autumn weather was unusually nice, so we looked for a camp site to take them to. We ended up going to the Rondane National Park, located a few hours drive south of Trondheim. We had driven through the area a few times before and enjoyed the unique tundra landscape, but we hadn't properly hiked there yet.
The plan was to camp in the fields just below a cabin called Grimsdalshytta, which was situated on top of a hill in a valley and was the starting site for several trailheads. We would still have access to the lodgings and food if we wanted, but we didn't plan to stay in the beds for the night. It was going to be chilly that night, with temperatures around -7C, but we had brought plenty of warm clothes and supplies to handle it. Upon arriving, we began to question that decision.
Despite how calm it may look in the photos, the wind whipped and tore at the tent fabric as we hastily struggled to set them up. We parked the car at an angle to try and dampen the intense gusts and put on our heaviest jackets to stay warm. There were a lot of unspoken glances that repeatedly seem to ask, "Are we REALLY going to stay here tonight?". We even gathered nearby boulders to hold the tents down and built up small walls to further stave off the wind.
Feeling about 60% sure that our tents weren't going to blow away, we headed up towards the cabin to begin our day hike. We planned to hike a few hours, come back to enjoy a fire and food in the cabin, then spend the night in our tents. The hike started out nice. We strolled over the rolling hills of fiery brush and multicolored moss while enjoying the sunlight and warmth, the taller mountains sheltering us from the fury of the wind. My obsession with moss in full force that day, I marveled at all the colors, shapes, and textures as the thin trail began to fade into the tundra.
One type of moss that caught my eye consisted of small white clusters that looked like a mix of broccoli and sea coral. The puffy ones are called Star-tipped Reindeer Lichen (Cladonia stellaris). We stopped for a snack at the base of the large mountain and I spent some time investigating the moss. The white puffy clumps were in sharp contrast to the vibrant red and orange of the decaying tundra foliage, making it all the more aesthetically pleasing. It blended in with the dusting of snow that lay on top of the crowberry bushes (Empetrum nigrum), often deceiving me until I inspected closer.
Despite having seen a couple other cars in the small parking lot, we did not meet anyone else on the trail. The sky was wide and blue and the air quiet except for the occasional call of a crow in the distance or a gust of wind that had slipped through the mountainous barriers. By this point, we had lost sight of any proper trail that would lead us to the peak, but the mountain looked traversable even if there was thick arctic shrubbery and a loose rocky hillside yet to ascend.
The view from the top was breathtaking. The wind was so intense I could tilt my body diagonally and not fall over from the force. I teetered over the shattered sea of slate fragments, as I faced off against the force of relentless gales. Wobbling over the rocks, I glanced at the surrounding expanse. In every direction, I stared out onto a barren waves of rocky peaks. The clouds rolled by so swiftly that the hills below seemed to undulate in the revolving shadows. We were only a few kilometers from the cabin, but any semblance of human existence had melted into the color-dappled landscape.
According to the dictionary, the closest word to describe my feeling was "awe - an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like" is the closest word I can get to this emotion. But my feeling also richly layered with humility, melancholy, and insignificance, so "awe" doesn't sound momentous enough. I want a word as big as this feeling, but for now, we will say I was awestruck.
My companions had already been at the peak for several minutes by the time I sauntered over to meet them. We didn’t linger long, as the wind seemed to threaten increasing in intensity if we loitered at its precipice for much longer. We descended into the valley on the opposite side for respite and then curved our way back home, hopefully more sheltered. The temperatures had plummeted lower than we anticipated with the wind still ravaging the valley, so we all decided to stay the night in the cabin. We packed up our tent and gratefully spent a cozy evening in the warm shelter.
Ramsjøhytta
The gentleness of the unusual autumn weather continued through November, and we decided to go on another hike to a cabin called Ramsjøhytta. It was much closer and took us only about an hour and a half to drive to the trail head. Winter was quietly creeping across the region, leaving a veil of frost on the long grass that glittered brilliantly in the morning sunlight. The sun hung low on the horizon and would do so throughout the day, sleepy and eager to hibernate below the ridgeline.
Hoisting our backpacks over our shoulders and bundling up against the cold, we started along a trail that snaked out into a wide open valley, sparse with a few groves of thin birch trees. In the distance we could see an alcove of mountains where we expected the cabin to be lying somewhere at the base. A few paces into our trek, we had to cross an extremely questionable bridge. It looked like a car ran into it, though that would have been impossible as it was inaccessible from the road and stretched over a wide, rushing river. We glanced at each other warily, debating the probability of it fully collapsing if we went across. We concluded that the supporting structure seemed to be intact well enough to hold us, and we gingerly stepped across.
That bridge was the least of our worries the rest of the way. The temperature had been fluctuating in this area, creating large swaths of deadly and hidden ice throughout the hillsides. Many of the wooden planks used to ease the crossings over mud flats were now submerged and frozen in time in swirling patterns of ice. When we tried to skirt around large slippery areas, we had to be even more careful, since the ice often concealed itself under the golden blades of grass.
Overall, the hike took us a little over an hour, even with the icy death traps. Just before we rounded the final bend to the cabin, we stopped abruptly to watch a herd of reindeer slowly trot up and over the hill to our right. There was one white reindeer, which I would find out later in the cabin, is considered good luck.
We arrived at the cabin shortly after watching the herd disappear over the hill. It was barely an hour after midday, but the sun hung low and hazy on the horizon, protesting to shine for much longer. The cabin was a recently constructed version of its older model, and has beds for 34 people in the main building. There were a few groups of families that had already arrived at the cabin before us, but everyone pretty much kept to themselves.
We ate lunch while admiring the large lake of ice through the large windows of the cabin, eventually deciding to take a stroll along the shore before we lost the remaining sunlight. It was still very difficult to walk safely with all the glossy ice on the paths, but we furtively tiptoed along and enjoyed the area nonetheless. There were several beautiful patterns in the ice, and a few of them looked like faces.
On our way back to the cabin, we suddenly heard the ear-splitting sound of gun shot from somewhere disturbingly too close for comfort. I crouched down, eyes wide and darting along the landscape looking for the source. For how loud the noise was, a hunter must have been very close, we should be able to see them. After a few minutes of uneasy silence hunkering down in the icy grass, and no movement in sight, we carefully proceeded back to the cabin. Ultimately we concluded that it was more likely the sound of the ice from the lake that made that sound rather than a hunter. I don't think hunting is permitted in this area, let alone so close to the cabin, so our ice theory make more sense. It still struck the fear of god in me!
