September on Senja
It was a moody, gray day stepping out of the Tromsø airport and peering through the thick fog that veiled the nearby mountains. The clouds looked as though they yearned to dump either rain or snow at any minute, but kept the precipitation inside their swollen bellies just a little longer. We hopped in our rental car and began the 3-hour drive to the island of Senja that lay amongst a fragmented cluster of islands west of Tromsø.
Normally we could have taken a short 30-minute ferry ride to our hotel destination, but being September with uncertain ocean tempers, the ferry had just closed for the season a few weeks prior. I wouldn't have traded our drive for anything in the world. I was starstruck as we began to wind our way along the coastline next to the imposing mountain ranges. Dark, black peaks jutted out from dense, white waves of mist that lethargically folded over the tops of the gold-flushed mountains. You could almost hear the chants of long-forgotten dwarves, ancient warriors, and the bellowing heartbeat of the mountains themselves.
After hours gapping at the geological masterpiece, we finally approached the town where we would be staying. It was a tiny village called Fjorgård located at the base of several popular hiking trails, which was the main reason we chose it. We drove past some familiar peaks I had seen online and knew we were close, but first we had to pass through a series of tunnels. We entered the first tunnel, brightly lit and well-shaped. The white glow of the end rapidly opened its arms to greet us and…. I went completely and utterly breathless…
Bursting into a scene straight out of a movie, the view of the fjord overwhelmed me. A huge bay lay ahead with steep, green and gold mountains framing the perimeter and thick, puffy clouds floating lazily in a cerulean sky. I barely had enough time to both let my jaw gape open in amazement and somehow move my arms fast enough to grab a couple pictures before we were thrust back into the darkness of the second tunnel. This one was much less inviting, with flickering orange lights and barely one-car's width of space between the crudely hewn walls. It spanned almost the entire length of the southern mountain range, and the teaser of a view we had seen moments before made enduring the darkness such torture as the minutes ticked by. At last, we came out on the other side and were embraced once more with the picturesque view.
Segla and Hesten
After a cozy night of coffee and soaking in the view of the nearby peaks, we decided to do a short hike the following morning. The most famous mountain in Senja is the highly-photographed Segla mountain. Fjorgård lies directly at the base of the giant slope, so we could easily see it when passing through the village. I had fallen in love with the idea of visiting this place years ago after seeing one of my favorite photographers post enchanting images of the place online. I assumed it was an extremely remote location, and while to some degree it is, it was fairly easy to get to the mountain from the village.
There are two adjacent mountain peaks that can be reached from the base of Fjorgård - Segla and Hesten. Segla itself is the more photogenic one, so it's better to hike up Hesten where you can get the beautiful view of the Segla peak and the fjords on either side of its slopes. I am so happy we visited in September, the trees throughout the islands were a beautiful spectrum of gold and glowed all the more brightly against the dark, cloudy skies that morning. The hike itself was a bit steep, but not too difficult. The Hesten hike was a 520m elevation gain over 1.8 km. We got to the top in about an hour, with plenty of time for me to prance around like I was in a scene from Frozen II while pretending to talk to all the stones as though they were trolls.
At the top of Hesten, we stopped to enjoy a snack and I flew my drone over the sheer vertical cliff that plunged into the sea on the far side of the mountain. The whole time, I couldn't believe I was finally at one of my bucket-list locations. I tried to soak up every last second of inspiration and awe of the area, while simultaneously hoping I wouldn't accidentally crash my drone into the sea.
The Edge of the World at the Top of the Sky
The place we stayed at had kindly laid out several hiking maps for the popular nearby mountains. We were feeling pretty good about our fitness levels and eyed a pair of hikes called Gryttetippen and Keipen, which happened to be the menacing peaks that kept calling my name from our seaside bedroom view. Like Segla and Hesten, these two peaks also shared a similar path and could be easily accessed between one another, so we figured it would be a nice challenge for ourselves on Day 2. The hike was rated moderate, but we quickly came to learn that Norwegians have a much different scale of difficulty. Unlike the prior hike, this one was about a 900m elevation gain over 3.5 km and took us about 6 hours total to the top and back down.
If you ever go hiking in Norway, one of the most important things you should plan for is lots of mud and water. Not tiny slippery mud, but vertical ascents of deep mud that wish for nothing more than to devour your legs in their slushy maws. Thankfully, we had invested in some quality waterproof hiking boots and spent the first hour of the hike trudging and slipping our way upwards through a cascading staircase of mud.
It was a gorgeous, sunny day, so I couldn't care less about the mud, as long as I didn't fall on my face. Our first big view of the day came quickly as we crested the top of our first major hilltop at Skarelvfjellet and gazed out into the fjord where the village lay. There were enormous, square-shaped boulders on the hilltop that looked like they had been carved out by ancient dwarven machines and made us feel very small as we wandered next to them. From this location, the rest of the hike didn't look too far away, a mistake I would repeatedly make.
We ascended over the hillsides of low arctic grass and bright red moss, the sun hanging low in the northern sky. It felt like late afternoon throughout most of the day as the autumn sun labored to reach over the horizon for a few more weeks to come. We soon came upon a slick, muddy staircase. I couldn't take a picture of it because it was barely wide enough for me to place one foot at a time while pressing my body up against the left side of the mountain for balance. To my right was a steep, rolling drop of grass and boulders that I could easily fall down if I lost my footing. Some of the “steps” were more of a leap or scramble upward as I clawed on all fours to cling to whatever thick roots or stable looking rocks jutted out of the ground for extra leverage. It was nothing short of vertical and hardly what I would consider “moderate”, but nevertheless I relished the thrill of it all.
After that exhausting and intimidating challenge, we took some shelter from the wind at the top of the area where several large boulders framed the perimeter of pools of glacial water. Shielded by the stone giants, we enjoyed a new view of the fjord below while happily snacking on some sandwiches and letting the sun warm our frigid cheeks. We were a bit tired at this point, and I thought to myself that it would still have been a great hike if we stopped there. Thankfully, both of us are a little stubborn and kept gazing up at the mountain thinking “Oh it's not that much further, let's give it a try.”
The area we stopped at is called Daven, I think, and it felt like an arctic version of Rohan from Lord of the Rings. There was sparse vegetation on the hilltop, just low grass and moss blowing in the fierce wind. A long, steep landslide of boulders lay precariously stationary on the mountain slope. This was apparently where the trail led…
We watched another spry, young hiker pass us and begin traipsing up some invisible path to the left of the landslide. He moved quickly up a more appealing trail that seemed to be a mix of grassy and rocky terrain, so we thought perhaps this would be a safer alternative. That may have been marginally true, but the ascent turned out to be extremely steep once we got at least a third of the way up. I could take no more than a couple steps at a time before succumbing to fatigue and breathlessness, but step-by-step we got closer to the top of Gryttetippen. This was a great test of perseverance and determination.
Every ounce of pain was more than worth it when we finally reached the peak's cairn. At that point, I couldn't tell if I was breathless from the hike or the views, but I let the wave of relief and triumph wash over me. Looking out onto the sharp and fragmented island peaks, the deep valleys below, and the hazy void of an endless sea, I felt incredibly small and insignificant. I was but a speck among this splendor, with my life at the mercy of the mountains and my own fortitude. I felt very blessed to still have the strength of my body and mind to reach this view and embrace my mortality. I was in another world, another time, and a new perspective.
Around the Arctic Isles
Coming down from both the altitude and euphoric high of our previous day's hike was hard. I felt like we had already done the most exciting thing we would do the whole trip by the second day, and wondered what would possibly captivate me enough over the following days. How silly of me to think I would find Norway's greatest and only treasures just like that.
We decided to spend the third day driving around the island and tentatively planned to explore a wilderness area for a gentle walk in the forest if it was flat enough. We began to drive along the coastline towards a famous “beach” area called Ersfjord. It has soft, fine, white sand, which is kind of unusual from what I had seen in Norway thus far. Ersfjord is actually not famous for the sand but rather an elaborate toilet. Yes, a gold, dragon plate-inspired toilet is somehow the main attraction of the area, but I was more enchanted by the beautiful peaks encircling the area. The sun rays occasionally shone spotlights on the mountain tops for a moment before defusing into the day's typical soft autumnal glow. I flew my drone over the small waves lapping onto the shore, while trying not to upset the seagulls, who suspiciously eyed my drone as it glided into their territory. It was a peaceful beach despite occasional tourists stopping by the toilet for some quick photos. I wished we could have spent more time here, enjoying the rejuvenating sounds of the waves rolling around on the sand, but our adventure had scarcely begun.
We continued driving for several hours, dipping in and out of small fjord-nestled towns, while dense and endless gold birch trees blanketed the hillsides in every direction. We crested the top of one road that had snaked around a still fjord with an explosion of amber trees covering every inch of the unpaved ascent. Looking out onto the valley below left me unsurprisingly breathless yet again. There is something about the scale, space, and absence of humanity here that provokes humility.
Ripping myself away from yet another incredible view, I reluctantly got back in the car while jealously watching a few other travelers launching their drone over the valley. Some time later, as we turned along a bend with a rich alpine tundra landscape, something on the left caught my eye. A series of low, tumbling waterfalls, but underneath the water was a deep crimson earth. I cried out, “Pull over! I must get a shot of that!”
We found a wide parking area nearby, I bolted out and scrambled down a small hill towards the peculiar attraction. I'm not sure what kind of rock was causing the red color, perhaps iron, but it was beautifully unsettling to see the blood-red water against vibrant green marshlands. I flew my drone up and down the area a few times, just marveling at the endless flow of water.
After once again feeling like I had eaten up too much of our travel time, I got back in the car again, and we continued up the gently climbing mountain again. Not a few minutes passed when I once again demanded we pull over as another waterfall enchanted me on the right side of the road. In my defense, there was also a trailhead marker, so I was really curious which trail laid here. We once again enjoyed some food by the waterfall and I flew my drone around for a bit, though this time struggling with connection issues and fretting I had lost it, until I was saved by its homing mechanism. We were a bit sore from the previous day's hike and didn't travel too far up the mountain, but I did get to enjoy some gorgeous views from my drone.
By this point, we felt rather satisfied by the sites we had seen and decided to skip the wilderness park, opting to head back into Finsnes for some dinner before returning to Fjordgård. By the time we got home, we were so tired from 3 intense days of hiking and exploring that we missed a phenomenal aurora that night because we went to bed early. Everyone in the town and online was talking about how incredible it was. That'll teach me to never go to bed early in northern Norway again!
Finding Another World
Now comes my favorite day of the trip. I couldn't stop thinking about the area we had travelled to the day before, and was determined to go back and explore it further. I could feel the deep-seated secrets pulsing in the earth and wishes to uncover at least a few.
As we were driving along the now familiar roads, we suddenly crossed a bridge I remembered taking an interest in with a roaring river clashing against big, beautiful, red rocks. We pulled over near the bridge and scampered down to the river's edge so I could take some drone footage. The area is actually primarily for fishing, and there were several fishing spots along the trail, which made for some nice flattened areas along the river to look out onto the water.
It felt like being transported into a fantasy scene. We first walked through a vibrant golden forest of birch trees with dense, mossy earth beneath our feet and a wide bog off to the right. Then we scrambled over the large boulders lining the river to get as close as possible to the rushing water. It was powerful and refreshing to stand in the middle of that landscape. We weaved in and out of the softly clattering gold coins of the birch leaves, and found a bench made out of fallen tree trunks overlooking a particularly lovely spot of the river. Had we not needed to drive further that day, it would have made for a beautiful picnic spot.
With even better views to come, we pulled ourselves away from the river and continued our journey. As we approached the waterfall we had stopped at before, we passed a small group of reindeer on the side of the road. This was my first time seeing them out in the wild, and it just tickled me to see their big, goofy noses and tiny feet. Arriving at our destination, we decided to try a route called Langdalsryggen.
The start of the hike was a bit cold, windy, and rocky, and I worried a little that the scenery would not be much to look at. I was quickly proven wrong as we crested over the first hilltop and found a pool of snowmelt at the base of rolling hilltops of rocks and moss. We stopped for some snacks and more drone flying, and that's when I discovered the first secret of the mountains. Off the trail and down the side of the mountain lay a gorgeous valley with a wide, winding river. It is impossible to truly capture the emotions I felt in either photos or words when traversing the mountainside, but I will try my best.
The silence, the enormity of space, the clarity of view…it was indescribable. There were no other people around, no villages or distant sea docks, just us and the mountains. It was so quiet, my breath sounded intrusive in the silence. The air was fresh and clear, you could see endless rows of mountain peaks with no end in sight. Even though I knew our car was just on the other side of the hill, I felt like I was in the middle of a remote and endless mountain expanse. It felt as though it would be weeks before I would cross paths with another human, and once again at the mercy of mother nature. I felt tremendously empty and full all at once. I have never been in a place so untouched and vast like this before, it was almost painful how happy I was to be standing there to enjoy this piece of planet Earth.
Alas, my partner did not quite share the magnitude of emotional reckoning that I did, and I could tell he was getting antsy to move on. Soaking up every last second of the view, we found our way back to the trail. The path to the top of Langdalsryggen was expansive and captivating. I was constantly fawning over every beautiful pool of water that mirrored the bright blue sky and the hefty boulders that loomed around me like sleeping trolls. We were ascending high enough now that I could start to see the fjords in the distance that ushered in the nearby sea.
Perhaps my reverence for these landscapes sounds silly, but I cling to these moments in times of darkness, knowing that this is what it truly feels like to be a human on planet Earth. Knowing that all the daily happenings, the social obligations, the pursuits of careers and ideals, all of it is superficial to the raw power of survival in the wilderness. Yet as I say that, I have yet to truly experience that level of survival, I have merely tasted it, and I have so much to look forward to.
We basked in the glory of the mountains for about a half hour while enjoying a well-deserved lunch before reluctantly heading back to the car. My heart was heavy leaving the place, but heavy with gratitude and peace. We trudged quite noisily back down the mountain, my mind still sitting upon the mountain peak, when suddenly movement caught my attention from the corner of my eye. A herd of reindeer! I stopped dead in my tracks and hissed at my partner to stop too. They took notice of us, but didn't flee. They were partially hidden behind a rocky hill, so I very slowly took out my camera and crept up the hillside to get a better view. A very sizable herd stood before me and that's when the huge male buck emerged from one of the boulders, stared right at us, and huffed. Remember that feeling of survival I was talking about? Yea…that sure kicked in quickly when I saw this.
His attention was soon diverted as we heard a family approach from the hill behind us and another very loud lady with a dog below us on the trail. The reindeer became agitated, being cornered on three sides. We backed away slowly and partially concealed ourselves behind some rocks to reduce their anxiety, but as the dogs started barking, the whole herd suddenly took off running across the hills. What a sight… We figured it would be best to quickly head down the trail in case they came back.
Tired, but incredibly satisfied, we headed home to relax for the evening. I don't remember how exactly we figured it out, but around 10pm that night we discovered that the auroras were dancing outside! Finally, the missing checkbox on my ultimate arctic experience! We threw on our jackets and bolted out the door. They were bright enough that we could see them from our doorstep, but there were some trees in the way, so we decided to drive outside the fjord to find a better spot.
We headed to an empty pier at a large lake about 15 minutes away. By the time we arrived, we were fighting with cloud cover to see the auroras. I did manage to get a few shots and enjoy them sporadically over the next hour and a half. They were a bit light and faintly colored, so I hope to come back and see them in their full majesty another time. But for now, I was just pleased I had seen them at all, and a beautifully fitting way to spend my last day on Senja.
