On Friday night, instead of going drinking and partying, as most normal humans would do, I joined a group of new friends, and hiked the highest peak on the mainland near Tromsø, a 1208 m-high mountain called Tromsdalstinden. This is a very popular route in the area, and I am told that on a sunny Saturday afternoon one can find several hundred Norwegians (and some tourists) making their way to the top, with little, 65 year-old Norwegian ladies breezing past at unimaginable, mountain-goat speeds. It seems like the people here treat it much like Cape Townians treat Lion's Head, except the hike has almost triple the amount of elevation gain, there are no chains, and it is significantly more strenuous!
The time estimates for the hike that I could find on the internet were anywhere between 6 hours (most Norwegian websites) and 9 hours (most foreigner or tourist websites), the total elevation gain is 1180 m, and the distance is somewhere between 12 and 14km. And we started the hike at 8pm!
The hiking route
Left: A view of Tromsdalstinden from the island showing the last part of the route (red). Right: A map showing the summer (red) and winter (green) routes. The black box shows the part of the route that is represented in the photograph on the left.
The idea was to hike through the night, utilising and appreciating the midnight sun. Despite this, I really had to put effort into parting with my headlamp (usually a fixture in my bag on any hike). Also, planning what to pack was rather difficult, since having only hiked in snow once in my life, I had very little idea what to expect. So I arrived completely over-prepared, and ended up carrying several jackets, pairs of pants, and general warm clothes I didn't need all the way up and down the mountain. It was in fact warm enough that one of the hike participants remained in a bikini most of the way up, and I ended up rolling my pants up into shorts and seriously regretting my choice to wear a t-shirt instead of a vest.
The hike started off along a gentle gravel road which runs parallel to a U-shaped valley for about 4 km. It then crossed a bridge across a very strongly flowing river and followed a slightly steeper, and very slushy and muddy path. This was definitely the muddiest hike I've ever experienced (and I've hiked in the middle of winter in Cape Town!), and almost all of the paths on the lower slopes doubled as rivers. The snow is apparently melting very fast this year, and so the rivers are extremely full. As you walk along the valley all you can hear is the thunder of water as hundreds of waterfalls rush down the valley sides converging in the river below.
Left: One of many waterfalls. Middle: The river most of the waterfalls seem to deliver water to. Right: A river... oh no, wait, it's actually a hiking path.
The hike then crossed the river shown above (via a bridge, of course), and meandered it's way through a forest up the muddy, lower slopes of the mountain, which slowly became less forested, and eventually ended up as open areas vegetated with low scrub and peppered with fields of snow. Crossing the snow fields was made rather interesting by the speedy melting, and there was always the risk of putting your foot through the snow into a river running below. Luckily my socks remained dry!
Left: Crossing a snow field. Right: A river under he snow.
The hike progressed into significantly steeper, leg-burning territory and we scrambled up what can be best described as a pseudo scree slope with loose rocks and some slippery mud (luckily by this point we were high enough that the paths had stopped being rivers). The slope then shallowed out and the hike took a never-ending clamber along the edge of the bowl-shaped mountain top, with a sheer drop to one side, to the summit. This final slope is comprised of an ankle-breaking boulder field (with some rather good chunks of eclogite), the nature of which is such that you never see the top until you actually reach it... and therefore get stuck in a seemingly eternal cycle of false hope; "Is that the top? Oh no, it's not, maybe that's the top. Oh wait, that's not it either." We did eventually make it to the summit, just before midnight, enabling us to take the extremely essential, touristy midnight sun photos.
Left: The pseudo scree slope. Right: The slightly less steep boulder field to the summit.
A touristy photo of the midnight sun.
(Which is not a different sun to the one we see during the day as some tourists apparently believe)
The views were absolutely amazing, and if I had the ability to make a 360° panoramic video I would have, but since I don't, here are some gratuitous view photos.
Top left: View towards the northwest showing Tromsøya (Tromsø island, red arrow). Top right: View towards the east showing the Lyngen Alps. Bottom left: View towards the south showing a fjord. Bottom right: View towards the southwest showing another fjord.
After sitting around on the top having a midnight snack, we descended via the same route through the early hours of the morning. There is usually the option to take the slightly longer, but less steep winter route down (shown in green on map above), but it was decided that there was still too much snow, which would mean lots of slipping, sliding, and general mushiness. We arrived back at the parking area at around 2:30am, having taken around 6.5 hours for the full trip, which is Norwegian-level hiking speed, and therefore a rather good time by non-Norwegian standards. Today, however, my legs do hurt! And with that, I'll leave you a final photo of the orange mountain slopes in the 2am sunlight.
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