Norway's mountain landscape has both a lot of drama and feeling. It is compact yet large. This trip was, in a way, a perfect trip over a weekend. You can easily reach this landscape by car from the west coast of Sweden. And you can see a lot in just two days of hiking. I had enough experience now to feel very safe in the mountain world and was looking forward to having fun with the photography that I love. My camera was a compact camera with a 60x optical zoom. On this adventure we were four friends, two with whom I had hiked before and one who hadn't hiked at all. We were a hopeful group of friends who were looking forward to having a nice trip. We took the car up towards Hardangerfjord where I had looked out for a round beforehand via a page for tours in Norway. This hike would take us around in a loop up on the mountain and back. It was only a few miles between the starting point and the end point where we intended to get back on the bigger road again afterwards. From there, it would be easy for either of us to go back to the car. We left early one morning, the plan was set, the adventure could begin.
We parked a little above the small community of Kinsarvik where our tour was supposed to start. Idea was to catch the trip on two days of hiking and I had also planned a hike to a mountain peak along the route if everything went as planned. We saw that there was some activity and other hikers getting ready to go up the mountain this weekend and probably Tourist Lodge Stavali is a popular place. We had planned to hike further from the cabin and tent on the mountain. The first stretch up from the parking lot was steep, and it wasn’t long before the rapids and waterfalls came into view. It was a magnificent sight to behold as we filled our water bottles with the crystal clear water.
Hiking along watercourses is exciting because it happens that you have to cross inflows and wade through water, but on established routes it is more common to find bridges, rafters or rocks to jump between. This hike had a couple of places where we got to step on rocks and make our way through spectacular crossings where the water gushed down from the mountain towards the rapids.
After several waterfalls and a lot of climbing, we slowly came up into the valley leading into the Hardangerviddene range and also passed Turisthyttan Stavli on our way to the evening tent site. There were some older stone houses close to the cottage and there was also an outdoor swimming pool adjacent to it. Pond,.
When the mountain world is in harmony, hiking and taking in nature’s colors, scents, and views is like a form of meditation. When the bare mountain opens up and you leave the low-lying vegetation behind, able to see for miles in every direction, it feels like stepping into a fairy-tale world. A world where buildings are completely absent, or if they exist, they are merely a tiny speck in the vast landscape. A world where we don’t need to read signs, hear sounds from all directions, or be constantly bombarded with stimuli. Here, you have time to look far and long, and slowly contemplate everything you see ahead. Nothing disturbs you when the weather in the mountains is good. The weather is the decisive factor in the experience, and when the weather is harmonious, the mountain world feels like a beautiful fairy tale. Welcoming and stress relieving.
We pitched our tents a good distance from the mountain station we passed earlier and it felt very calm and nice to go up a few hundred meters to enjoy the open landscape and see how the evening sun spread a golden shimmer over the water bodies through the dramatic cloud cover. Had it not been for the mosquitoes who are extra eager on such quiet evenings, there would be nothing to complain about. But I had my mesh-netting mosquito sweater and didn't let myself be bothered by the buzz from the mosquitoes.
That evening, I sat for a long time on the mountainside, taking in the beautiful scenery and reflecting on the day’s hike before darkness fell and the sun set.
In the morning, the sun rose slowly over the mountains, and you could sense that it was going to be another beautiful day. Seeing the first rays of sunlight on the mountain across the valley and sitting outside the tent eating breakfast was something truly special. Today we were going to hike to the summit of a nearby mountain. We packed light, bringing only some protective clothing, water, and, in my case, a camera with a tripod, since we didn’t expect to need to eat or worry about the weather on this relatively easy summit.
“Ohhhh sometimes I get a good feeling... yeah! “
Going on a summit hike and climbing a mountain is always a special feeling. You never know what might come up, and it’s often the case that the weather up in the mountains is windier than down in the valley. But sometimes it’s completely calm, and if you happen to have a day like this with good visibility, you get to see the mountains at their absolute best. Like when you can see the shadows and the light playing across the rolling landscape. We reached a ridge that we were going to follow, and with the sun low on the horizon, the light is perfect for taking spectacular photos.
A little further up the mountain, there was hard packed snow in snowfields. Almost like pure ice, but not quite. The sun only gets to them briefly or not at all. Therefore, these fields can remain all summer in their places. We hiked further up the summit that was approaching.
When you reach the top and can see the landscape in all its glory from above, it’s a truly wonderful feeling. This was probably the most comfortable summit hike I’ve ever experienced. The mountain world smiled down on us, and I savored the moment and smiled back. We spent a while enjoying the tranquility at the summit and had fun taking some unique portraits in this world beyond the clouds.
Back from the top, it was time to eat before we started folding tents and packing up. We had a long day ahead of us still. We left our camp and went full pack again. It is definitely heavier with a large backpack and then a pace with moderately short rest breaks of 5-10 minutes per hour is what usually works well. The landscape led further towards a mountain lake, Lonavatnet where sheep were grazing next to a stream. A very harmonious environment.
Up over the next pass more snow fields but from there we started approaching the point where the “loop” turns back and we were halfway there. After that, we ended up in a landscape that I've only seen in movies. Had Gandalf or a Hobbit met us at the bridge, it would have been in absolutely the right setting. This is probably how the Hobbits live.
As we crossed a stream below a steep cliff, the slippery conditions were treacherous; the slope was so steep that if we’d slipped there, we probably would have fallen into the water. It was a relief to have made it through that difficult section without incident, and we soon stopped for a meal and a rest.
We took a nice break to eat and rest before it was time to muster our strength and put our backpacks back on. It was a long way back through several beautiful landscapes, and finally, all that remained was the brutal descent toward the fjord, which looked almost like a 1,000-meter-high wall when we reached the spot above Lofthus. We zigzagged down for several hours, even though it was only a few hundred meters horizontally, but the steep slope wasn’t easy to navigate quickly. It was already dark by then, and we were four very tired adventurers who finally stood on the road and could say we’d completed an amazing hike.
So it’s actually quite easy to explore the mountains if you want to take a shorter trip like this one and still manage to experience a lot in just a weekend. We didn’t rush, but the second day was long. So, of course, you can also take a trip like this at a slower pace if you give yourself a couple more days. But going on an adventure over a long weekend is entirely possible and not that difficult. Check out my preparation PDF.
