The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Thursday 29 June 2017

Keiserstein

Late yesterday afternoon we pulled into a large car park above the town of Bodø, in northern Norway, and parked up for the night with this view:


There are no hours of darkness at this latitude at this time of year and it seems that the locals make the most of the daylight when they have it. As working hours came to an end, so the car park filled up and full it remained long past the hour when one would expect a walkers' car park to empty for the night.

Later, cloud drifted in and I wavered in my resolve until, at 11pm I came over all decisive, leapt up and clad myself in Paramo. We were going up Keiserstein for midnight!

Rain started just as Mick had his hand on the door handle. Grasping at it just being a passing shower, we set out anyway, albeit with a pause for Mick to dig out some waterproofs. A good thing he did, as the rain (and occasional hail) lasted over an hour and was bouncing at times.

It's a bit of an odd thing taking a walk in the middle of the night in broad daylight, even if it did get a bit dull on the summit thanks to the big dark cloud that so liberally spilled its contents on us.

The photos we took are awful, but in our defence they were taken very quickly on my phone, in the lashing rain (hadn't even picked up my waterproof case; didn't expect the wetness to last).


Claiming the summit. That is a car in the back right of the snap, even though there is no road up here


Orientation table, in a state of wetness


A stone staircase built last year by Sherpas from Nepal. It made it a very easy ascent.


Nearly back at the car park we passed this lake for the second time and it had just stopped raining.


The information sign says that the path up this hill is rarely deserted. Apparently not even in the middle of the night - there were plenty of people around whilst we were out, including some teenage groups setting out as we got back. When do Norwegians sleep?!


Back in the car park at half past midnight, and it has finally quietened down, with just a few cars coming and going.

Filling Bertie's bathroom with wet gear, the black-out blinds were deployed and off to bed we went.

The walk was 4.4km. I don't know at what altitude we started but wouldn't imagine we did more than 250m ascent.

2 comments:

  1. Was the hill on s list? Do Norwegians have lists?
    I was probably awake during your night. I am suffering from this wretched Frozen Shoulder syndrome which is unnoticeable during the day but prevents me sleeping at all at night.n

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    1. We pondered the very question of whether there are Norwegian hill lists whilst we were on this outing (prompted by my claim of having summitted my first Norwegian Marilyn). I must Google the question some time when I have more Internet ... not that I'll be stating a bagging career in Norway!

      The Frozen Shoulder sounds awful. I do hope you find some relief soon.

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