backpacking

Josten på langs! Crossing Europe’s largest continental glacier.

Day One

Ready for this journey

“Today was a long and tiring day, which only means this is going to be a long and tiring trip. We began at sea level, and had to work our way up to the glacier. After many hours of walking on foot, we reached snow and could finally unstrap our skis from our bags. However, the snow was scarce and we ended up having to take our skis off and on a number of times. We came to a very steep part and once again took our skis off in order to follow the foot steps made by Jan and Sigrid. Another few hours and we reached Kåpevatnet at 10:00pm. Trying to race the setting sun, we began to set up camp, cook dinner, and boil water. We are now just about finished and are heading into the tent. As it is nearly 1:00am, we are lucky we do not have to be ready until 9:45am tomorrow morning. Cooking group 3G is pretty tired tonight, I don’t think there will be any steamrolling before bed.”

 

Day Two

Day Two

 

“I was Walter White’s new assistant, facing moral conflict and bags of money when I was awoken by the sound of my alarm singing: ‘Hakuna Matata.’ I pulled back the hat that had been covering my face, exposing my eyes to the harsh light of day. I slept well last night. Now that we are four in the tent, we stay plenty warm. I unzipped my sleeping bag to reveal my warm body to the fresh cool air. We began eating breakfast ‘in bed,’ and rejoiced as Øyvind opened the tent door to find blue skies. Once we packed up camp, we began covering ground. We soon arrived at ‘Brattebakkene’ which (rightfully so) translates to ‘Steep Hill.’ We traversed up the 30 degree mountain, keeping at least 10 meters in between one another to avoid the domino effect. This was both physically and mentally exhausting. I only fell 3 times, all of which were on turns. I kind of, maybe, got the hang of turning by the 10th try. Reaching the top felt awesome. The view was great and I no longer had to worry about tumbling down the mountain, unable to stop myself because of the 22 kilo pack on my back.”

“We took a nice lunch break at the top before continuing on our journey. Just a short while later we reached Ståleskaret and set up camp. Since we arrived to camp so early, a group of people went on a ‘topptur’ (summit) trip to Lodalskåpa (2,083 meters above sea level.) Considering my history with descending mountains on fjellski, plus my bum wrist, I stayed back at camp. We built a levegg to block the wind and soaked up the last hours of sun before nightfall. We will begin making dinner soon, and melting snow for drinking water. Tomorrow is supposed to be a long day– 23 kilometers long to be exact.”

 

Day Three

Day Three

“Today was not my favorite day. We went 22 kilometers. The distance wasn’t what made this day hard though. I thought today’s trip was going to be primarily flat, but we still managed to gain elevation, which meant we had to then lose elevation. As I have said many times, I suck at going down on these twiggy skis. I kept my skins on the bottom of my skis the whole time, which meant I had to walk a lot more than other people who were actually skiing on their skis… but it was worth it. On the last hill before camp I decided to think of all of the ways I can describe how much I hate fjellski:

‘I hate going down on fjellski as much as Norwegian’s love brown cheese.’

‘I hate going down on fjellski as much as Norwegians love to use the word ‘koselig’

‘I hate going down on fjellski as much as Michael Stratton loves math.’

‘I hate going down on fjellski as much as Janie Therese loves to talk about snow.’

…I could go on forever.

Well anyways, per-usual, we set up camp, made dinner, and boiled water; however, this evening we also had an evening gathering. Naturally, sitting by Margit and Janie resulted in lots of laughter, even during our ‘silent reflective minutes.’ Whoops.

I hope we get into the tent soon. I am going to need a nice night’s sleep in order to wake up tomorrow ready for day four.”

Day Four

Day Four

“Last night was great. øyvind, Margit and I steamrolled* for the first time this trip. We also came up with a jingle for our crazy cake commercial. Perhaps we should have just gone to bed earlier though. I woke up this morning exhausted. My blisters are raging but I am just trying to ignore them– only two more days left until I can properly tend to my feet. The trick for today is to get to camp before the forecasted 15 meter per second winds set in. I sure hope that happens– setting up a tent with that much wind will probably turn into unplanned and impromptu kiting.”

*Steamrolling: The act of zipping yourself up into your sleeping bag, like a worm, and rolling over the people next to you until you return to your original place.

Day Five

Day Five, the end of the journey!

The last day went better than I expected– that being said, I had expected it to be completely and totally horrible. We left our camp which sat at 1,622 meters above sea level and began our way down… all the way down. The decent off of the glacier was not too bad. When Sigrid asked me if I was having fun I told her “I don’t completely hate it.” However, once we were off the glacier we ran into some pretty steep parts. I stayed upright more than I had thought I would, but I still fell, a lot. Just 5 minutes away from where we took our skis off and continued on foot, I had a semi-traumatic moment. I was traversing along the side of a hill and slipped in the (horribly slushy) snow. Somehow I managed to flip around so that I was laying on my back facing the opposite direction I was going. The bad part: my right leg was twisted 200 degrees around, still connected to my ski which I was inconveniently laying on. I was most definitely stuck. Thale was the only person around, and by the look on her face, she was freaking out. I was trying to tell her that I was fine, although my leg looked like it should have been broken. After we couldn’t get my ski off, I had to unhook my backpack and roll onto my stomach in order to untwist my knee that was becoming more and more painful. Thinking back on that moment makes me realize how lucky I am– everything in my knee should have snapped. Thank god for those rubber-bands I have for ligaments, am I right?

I can’t say I was in the best mood after that. We still had an hour and a half of walking to do down the mountain on foot. As I walked alone and couldn’t see anyone in the front or back of me, I had time to think. I thought about how I have had many athletic accomplishments in my life, but these past five days have truly tested my capabilities. There is no way to accurately describe how it feels to complete these types of trips. Nothing compares to seeing the road at the end of the mountain, where people were gathered to meet the bus. Although I managed to stay on my feet, it felt like I was crawling through the finish line.

This trip was one of the best this year. A HUGE thank you to Tore, Janie, Jan, Sigrid, and Steinar for everything they did to prepare for the 5 days, and to ensure we had an awesome time. For those of you interested in seeing our journey, these maps outline the general route we took.

Stay tuned for my Josten På Langs movie. 🙂

Alone Night

Last week I spent a night alone in the woods. It was actually a lot of fun. I set up camp under a tree, with a fire that was roaring for at least a few minutes of the night.

I spent most of the time fetching fire wood, cooking, and eating.

I woke up the next day to watch the sunrise and eat my avocado breakfast before returning to civilization, where I was greeted by this cute puppy.

And I cannot go without mentioning the video that I made while out in the woods alone. Take a look, and see how crazy I actually am.

A long and tiring (but great) week– Part Two

Click here if you haven’t read Part One yet! 

Thursday:

Janie and Steinar were generous enough to treat us to Mona Lisa (the local pizza place) on Wednesday night, however that meant we didn’t get back until past 10:00pm. Still having to unpack from the day kiting and repack for Thursday and Friday, they delayed our departure on Thursday morning. We took our time, and didn’t begin our trek until close to noon. It was (once again) a beautiful morning.

Let me now refer to my map. We began at a place called Utvikfjellet, sitting at about 662 meters above sea level. We then walked a mere two kilometers before breaking for lunch at Inste Heia. From there we summited our first top: Fløtravarden (869 MASL.) We then crossed on over towards our second top, Snøfjellet. Although we did go downward a little bit, there wasn’t too much of a decrease in elevation yet. “Now do you feel like a true Norwegian?” Vigdis asked me, as we neared the top of Snøfjellet. Although I had been on these type of trips before, this was my first time on fjellski. For those of you who don’t know, fjellski, (or mountain skis,) are very light and very thin. They are ideal for going up mountains, but a little foreshadowing– not so ideal for going down.

I answered Vigdis’s question with a “Yes, I am now definitely worthy of claiming that 25% Norwegian in me.” We joked around for another few minutes about this notion. Now fast forward until we were on the top of Snøfjellet (1006 MASL,) and beginning to ski back down. Let’s just say, I felt pretty much as far away from Norwegian as possible. If there was a record for how many times one can fall within 20 minutes, I destroyed that record. I am pretty positive I spent more time in the process of plummeting towards the ground, and/or on the ground than I did in an upright position. Marit was nice enough to stay back with me, and I mean way back, because it turns out when you fall so much, you’re also super slow. At one point she suggested for me to “just go for it,” and head straight down rather than try to plow my way down. Well, what I was doing was clearly not working so ‘why not?’ A face plant into the mountain: that’s why not. I was definitely laughing at myself, but I was also thinking to myself, “I am never-ever-in-a-million-years getting back on these twig skis.” All of the falling combined with my blisters put me in a sour mood. But I didn’t really realize just how miserable I was until we reached the next mountain top, Dunheia (1165 MASL,) and took a selfie:

Yeah, that’s how my face looked. No wonder people kept asking me how I was doing. When I looked at the picture I actually laughed out loud. Yes, I sucked at skiing down, and yes my blisters were painful, but I had no idea I looked that miserable. I was on top of a mountain watching the sunset, it couldn’t have been so bad.

We skied down 50 some meters to reach a flat area, somewhat shielded from the wind. That’s where we set up camp. Thanks to my cooking group, I had an awesome night filled with lots of laughs. Once we set up our tents we all chipped in building a ‘levegg’ or windscreen; however, the wind suddenly switched 180 degrees in direction after we made dinner. A last minute construction of a new levegg beside our tent warmed us up before slipping into our sleeping bags.

Friday:

I woke up on Friday morning reenergized after a warm nights sleep. We ate breakfast in ‘bed’ before exiting the tent to see all of the levegget destroyed and knocked over. It had beed a very windy night. We packed up camp and spent the first half of the day summiting Eggene (1093 MASL,) followed by Svinestranda (1140 MASL.) It was once again, time to go down. This time I left my skins on my skis to slow everything down even more. Although it took a lot of mental concentration and there were a ton of super close calls, I only fell once! And to make that one fall even more annoying, It was probably the lamest fall ever. I was standing in line waiting to cross a river, and my heavy bag and I just flopped over onto the snow. So lame, right?

So the rest of the way down, post fall, went smoothly. The ground began to get more and more flat and my skins were beginning to cause a lot of extra work for me; but, it was the homestretch, I just had to power through. When we reached the parking lot, I laid down and basked in the sun until the bus came to pick us up. And when I got back to my room, I did an assessment of my blisters.

Ouch. My feet need a rest.

So this wasn’t the best trip for me, but it was still great. This whole week has been sun-filled which pretty much makes everything nice. I am hoping for another week of sun, is that too much to ask for? Well… I’ll let you know.