Ten days in the Norwegian mountains

Three hours after I had come back to my flat in Oslo on Friday 13th; my Dad had dropped in with some of my clothes and hiking boots and we had eaten a pizza while I repacked my bags, I was picked up by my friend K and her Dad to be taken to their family cabin in Rondane – a mountain range in the central part of southern half of Norway. When we arrived we were met by K’s Mom and Grandmother who had prepared one of my favourite traditional dishes “rømmegrøt” (porridge made from sour cream, flour and milk) – need I say more than this was a wonderful start to a relaxing and great holiday? Lots of fresh air and lovely food and no worries what so ever made this a great week! Their lovely cabin is situated just a couple of hundred meters from Bjørnhollia tourist lodge, and the access to hiking opportunities are fantastic.

A cultural element on the first day was the gallery of Sverre Morken situated not far from the cabin. This is the man responsible for art most Norwegian sees every day; his work being on our money and stamps.

It was so great to walk around in his exhibit and hear him talk of the way he works, from the picture or painting via the engravings to the final product.

The weather was mixed over the time we were there, but we took every opportunity to hike in the area around the cabin, walks for everything between a couple of hours to six seven. The neighbour had their daughter’s dog with them, so we brought him with us when we had the opportunity. We even took him out for a walk on the Tuesday in pouring rain and fog that left the sight 15 meters – but that walk only lasted an hour *lol*. I thought I’d share some of my pictures from the days I spent up there, and let you see some of the beautiful landscape:

Sunday 15th: we went on a hike to Musvolsæter. The weather was ok, and we had a good walk with the dog playing along the trail.

Monday 16th: we went on a hike to Langglupen, a fabulous water feature in the valley beneath some of the grand mountain tops.

On Tuesday 16th the weather was horrible, we managed to walk the dog, but no pictures were taken with all the fog. I managed to stitch a bit on my SBS in the evening, though. These three blocks are all I can show for over the last few weeks *lol*, and some work on the rest of my swap blocks.

On Wednesday 17th we took a walk onto the nearest top, Musvolkampen. We even signed the book kept on the top as a record of the visitors :o)

Thursday 19th we hiked into Villmanndalen (Wild man valley). This is a special botanical area, with loads and loads of plants that are not supposed to survive in those hights. Unfortunately the rain that had come down over the previous weeks the area was difficult to walk in - the trail beeing flooded several places. We ended up walking quite a long way along the ridge of the valley looking down into it, and had to wade across the flooded stream a couple of times.

Friday 20th K and I conquered Svulten; a top 1570 meters above sea level. It was stone on stone on stone and quite hard to walk (worse going down than up) seeing as it is not a part of the regular tourist trails - but we did it. As you can see there was quite a lot of snow in the mountains.

Saturday 21st we went on a hike to Vulutjønn - a lake about 2,5 hours walk from the cabin. All in all we were seven people on this hike. we had a wonderful lunch wit coffee made on open fire. The scenery was fabulous, the guys got in some fishing (only caught one, though) and I got a gozillion mosquito bites *lol*

On Sunday we went home... I hope you have enjoyed my little holliday diary, and I leave off this post with one more picture of the beautyful area I got to visit.
Sincerely, Anne Ida