Fire dager i Rondane

[Tor Magnus]

Dag 1:

It was a very auspicious start, the sun was out, people were greeting us on the trail and the path was fairly good. Unfortunately the excellent path and the sunny weather did not last. Halfway up the valley the path started to get wetter and wetter. I was prancing around like a mountain goat, getting used to my new Gossamer Gear LT4's, trying not to get wet feet. We'd hardly been walking an hour before I realized wet feet was something to get accustomed to as I knew I would. I was simply not used to it and for the entire trip I think I unnecessarily tried to avoid getting wet.

Halfway up the valley we stopped for lunch at Tverrhaugen (Cross hill), I refilled our water using my Aquaguard Eliminator water filter, which I've had for a while but not used in anger yet. The reason we chose to filter our water was because this year turned out to be a lemming year, with dead lemmings and droppings everywhere.

Not long after leaving Tverrhaugen we were approaching the tree line and the first drops of rain were streaking towards us. We stopped to answer the call of nature, put the pack covers on and get our matching Haglöfs Ozo's on. Not long after we get passed by a Norwegian couple in shorts. We'd started the day in trousers and as we got out of the valley and onto Flatfjellet we were glad we had. In the valley there was the low shrub that we wanted to avoid, while up on the moor there was a cold wind that was kept off our thighs.

In my mind there was a vague recollection from when I was 15 of Flatfjellet being quite wet, and we soon found out how wet. The area is quite flat and the water drains quite slowly towards the valleys causing the occasional morass of knee deep (or on one occasion deeeper) mossy bog. At one point Lande cries for help as she's slowly sinking past her knee and I wade over as fast as I can to help her get out. At this stage her boots were as wet as mine and I figure that on the whole trip her feet were probably as wet as mine. Her boots kept her dry longer being Gore-Tex, however mine dried faster being just mesh.

The last part of the path towards Rondvassbu is a supply road, and just as we got on it the weather started taking a turn for the worse. Unfortunately we weren't clever enough to see which way this was going and failed to put on our water proofs in time. As we were trudging along the road, greeting families of bikers coming the other way against the wind and with rain bucketing down, we got in view of Rondvassbu. We went started heading straight towards our camp for the evening, but quickly realized that we were on the wrong side of a stream and that the rain was making it a bit swollen. To top this of Lande really doesn't like fording waters so we backed up and crossed a bridge further down. The water was still dropping out of the sky as out of a bucket and Lande was starting to get cold. We decided to cut our day short, an easy decision seeing as we'd be passing our approach to the mountain we'd be climbing the next day.

As we approached Fremre Illmanstjønne we started casting around for a good camp site, however there were no perfect spots and we settled for a previously used site on a very slight slope. I guess the rocks helped keep us in place to some degree, however we still had a tendency to slide to the bottom of the tent. As we finished setting up the excellent Scarp 2 the skies cleared and we got a bit of sun. This is the one and only time I dug out the heavy boots out of my pack, so that I could take the laces and set them up as a clothes line.

Forord og dag 1 med bilder og litt mer tekst kan du finne her:
http://blog.continually-evolving.net/2011/08/trip-report-rondane-preface.html
http://blog.continually-evolving.net/2011/08/trip-report-rondane-day-1.html

Kommentarer på skrivestil og utforming er hjertelig velkomne. Er ikke akkurat et naturtalent når det kommer til prosa så forslag til forbedringer når jeg skriver de neste tre delene blir jeg glad for.

Innholdet er på engelsk ettersom innholdet er hentet fra bloggen min og dama er engelsk.

Tor Magnus

[Tor Magnus]

Dag 2:

We woke up to a light patter of rain on the fly and promptly went back to sleep. Half an hour later we woke up again to the quiet of a clearing sky. After going through the rituals of the morning, we had a breakfast of Real Turmat Frokostblanding for me and Solgryn frokost for Lande. We had one of each for each of us and after having tasted Lande's breakfast I wasn't looking forward to that. The Frokostblanding was actually very nice and I'd definitely order that again. After sorting ourselves out and packing Lande's pack with all our warm clothing and a small lunch we started heading up the slope towards Storronden.

The climb was mostly rather uneventful. As we were walking up the slope, stepping from stone to stone, the peak kept being veiled in low clouds, but as we kept getting closer it seemed as if the fog rolled back before us. Lande kept being frustrated by false tops, probably not helped by me lying through my teeth to her that, "this is the one for sure!"

As we gained the top there were only three Polish guys there before us, and the last remains of clouds obscuring the top went away to bother some other peaks. The back side of the peak falls deliciously, stomach twisting, away in front of you as you step up to the edge. As there was a bit of a breeze blowing over the bare skull of the peak we wrapped ourselves in all our warm clothing, hunkered down behind a small outcrop and tucked into our meager lunch of 1 Snickers bar, some GORP, a bit of beef jerky and water. Not exactly a celebratory meal but it filled a hole.

We chose not to hang around too long and as the clouds were moving back in we started heading down the slope again. As we noticed a few drops of rain we stowed the Rab Microlight vests and pulled out our rain pants, wise from last nights downpour. We were glad we did as within a few minutes it was coming down in buckets, then switching to hail, before going back to a drenching combined with lightning and thunder. The lightning was pretty close, I believe it was only a second between lightning and thunder at one point making it only about 300 meters away!

On our way down we passed several groups of people going up. One very fit looking couple in shorts, I imagine they didn't hang around up there... We passed one guy hunkering down behind an outcropping while the lightning was going on, he did not look very happy.

The trip down was amazingly quick and I quite enjoyed it despite the miserable weather. I had amazing grip with my Trail Gloves, they were like glue on the stone. I can't actually imagine having better grip and they really allowed me to bounce from stone to stone like I was born with a lot more balance than I seem to exhibit in my daily life. The LT4 poles also dug in, slipping only occasionally as I guess will happen with steel (tungsten carbide) on stone.

We were back at the tent pretty early and had an absolutely lovely meal of Fuizion Chicken Jalfrezi for me and Beef and Ale stew for Lande. The meals were really packed with flavor, however I do think the meals could have re-hydrated better despite probably leaving them for longer than it says on the pack and stirring several times. We were also using pouch cozies from AntiGravityGear which I think were brilliant and fit both the RT and Fuizion pouches just fine. I cooked in the porch of the Scarp as it was still raining, still a bit nervous about burning down the tent as i was using meths stove (Caldera Sidewinder) and this was the first time I was cooking in the tent. I used a tent peg to peg back the floor to give myself more room and it actually went very well. Unfortunately I had to let the water boil for a while as I couldn't take the pot of the stove without getting a long intimidating flame coming off the stove...

For full post med bilder:

http://blog.continually-evolving.net/2011/08/trip-report-rondane-day-2.html

[Tor Magnus]

Her kommer endelig de to siste dagene!

Blog med bilder kan du finne på http://blog.continually-evolving.net/2012/02/trip-report-rondane-day-3.html

Dag 3:

We started this day fairly relaxed. Took our time packing up the tent and doing the morning rituals. Weather outlook was fairly good, not warm, but not raining either. Or so we thought. After a short while a cold blustering wind started picking up which made us happy every time we passed behind a fold in the landscape. A (what turned out to be premature) lunch was had sitting among some rocks and heating up some water to make a warm drink. At this point we spotted the heaviest walker we saw on the trip. This was a well built guy, not fat, with the largest pack I ever saw. I think it might have been the biggest pack he'd ever seen as well because he was really struggling under the weight of the thing.

After a couple of hours walking I realised that today would really be challenging. My father had suggested a bit route that went off the track and over very rocky terrain. For me this wasn't a massive issue, but my wife was not brought up in the mountains and is quite a careful walker. As we got to the point where it made sense to leave the well marked path and make our way over a stream we chose a boulder field to avoid having to get our feet wet. At this point I should have realised what issues lay in front of us at it took us at least 20 minutes to cross.

Looks easy but those pebbles down there are actually the size of small cars.

What we should have done at this point is to walk right up the side of the hill, but as this was a bit intimidating to some we walked along the hill looking for an easier ascent. It never turned up but repeated slippery stone fields that slowed us to a crawl turned up instead. Eventually I made the decision that we should go back to the track and do the long walk around instead. Except now we were on the wrong side of the stream... We walked along the side of the stream looking for a good place to cross, but eventually ran out of stream as it dove away into a gorge. We decided that any place was as good as another, took our shoes off and splashed in. Well that was a mistake. My Merrel TrailGloves dry fast and have a much better grip than the soles of my feet. Halfway through I slipped on some rocks and twisted my ankle slightly. The cold water and the slightness of the twist meant that I didn't realize what had happened until the ache started setting in about an hour later.

Now that we were back on the track we knew we had a long walk ahead of us. We tried to push the pace a bit, but Landes unfamiliarity with the terrain meant that we still weren't exactly racing. Halfway through it even seemed quite easy as we descended down to Bjørnholia, but as we walked up again on the other side, now a bit short on energy the walk was turning long.

As we approached the Vulu lakes the landscape really changed into vegetation covered sand dunes, streams and grasses. This was starting to look like we might have a brilliant camping spot. The crossing of these streams was a bit interesting as the water was freezing cold, and the planks and stones placed to cross were largely washed away.

In the end we camped on a little island among the streams. A bit noisy and somewhat damp, but the grass was lovely and soft. During the night we must have crossed under 0'C as we had frost on the tent in the morning.

[Tor Magnus]

Blog med bilder kan du finne på http://blog.continually-evolving.net/2012/02/trip-report-rondane-day-4.html

Dag 4:

Finally a nice and warm day! The morning started chilly with frost on the fly sheet. We'd camped in the shade of the hills and did not get the benefit of the lovely morning sunshine, but as soon as we were packed up and had moved out towards Fremre Vulutjønn the sun started warming us up.

Before we knew it we were starting to work up a sweat and shell layers were coming off. There was a light breeze that kept us from getting too hot, and for a while the ground was nice and dry.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the 4 kilometres of morass that we walked through, but flat in the mountains means bog. Especially after a fairly wet summer. Mostly we made good speed and as this was the last day my wife was chomping at the bit, wanting to get back to our daughter. Towards the end of the plateau I was resorting to "That's definitely the last crest we're seeing there."

As we summited the (actual) last crest we were coming upon quite a few day walkers in various states of undress. On the mountain nobody looks I guess.

We were finally powering downhill with the cabin (almost) in sight and hit the tarmac with feet that had taken a bit of a pounding coming down off of the plateau. We decided that instead of calling my father to come and pick us up we'd go it alone and proceeded to eat up kilometers on the road. This was maybe not the best idea as the dirt road had turned into something akin to concrete. After half an hour on this my feet were feeling rather sore and as we could finally get off this surface into the last bit of the walk to the cabin I couldn't have been happier.

[Tor Magnus]

Her er utstyrslista fra turen https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuKEc7qEcaM_dGRzR2dyQ1lwUWhaeklyWjUwcVhuZnc

[Dag G - Evje]

Fine bilder fra for meg et område som jeg bare har besøkt på vinterstid, tre ganger.

Teksten fikk jeg ikke med meg.

Jeg leser stort sett bare petroleum-engelsk, tur-engelsk gidder jeg av en eller annen grunn ikke lese....

[Tor Magnus]

Fine bilder fra for meg et område som jeg bare har besøkt på vinterstid tre ganger.

Teksten fikk jeg ikke med meg.

Jeg leser stort sett bare petroleum-engelsk, tur-engelsk gidder jeg av en eller annen grunn ikke lese....

Det var jo synd. Skriver på engelsk for å gjøre det mer tilgjengelig, tenkte ikke helt på at for noen så ble det kanskje mindre tilgjengelig. Men, må nok gjøre det på den måten hvis konas familie skal lese det og.

[Gullars]

Hartelijk dank voor het verslag en mooie foto!