Trollhetta, Norway 7/2-7/4
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Hello everybody! This is my first posting here.
I want to share a few photos with you that I captured this weekend on a two night backpacking trip in Trollheimen, Norway.
My friend and I had planned this trip for several weeks and had bought a lot of equipment to get the weight of our backpacks down. On my previous trips my backpack often weighted 20kg (44lbs) or more. By buying a new sleeping bag (Marmot Atom) and new mattress (Thermarest Neoair) I had already reduced the weight by almost 2kg. By replacing several other items with lightweight ones I was able to get my base weight below 9kg (20lbs). Not exactly UL but I am slowly getting there. Among the items I carried with me this time was a Soto OD-1R Micro Regulator stove, Evernew Ultralight Ti pot and Buck Hartsook knife. My tent is a Helsport Ringstind Light 2 and at 1.95kg it is on the heavy side. Since we had reduced the weight of our backpacks so much we carried a few extra items as well; we both carried an alcohol stove in addition to our Soto stoves. I had a regular home grown soda can stove with wind screen and two small fuel bottles stored inside a Snow Peak Mini Solo pot. My friend carried his new Gearpods alcohol stove. All in all my pack weighted 13.5kg (less my camera, trekking poles and mobile phone).
Our main goal for the trip was to get away from busy jobs and backpack for the weekend. We chose Trollheimen in Norway because my friend has a cabin near by that we could use in case the weather turned bad. The weather did not turn bad and in fact last Friday, when we started driving, was the warmest day (26C/79F) so far this year. We planned to walk for 4-5 hours against the mountain Trollhetta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trollhetta). Trollhetta has three peaks at 1522m, 1596m and 1616m. At 1616m (5302 ft) Trollhetta is not the tallest mountain in Norway but it is the most remotely located mountain above 1500m (5000 ft).
This was the perfect time to fire up the Gearpods stove and make a cup of coffe.
After 5.5 hours we found a suitable camp site. My Helsport tent to the left and my friend's SD Lightning XT 1 to the right:
Right after we had finished putting up the tents it started raining but the morning after it was sunny and very nice. We started heading for the summit at 9AM.There was a lot of snow further up in the mountain and we often had to cross snow/ice covered rivers. A bit risky at times but we walked slowly and felt we were safe.
After two hours we thought we had two hours more to go to the top.
After three hours we reached the first and lowest of three peaks. In the picture below you can see the peak we are heading for in the upper right corner and 600m (2000 ft) below the peak, an ice covered lake.
We had to go down about 50m before starting climbing up to the second peak.
For me this was the heftiest climbing I have done in my life and I was almost out of "fuel" as well so the climb was a bit risky.
Half way to the second peak looking back where we came from:
Half way to the second peak. Our camp site were at the lake farthest into the photo:
After 6 hours we reached the summit.
Looking back at the two lower peaks:
We took at different route down from the mountain. There were less snow but a lot of rocks.
In Norway it is considered safe to drink running water and I never carry water purification equipment.
It was difficult to find a flat surface for our tents so we headed for the delta between the two lakes in the photo below.
On the third day, on our way back to the car we encountered this river that we considered too dangerous to cross.
After about an hour downstream we encountered an old, wooden bridge:
After crossing the bridge we had two more hours walk to the car during which I was so tired that I did not take any pictures.
Thanks for reading!
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