Dave Hewitt has penchant for long treks and reports on an exiled Scot who is doing things the Scandinavian way and skiing and hiking his way from one end of Norway to the other.
Long meandering treks interest me, perhaps because I once attempted a twelve-week outing in Scotland (starting 15 years ago this April - yikes). So from time to time over the next few months this column will feature updates from a long expedition by a 56-year-old Copenhagen-based Scot named Jim Chalmers. He's attempting to walk (and occasionally ski) the full length of Norway, south to north, from Lindesnes (at 58 degrees north, the same latitude as Lairg) to the Nordkapp, up beyond 71 degrees north, deep inside the Arctic Circle. He started over a month ago, on 9 February, and reckons the whole effort will occupy between six and seven months.
Chalmers is modest about what he's attempting, noting that "doing this trip is not unusual - 40 or 50 folk have done it already, and it's been done on bikes, on roller skates, even on horseback. There are several folk in front of me this year, and one of the first things the hotel proprietor said when I arrived was "Are you heading for Nordkapp?" What is unusual is that I'm not Norwegian, although a Scot resident in Norway completed the trip from north to south a few years ago."
It's a long way, though and a massive undertaking, requiring commitment as well as experience. Chalmers certainly has plenty of the latter, having been hill-active since the early 1960s and with an expeditioning CV that includes Greenland, North America, Ecuador, the Atlas, Alpine and Himalayan ranges, plus Central Asia, South Africa and Australia. He's also spent time at the opposite global extreme, in Antarctica. Somewhere in the midst of all this, a round of Munros was completed in 1985.
Norway is often seen as being of particular relevance to Scotland not just because of the historical connections (the ancient and not-so-ancient squabbles over what we see as the "northern isles" and the Hebrides) but because there is much that Scottish hillgoers can learn from the bigger-scale landscape of Norway and the relatively untrashed ecosystems of the far north. Then there is the access situation - there seem to be far fewer get-orf-moy-landers in the fjords, while an eminently sensible camp-and-move-on system has long been accepted in law over there. Given that Scotland is inching further and further away from its own wild camping tradition, and closer to a more regulated eco-bureaucracy, we have more to learn from the Scandinavian countries each year that passes.
Anyway, to Chalmers' long haul. His intended route is as follows: first (and hopefully mostly on ski) the Telemark hills followed by Hardangarvidda, Skarvheimen and Jotunheimen (home of Norway's alternating high points, Galdhopiggen and Glittertind). Then come the Tafjord hills, Dovre Fjell, Rondane, Femund and the Sylarne on the Swedish side of the border. This will take him into the "thin" bit of the country, whereupon the expedition's second half will comprise a walking route that weaves along the Norway-Sweden border. The massifs of Borgefjell, Okstindane, Svartisen, Sulitjelma, Abisko and Finnmarksvidda will lead, finally and most likely with a mix of relief and sadness, to the distant Nordkapp.
The lack of huts further north and the (hopefully) docile weather come the long-daylight months, means that Chalmers is planning to camp more as he nears the end. The heavier loads required for this should be offset, to at least some extent, by the then-established fitness. "The route is mostly through or over mountains," he wrote a week before starting, "and I'll be on skis until early May, then a break during the melt, then on foot the rest of the way. I hope to finish in September." He's technoed-up, carrying a Palm computer and a mobile phone, so should be able to send and receive email while away - hence these occasional reports.
His first news came five days in, from Ljosland, approximately 100km north of Norway's Land's End at Lindesnes. Ljosland was his first rest day and he was staying in "a private mountain hotel at about 600m at the head of a valley - a fairly informal place with the air of an old-fashioned youth hostel. The food is excellent and comes in huge quantities." A respectable 140km had been covered in the first five days, most of it on gravel roads. "Thankfully," he wrote, "this beginning is at an end and from now on I'll be up on the high hills, mostly at altitudes of 800m-1200m. There's a network of mountain huts over nearly all of southern Norway, many either staffed or selling food on a "pay for what you take" principle, so it's possible to travel pretty light."
As to the weather and snow conditions, things sound both similar and different to our own dear Scottish winter, "This is a very unusual season in Norway - much less snow than normal and much higher temperatures - in fact almost normal Scottish freeze and thaw conditions. The locals aren't enjoying it, though Norway doesn't seem to have been getting the high winds that Scotland has."
The next substantial write-up came last week, on 5 March, after more good progress. "I'm sitting in the mountain hotel called Haukeliseter (east of Roldal) at about 1000m at the top of the southernmost main road that crossed the mountains. I arrived here two days ago on the planned day, having covered about 322km and climbed an estimated 4200m since the start at Lindesnes. Yesterday (4 March) was a planned rest day and it stormed all day. Today I should have been on my way to the Hellevassbu hut on Hardangarvidda, some 22km away, but when I went for a little walk this morning, a couple of hundred metres up to the main road, it wasn't possible to see from one side of the road to the other because of the drift and the falling snow. So I'm sitting in my pleasantly warm room in the hut, "waiting on weather".
Things seemed to have gradually got tougher during the first three weeks, however - eg "the trip has been very enjoyable, though a bit more strenuous than I had expected, mainly due to poor weather and snow conditions." Certainly the no-snow start had long gone, "There is a lot more snow than normal, and lots more of it falls regularly: deep and soft, hard work to ski through. There are very few other people on the hills at this time of year, Norwegians are not very adventurous, so there are no tracks and I have to break trail myself most of the time. I've been with other people on only two days."
Chalmers was also able to attempt something unknown in what currently passes for winter in Scotland, "The tour from Haahelleren to Bossbu was quite unusual, being partly over the completely frozen surface of the gigantic hydroelectric reservoir Rosskreppfjord at 930m. Visibility that day was about 3km and it was overcast. The reservoir is about 12km by 5km, so it was an interesting experience to be out in the middle of such a gigantic flat plain at such a height. The shores are low-lying, so for several hours all I saw was whiteness decorated with a few distant black blobs of stones. The few islands in the loch came and went as visual relief. I used my GPS quite a lot that day."
Then came a four-day off-route interlude. Chalmers isn't being puritan about having the occasional break from his route, having already commented that it would be "more than my life is worth not to be there" for his stepdaughter Karen's graduation back in Denmark. So home he went, before rejoining the route on 25 February.
"After returning to Norway," he wrote, "I skied from the place I left the hills, Valle i Setesdal, via the mountain huts of Stavskarhytta, Kringlevatn, Hovatn, Krossvatn (where I had a rest day in poor weather), Bleskestadsmoen, Holmevasshytta and Haukeliseter. The day from Stavskarhytta to Kringlevatn was especially hard - over 12 hours and I arrived at the hut three hours after sunset.
"The weather has been generally not very good, with many cloudy days, but yesterday and today (4 and 5 March) have been the only really stormy ones. The tour from Krossvatn to Bleskestadsmoen was on the only really sunny day, but it was glorious. Through beautiful, deserted, high-mountain landscapes with reindeer, wolverine, arctic fox, many lemmings, white hares, ptarmigan, hawks and an eagle.
"Now I wait for the weather to improve before setting off across Hardangarvidda to the big hut Finse on the Bergen to Oslo railway, five days walk/ski from here. After I leave Haukeliseter, I'll be out of mobile phone range for at least four days."
He'll be back in contactable country by now, though, so if anyone is interested in offering encouragement, advice or simply saying Hello, try to email him via the wonders of satellite technology at jim.chalmers@get2net.dk
More news on Jim's travels here in a month or so, including some thoughts on how the Norwegian hills both differ from and resemble their Scottish counterparts. To check out the terrain via an online map, try www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe/norway_rel96.jpg
Dave Hewitt
14/3/2002
