I went up Grønnlibruna one morning in July before a late shift at work. Grønnlibruna is 401 m high. I took the shorter route up from Håkøybotn. I have been to Grønnlibruna twice before (once on snowshoes and one failed attempt in autumn) but always from Straumsbukta. I much prefer the route from Håkøybotn, it’s a lot shorter and very direct (the other route goes up to a slightly lower top, then down to a valley and up to the actual top). The total length was 7.1 km and it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes (about 1.5 hours up, a short break on top, and down in one hour).

I didn’t have very good weather. The weather forecast (which I wrote myself :D) promised the weather would improve very quickly, and I was hoping for sun on the top. However it took a bit longer to clear up, and in the end the sun came out when I drove back to town! I didn’t take a lot of photos, but it was a very nice walk. The first part goes through fairytale forest with flowers everywhere. The top is more rocky and the view was nice, even with all the clouds.

More recently, Paul and I went up Ørnfløya on a Friday evening. It was going to rain all weekend, so we decided to make the most of the last bit of good weather. Ørnfløya is near Sommarøy and it’s quite a drive from Tromsø (about an hour). It’s by far the easiest of all tops though, it’s only 160 m high and the total walk is 2.2 km. It took us 25 minutes to reach the top, and about the same to come down.

We were hoping to watch the sunset from the top, but although we reached the top just in time (at 22:00), the sun had already disappeared behind a layer of clouds. Still, the view was very nice! It’s great to see Sommarøy from above.

We didn’t stay on the top very long as it was getting quite chilly. We drove to Sommarøy and enjoyed a cup of tea on a beach there. It was a quiet evening and we watched some seagulls fight with what we think was an otter. The tide was coming in very strongly and we watched a school of small fish fight with the current while being attacked by bigger fish. Life is unfair 😉

The clouds were really pretty! The midnight sun is gone since late July, but at 23:30 it was still pretty light. It’s changing very quickly though, this was only a week and a half ago, but now we do have real darkness!