On Thursday I drove to Lakselvbukt, around 70 km from Tromsø. Quite a long way to drive to climb a mountain, but it was worth it. The mountain is called 1000-meteren but is actually only 954 m high 😉

The day started sunny and quite warm, but more and more rain showers popped up during the day. None of them hit me though 😀 It was fun to watch the showers on the other side of the fjord…

On the way you pass the 800-meteren (which really is 857 m high, to compensate for the 1000-meteren perhaps? 😉 ), on a very narrow ridge. The path goes below this ridge, it would be madness to follow the top.

There were lots of information signs on this mountain, very nice! Most of them were about Sami language and culture, I have now learned that Jiehkevarri means Big Glacier Mountain and that there is a special word for “snow to make coffee of” in the Sami language. How cool 😀

The description states that the path is “relatively flat” between the 800-meteren and the top, so it was a bit frustrating to find that it actually dropped down 60 m, then climbed another 150. That is not flat for a Dutchie 😛 Anyway, I made it: the top!! It took me a bit more than 3.5 hours.

The views were fantastic, even though some of the surrounding mountains were covered in clouds now.

I didn’t stay on the top for very long, it was cold and windy there. Autumn is near, and I actually found areas with rime on my way up. The bit just below the 800-meteren is a bit tough, scrambling is involved here, but the route is extremely well marked.

From the ridge you have a good view of Store Holmbuktind and the glacier (partly hidden in the clouds in this photo).

And for those interested, here is a map and a profile of the route up 1000-meteren.

After in total 6.5 hours I made it back to the car – tired but very happy after a really nice hike 🙂