Rundfjellet – Stålhovet

Rundfjellet – Stålhovet

On Tuesday we woke up to thick fog, but never mind: I was going to climb Stålhovet (861m) with Eelke and Maaike, and I knew the sun would be shining above the fog 🙂 It was quite exciting to reach the top of the fog, conveniently located near the tree line, so that we had spectacular views over a sea of fog…

Climbing above the fog, rewarded with a spectacular view A sea of fog

It was so beautiful that we couldn’t stop taking photos, so our progress to the first top – Rundfjellet at 472m – was rather slow 🙂

Slowly the fog was lifting and we saw more and more of the landscape below Panorama of our view

Never mind, it was a beautiful warm day and we were not in any hurry 🙂

Cotton grass Maaike enjoying a short break

Finally the fog cleared up over a huge part of the landscape around us, but some patches of fog kept dancing around the north part of Tromsø island. The bridge to the airport kept disappearing and reappearing in the fog.

Here the fog was at its minimum. You can see the calm water in the foreground reflecting like a mirror, while there is more wind around Tromsø island

After a short break at Rundfjellet, we continued towards our destination. The landscape here was really beautiful, with lots of little lakes and great views towards the high mountains in the northwest.

Leaving Rundfjellet, the first top A little lake - we were quite tempted to dip in as it was really warm - but these lakes were all way too shallow

Here too, we kept stopping to take photos, with every bend in the path we had a new view 🙂

Another pretty little lake View towards Store Blåmann

The path was well marked with red cairns, though at some point we had to find our own way up.

The markers we were following Eelke taking photos

Crossing a small stream. After this, the landscape changed to lots and lots of loose stones – not ideal to walk around with a camera in your hand, so I didn’t take any more photos until we got to the top. The photo from the top looks back at the ridge we crossed. It was quite long!

Crossing a small stream View from the top, looking back at the longgggg ridge we crossed to get there

There is a steep drop on the other side of the top, and the views were really spectacular! I had never been here before, it’s a popular mountain for skiing (though most skiers stop at the first top on the ridge, Lille Blåmannen – for mysterious reasons marked as Botnfjellet on my map – confusing 😉 ) but I never joined when Paul went here.

View of Steinskardtinden (on the left), there was someone on top of that mountain too :) Nice patterns in the fog, and the friendly guy who took a group photo of us

And thanks to Maaike and the friendly stranger we met on the top, a photo of the three of us 🙂

The three of us on the top :)

The way back was long and warm, and I was too tired for any more photos 😀 It was a great day though, I really enjoyed it. Maaike has also shared some really nice pictures of this trip: see here. In the evening the fog increased and covered all of Tromsø again, Paul and I took the cable car up to watch the sun set over a sea of fog – so beautiful. But these photos will have to wait for another blog post 🙂

Tent Testing

Tent Testing

This week has been wonderful 🙂 On Monday afternoon it cleared up completely, and we decided to test our new tent at Telegrafbukta. We bought a Mountain Hardwear EV3, which we found on sale for 50% – quite a bargain. It’s a light but spacious tent, we are planning to use it for hiking trips.

Our new tent! It weights only 3 kg but it's very spacious inside

This tent is a bit different from most tents: it only has one layer. It seems really strong though, and it’s easy to set up. And I love the little windows 🙂

This tent has only one layer, one of the advantages is that it can have little windows! The view from the 2 doors... nice :)

We had a nice bbq, and watched a beautiful sunset…

A beautiful sunset

The weather stayed good for the rest of the week, very sunny though we often had fog. I love fog 🙂 I took LOTS of photos, so check back soon!

A Sunny Morning

A Sunny Morning

Last Tuesday was really sunny, and I took my camera on a little trip before my afternoon shift. These photos are taken at Folkeparken, the park close to where we live. It’s an open air museum with lots of old buildings (that have been moved here), which only opens on sundays during the summer for a couple of hours – and even then, only 3 of the buildings are open 😀 It’s very nice though, but I wish they would open more frequently – especially the nice little cafe!

You can get a guided tour of this building when the museum is open. If I remember correctly, it used to be a trading post on one of the islands outside Tromsø The nice little cafe that really needs to open more often!

There is an exhibition about fishing called “In Cod We Trust” :D. Of course I had to take some photos of my favourite boat house…

Exhibition about cod fishing The old boathouse - one of my favourite buildings to photograph :)

And another cluster of buildings on the other side of the road. The grass roofs are so pretty now, they had lots of purple flowers in them.

So sunny - so beautiful :) More buildings that are part of the open air museum. Their grassy roofs are at their prettiest now, with lots of purple flowers in them

A girl was fishing from the end of the jetty (wonder if she caught anything, we never had much luck there), and lots of families were enjoying the beach of Telegrafbukta.

The jetty, with a girl fishing from the end And the popular Telegrafbukta beach - some kids were playing in the water :)

My next stop was Tisnes, a small village about half an hour from Tromsø, with some nice beaches to walk on.

The beach at Tisnes A farm at Tisnes, Store Blåmann in the background

There’s also an impressive shipwreck on the beach, which is always great for photos 🙂

Nice sandy beaches The big shipwreck on the beach

The shipwreck

A very nice morning! This weekends looks grey and drizzly again, but next week the weather forecasts look really promising – and I’m free! Can’t wait to take my camera on some more trips 🙂