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 ) 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!

Yesterday I climbed Blåtinden with Ine-Therese. This is one of the extra tops, which are more demanding. Blåtinden is 1180 m hight. The total hike was 9.8 km and it took us about 8 hours – 4 hours to get up, 3 hours coming down, and a nice long lunchbreak on top

The hike starts very steep, but we had some help with us! Ine-Therese brought her 2 dogs (Luna and Sepi). They are sled dogs, and we both had a harness around our waist connected to the dog. I was surprised what a difference this makes! The dogs have a lot of energy and almost literally drag you up the mountain The first part of the hike goes through the forest, until you reach a plateau. From there it’s a steep and rocky climb to the top. These are some views on the way up…

After 4 exhausting hours, we made it to the top! The last bit is very flat, which was good – I had hardly any energy left by that time. The view from the top is really good

The cairn on this top is really impressive – it’s about 4 meters high and it has a room at the top that you can climb into. Of course we had to try that It was about 9 degrees but there was hardly any wind, and we enjoyed a long lunch break in the sun.

You can look very far in every direction. This panorama shows the Lyngen Alps. Luna and Sepi also enjoyed their break, it must be quite tiring for them too!

Around the top there were some very steep drops. The path goes quite close to them at times, we tried not to look down too much There were some low clouds drifting below the top, and at some point we decided to go down in case the clouds would increase and cover the top.

The way down wasn’t easy, especially the bit with loose rocks – very hard on your knees. And the dogs can’t help you much coming down They are very well trained though, on the way down they walk behind you so that you don’t trip over them or get pulled down by them. It took us about 3 hours to come down. We were quite exhausted and very happy to see the car again

Yesterday I had a day off in the middle of a crazy work schedule (I had just worked 6 days in a row, and after my day off I’d work 10 more days in a row… this is because everyone else is on holiday this month). The weather looked nice, so I decided to do another top I chose Tverrfjellet on Kvaløya, 675 m high. Below is the map and the height profile…

It took me 5 hours in total (about 2.5 hours to reach the top, half an hour break, and 2 hours to come down). The length of the trip was 7.5 km. I found this quite a tough one to climb, as it was very steep up straight from the start. At some point you reach the first “top” from where you get your first view to the actual top – which is further along a ridge. I lost my motivation a bit when I found out how far it still was! The ridge goes gently down for about a km, but after that it is a very steep climb again. Very rocky too, I had to use my hands several times on the last part. It was a beautiful day though, with great views, and I had a great time

This is the view from the first top, showing the ridge leading to the actual top. On one side, the ridge is very steep. On the other side there’s a lake, called Tverrfjellvatnet, that was still frozen. The melt ponds on it had a beautiful bright blue colour!

The view from the top! It was a nice surprise to be able to see all the way to the sea. The peaks on the right are about 1000 m high.

Two more views from the top, one towards Kattfjordvatnet (the road back to Tromsø goes through this valley), and one towards Nordfjorden.

On the way back I took it easy and I took a lot of photos. By this time the first “after work” hikers were coming up, it was nice to chat to them. The path was often marked by small cairns as in the photo below. I also took a close up of the blue melt ponds, they are so pretty!

A small lake on my way down…

I reached the car tired but happy and sunburnt too, mostly on one side .

And now it’s back to work, I had to start at 6:30 this morning! I did 2 radio interviews early in the morning. They were supposed to be about the weather but as the DJs know that I’m Dutch, we ended up talking about the world cup and the Netherlands reaching the finals. I am not a football fan at all so it’s quite bizarre to talk about it on the radio Luckily I saw half of yesterday’s match while visiting the neighbours (we don’t have a tv) so I could confirm watching the match and I kind of knew what I was talking about

More soon I hope – I have a lot of photos from the weekend Paul’s parents came to see us, I hope to share some soon. We have also been out with the boat again, have a look at the photos of a dreamy evening on Vensøya here. If I didn’t have to work the next morning, I would have loved to stay on that beach all night! Paul also went on a boat trip by himself last weekend, to Nipøya.

More soon

Last Sunday I had to work a late shift (starting at 15:00) but we decided to go for a short hike before. We chose Nedre Kovhaugen as it’s quite nearby and a very easy hike. It was in Ti på Topp last year as well, so we were familiar with the route. Actually it’s not even a real “top”, you follow a valley until you get to a little bump and that’s it . Below are the map and the profile.  This time the profile is only for the way back as the gps height was wrong on the way there. Nedre Kovhaugen is 155 m high, the total trip length was just under 8 km and it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes – but that’s including a long lunch break and a few detours

Paul at a little meandering stream, and the river down in the valley. We went down to the river, that’s the funny “bite” out of the profile!

As we had limited time, I didn’t take many photos. Last year we did this hike at the end of June, when it was very green in the valley and it was full of ferns! Those photos never made it onto the blog as I was too busy finishing my PhD – so thought I could share some now! In the first photo you can see how the birch tree has a different colour at the bottom. Someone explained me that you can tell the snow height from this – as lichen only grow above the snow and that’s what makes the brown colour.

I had Monday off, and decided to climb one of the moderate tops, as I had all day. I chose Raudfjellet, a mountain on Kvaløya, about 40 km from Tromsø. It’s 542 m high. The route follows a gravel road all the way up to 400 m, where there is a wind turbine. It’s quite a long route, about 15 km, and it took me 5 hours and 20 minutes.

On the way up, it was quite cloudy and it would rain every now and then. On the way back it had cleared up and it was very sunny. The next two photos are taken from the same place, and show how different the landscape looks in different weather!

From the wind turbine, the route was signposted to the top of Raudfjellet. When I got close to the wind turbine, I realised something was not quite right… and suddenly remembered seeing photos in the newspaper of it being on fire! Click here for a photo and the news article. Quite sad really, it must have cost a lot to install it so high up (and have a road built all the way). I don’t know if they plan (or can afford!) to repair it.

After 3 hours, I finally reached the top. It has a great view over the sea and several islands, and it was a nice surprise to find a clear and sunny view that way! It was quite windy on the top though and I was FREEZING. I ate lunch in the lee of the cairn, but I couldn’t stay very long as I was getting very cold.

Here are some views from the way back: the red signs showing the way, and the “paths” over the large areas with snow. In some places there were melting ponds on top of the snow, with really nice blue colours.

It was so sunny on the way down that I got quite sunburnt – got to remember to bring sunscreen next time! I passed some small lakes, which still had some ice cover on it. The strange thing is that some of the ice was looking very black, and sparkling in the sun. I guess it’s melting, but I don’t know where the black colour comes from…

That’s all for now, it’s almost bedtime for me. I got up at 4:30 this morning!! I went on a very exciting trip with a collegue: we flew Tromsø-Hasvik-Hammerfest-Berlevåg-Båtsfjord-Vadsø-Kirkenes, and from there back to Tromsø, on quite a small propeller plane, sitting in the cockpit! It was really fantastic I work as an aviation meteorologist some of the time, and write forecasts for 15 airports in Northern Norway. This trip was to get more familiar with the airports and their topography, and to talk to the pilots about how they use our products and what we could improve. We also visited the control tower in Kirkenes, really fun to see “the other side” of flying!