Rotterdam (or Anywhere)

Last Thursday I had planned to climb Raudfjellet (540 m), but the clouds were hanging low all day. Fog usually disappears when the sun gets strong enough – or at least it’s easy to get above the fog. Low clouds can hang around all day though, and are not as shallow as fog. I noticed the top of the cable car (at 420 m) was in the clouds all day. So i stayed at home and edited photos, until the end of the afternoon, when it suddenly cleared up here in Tromsø. I jumped in the car and drove to Raudfjellet, but this is an hours drive from Tromsø and unfortunately it was completely cloudy at the trail head. I could see some mountains in the distance with sun, so I was hoping that it would clear up. I climbed Raudfjellet two years ago via a different (much longer) route, and was surprised to find how nice the new route was, even inside the cloud 😉

I didn’t have much of a view on my way up, and I had kind of given up hope that I would have a view from the top. And indeed, at 500 m I was still in the clouds. But wait a minute, isn’t there a slight blue tint to the clouds? And isn’t that the sun, trying to come through?! I raced up, hoping that 40 more height meters would be enough. When I reached the top, the sun finally broke through, and a very strong fog bow appeared with blue sky above! Magic…

I was very happy and signed my name in the book. When I looked up, the clouds had lowered even more and suddenly I had a 360 degrees view over a sea of clouds, with several other mountain tops sticking out. And some big cumulonimbus clouds inland. WOW!!

I took lots of photos and spent an hour on the top. It was lovely having this view all to myself, but I also enjoyed sharing the experience with the two sisters who came up a little later.

After a long break, I reluctantly starting walking down – knowing I’d have to walk back into the fog 😉

The first part of the way down is quite flat though, and I was able to stay above the fog for quite a while. So many photo opportunities! I was running around taking lots and lots of photos…

Everything was still soaked from spending the day in the clouds, and the wet landscape was sparkling in the sun.

Finally I had to descend further down, and into the fog… This route is very well marked, which was really helpful when visibility became very low (especially since it was also getting dark).

What a great hike! I got home at 23:30, really pleased that I did go after all 🙂

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…

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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

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 🙂

This weekend it rained, and rained, and rained… Luckily not as much as it did in the border region (further inland), where they got more rain in one day than they normally get in all of July – 60 mm! Lots of rivers flooded, you can see a photo series here. In Tromsø we “only” got 23 mm, but that was more than enough 😉 On Sunday we were really fed up of the bad weather, and when it looked SLIGHTLY better, we decided to go hiking.

Of course the rain started halfway through our drive to the start place, and it was very windy too. It took some courage to finally leave the warm car 😉 but we managed to drag ourselves into the rain and wind and up the mountain. The first part was tough because of the weather and the steep terrain, but once we reached the first top (Tverrfjellet has two), it finally stopped raining. Even the wind calmed down a bit, which made the rest of the trip a lot more pleasant 🙂

Quite a different view from my two previous trips to Tverrfjellet – once on a nice summer day and once on a clear (but dark) winter day, but it was still beautiful! I’m a bit of a good-weather-hiker but in Tromsø the summer has very variable weather and you can’t always have it all 🙂