We are driving south now heading for Lillehammer and Stockholm, it’s time to say goodbye to exciting Norway.
3 days ago we went again to the glacier for a kayak trip + glacier walk.
We put on rubber booties and life vests and walked awhile to the kayaks which are on a glacier lake; then we put on our skirts (kayaking skirts that is, that covers from the spray) and hand spray protectors and kayaked for 2 hours in a strenuous pace, it was raining most of the way and our rain gear is not good enough (leaky ponchos) so we were quite wet and miserable, but we had small icebergs next to us on the lake. We parked the kayaks , had some lunch and walked up to the glacier , put on our crampons (spiked shoes thingies), harness and were tied together on ropes. We were 10 in our group and I was the last in the row. We started walking up on the glacier, walking slowly on narrow passages of ice along narrow passages of snow; rule number 1 is don’t step on the rope, but rule #2 is don’t step on the snow (you don’t know what’s underneath) in the beginning we saw snow, but later we saw the huge crevices and cracks in the snow; the sun started to shine and the rain stopped and suddenly the mood was cheerful once more, so we took the camera out and started taking shot of the glacier and the nearby lake. The glacier is in layers of ice and snow all the way up, the layers are formed because of the pressure on the ice due to the variance of depth from the ground below, we learned some glacier facts, walked over crevices, and at one point I touched the ice with my hand and got a glacier cut, small one but I barely touched the ice. We walked for 2 hours back and forth on the glacier. At one point we came across a big crevice and the guide chose not to risk our lives (any further) and we had to walk back a bit, and since I was the last in the row, I was in the lead; its true we only back tracked but you still have to chose your next step carefully and for a brief period I was very excited and felt extra adventurous, a minute later or so, the guide took the lead and my short reign as glacier guide was over. Hot chocolate waited for us when we descended from the glacier walked back to our kayaks and rowed 2 hours more to the starting point, it rained a bit on the way back but spirits were higher now, this was our most expensive activity but definitely irregular and memorable.
With all our clothes wet (we didn’t bring that many with us) we drove back to the glacier center to pick up our little fridge where we keep alla’s medicine, we arrived 30 minutes after closing time and the center was closed, we went to the nearby hotel and the very courteous front desk dude tracked down the caretaker, it took him a while to perform the tracking and next to him stood a chocolate cake and after a full day in cold wet conditions its looked promising , he finally got the guy to come in, and after asking to pay for the cake, he told me that I can just take it, so I did, simple basic cake but a great timing. We waited 30 minutes at the parking lot and suddenly a bmw comes racing in ( I assumed the caretaker would come in a crappy car) and the guy from the hotel ran to the center parking lot to tell us that the caretaker arrived (Supper commitment) and let us in. we drove on in the valley back to gaupne then headed north towards europes highest mountain pass. It was late (we started at 9 pm), we were dead tired but the pass was amazing, green mountains, waterfalls, snow patches, more glaciers and deep valleys below, the road was curvy and slow, we considered camping at the top but it was cold, we crossed the pass and arrived ant bovander which has a hostel, that was full of course so we camped outside close to midnight, put our clothes in the dry room (they have no driers, but a but a very dry room instead that does the job well and quickly fell asleep.
On the morning we went rafting close to Lom. This trip was short but awesome, I rafted in many places (Canadian Rockies, green river Utah, ohiopile PA, new Zealand, Israel, sorry I love to list things) but this river was by far the best. The rapids were level 3 (levels mean risk of death if you fall) but the river was gushing, with lots and lots of high waves. We started with the usual practice, right. Left right back, forward and stop, then went to a couple of awesome rapids, the raft was jumping high on the waves and waves hit us left and right, then we pulled a short, walked up to a rock on the river and from there we could jump in directly to the waves and swim to a pick up point on the shore. This was an awesome wave to jump to and the river was deep at this point, so I jumped head first(this activity is called hole diving) into the river and for 2-3 seconds saw nothing but water, then I emerged and began swimming in the waves to the shore, alla did the same thing, it was so great that I did it again. One of the guys on the raft chose not to swim to shore (finish guys don’t listen) and missed the ropes and was carried by the river downstream, the guides slowly reacted to go after him on the shore and in the rescue kayak, but this was a wavy but safe river, the guy made it ashore just fine. We took the raft to another point on the river for the final rapid with the highest waves and a deep hole. At this point we swapped places and Alla and I took point, we quickly hit the rapid and the raft plunged down the hole and emerged high on the wave after it, only to hit two more huge soaking waves, it was awesome. They call this rapid the big push, after that we hosted the kayak up the steep bank to the waiting car (I called it the big pull) , then we walked to the bridge just at the end of this rapid, the bridge was 8 meters high above the river and all we had to do was jumpJ that was scary as heel but we jumped in and swam ashore, what a rush!!
This was out day of relaxation so we went back to Lom, took a little tour in the town with its stave church, old granary from the 1600’s and a nice open air museum, which is a very nice way to display ancient life
Sorry , don’t have much time to finish blogs, I owe you 2 completions now, but I have not sent anything for 3 days, consider this a life signJ
Cheers from stockholm
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