Svartisen Hike part 1

For our Svartisen glacier hike we took the first boat at noon to head over there. On the boat it started raining and it rained the first bit of the way. The first part is 3km basically flat along a gravel road and it rained the entire time we were walking that, but it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t like the other day which was miserable and freezing and wind blowing the rain in our face. It was just raining so we walked on. Now the next boat to go back was at 2:45 and we were trying to decide if we should try for that boat or get the next one at 5:45, and since the rain wasn’t that bad and it was supposed to stop soon we decided to do the 5:45 boat. Which was a good choice as there was no way we would have made the 2:45 and hiked up to the glacier. when I was planning I thought we would get back maybe 3:30 and have to find something to do for 2 hours, but we really got back to the dock at 5:30! So yeah, no way we could have done the earlier one! The hike was also a lot longer than I had seen online so that didn’t help.

After the gravel road you basically walk up the rocks to the glacier viewpoint. The lower rocks were very slippery in the rain, but it stopped shortly after the first bit which was nice. The rocks were so slippery and wet, but nicer than it raining also! There are 2 viewpoints you can walk up to and we got to the first one and took a break and were trying to decide if we should go on or not (really if we had enough time). The first section of rocks was a bit tricky to get up and we figured it would take longer going down as we didn’t want to fall. But I thought we would have enough time so up we went to the second viewpoint and I am so glad we did!! The rocks on that second section were so cool!! Right by the viewpoint were these ones that looked like waves or something. I loved them! We thought it would take forever going down because it was slippery, but really it took forever going down because I stopped every two feet to look at the rocks and take photos! I really loved them. It was so much fun! The glacier was nice too, very blue (which I think it always is - I saw pictures online in the sun and it say still super blue which is partly why I chose this over yesterday‘s adventures when I thought I had to choose one). But the rocks? So cool. You could see all the big striations from the glacier and it was just a lot of fun. I’m so glad we were able to go the whole way up! Plus we were glad that the trail was very well marked! Lots of blue dashes in the rocks to show you the way which definitely helped when you are just walking on rocks and not a path!Read more