Ånderdalen National Park

Today we woke up to spooky fog outside! We had about a two hour drive to the trailhead plus some chores to do before then so we headed out as soon as we could. We headed off and were driving in the fog for a good bit and then suddenly it was clear!

We got to the parking for our hike in Ånderdalen National Park around 11 and it was a long hike to a lake so I thought we will do as much as we can, but not sure if we will make it to the lake by the time we need to turn around so we can get to camp by dinnertime/before sunset. But the trail was easy and we made it to the lake and back to the car right when I wanted to be back! Hooray!

So it was a pretty nice day. It was cloudy off and on with a sprinkle of rain here and there, but perfect for hiking. A bit cold, but we managed to wear the right layers and stayed warm, but not too warm. The first part of the trail was a wide gravel path with info signs and such, then it turned into pretty much walking through bogs to the lake. A lot of it was wooden pathways, but there was still a lot of mud and wet areas to try and get around with a bit of a hill here and there (and LOTS of slippery tree roots!). It was still gorgeous fall colors and halfway to the lake there was a sign saying you are halfway and the trail after this is not as defined and more demanding. If you doubt your physical fitness at all do not continue!! Which I was like alright let’s see what this trail has in store for us! Well there was a small stream to rock hop across then a good hill to climb with lots of rocks and then it was just more of the what we already did! More wooden planks to walk on, more mud, just more of everything. There was so much mud I was looking at my rain pants I was wearing when I got back and somehow I got mud up to my knees while walking. Not sure how I did that…my ankles and stuff makes sense as it brushes against my opposite shoes when walking, especially in the narrow boards, but my knees? It is a mystery! But I was glad I was wearing my rain pants as they are easy to clean off.

The lake was pretty nice when we got there. Really it was lots of small lakes in this wide open valley. After a nice break we headed on back to the car and stopped by a viewpoint on the way which was so nice! There was even a wind shelter to sit in that was open on the view side so we had a break there and stayed dry.

This park was really nice. The infrastructure was great. There were lots of pit toilets to use and at the lake there was a small cabin you could use to warm up or whatever. There were lots of places to have a fire with wooden benches around the fire pits and plenty of firewood. I could see if I lived here I would wander the woods often! We also saw lots of birds, bunch of Willow Tits on the way to the lake and a bunch of Red Crossbills on the way back flew all around us and came pretty close as we stood and watched them. It was just a really nice place to spend the day without a crazy demanding hike up a mountain. It was a long day even if the hiking was easy but we had a lot of fun.

The last couple photos are on the drive to camp (the last one is where we are camped). It is gorgeous here in a different way than prior area. Lots of snow covered mountains nearby so excited to see what we see tomorrow! And it is much colder as we are up in the mountains - it is freezing right now (0C/32F) and we need all the heat! The heater in the car is not as good as the one we had in Iceland…that one kept the car a pleasant temp the entire time. This one you have to set it for a higher temp than you want to get it to turn on before it is freezing cold…like we would set it for 18C as that is nice but not hot, but if you set it at that when it turns off it won’t turn on again until my nose and hand and feet are like icicles! It hasn’t been that cold yet so we haven’t used it that much, and we have kept it low overnight, but last night I did need my warm layer on plus my blankets so we might have to set it to a higher temp tonight since it is colder. We shall see! I think we were lucky it was not colder longer (I’m writing this after the heat turned off and I can feel all the cold! Time to turn the temp up so it will turn on again!)Read more