Hiking in the Sognefjord

We have spent three glorious days here in the Sognefjord in our little boat house. It was sunny for the first two days and much of the third. Supposedly they have had no rain for a month which is typically the daily norm. Having exhausted the museums the first day it was time to do some hiking. I have been trailing my hiking boots through Scandinavia so I thought it should be time to put them to use. My right ankle is very weak from an old volleyball injury so I am always worried that I could roll it again. Therefore I really need to wear the hiking boots. One of my colleagues wives broke her ankle while hiking in running shoes a few years ago which has further increased my anxiety about not having hiking boots. For our first hike I chose one called Bjorahaug outside of a small town called Hermansverk. It was described as a Norwegian stroll which I thought would be a good warm up hike. It was only 1165 metres long. What I didn't realize was that the elevation gain was 500 metres. It was a hike up the side of a fjord. I don't think I have ever hiked so steeply. It certainly did give me an appreciation of how steeply the sides of the fjords rise from the water. There were ropes in areas to help oneself up. At one point my son Andrew told me that he thought that his mother had fallen. I quickly backtracked to check up on her but she had just lost the trail and was calling us to see where it went.The kids had no problem. They must be part billygoat. The hike was rated as 70 minutes. At the 70 minute mark we were very high up but not at the top of the fjord. The trail started to go down before I suspect it would go up again. I was absolutely drenched in perspiration. After all that work I decided that I didn't want to lose any of the elevation we had worked so hard for. We stopped for lunch. The view of the fjords was spectacular. On a sunny day I think it looks prettier then the west coast of BC.

After our warm up day, we decided to try something a little more difficult although we had set the bar pretty high the first day. We decided to do the Mount Molden which was a small mountain looking out over an arm of the Sognefjord. The arm is known as Gaupnefjorden. One can also see the glaciers to the north from the top. It was a longer hike with an elevation of 600 metres. We reached an elevation of 1116 metres. It was a pretty hard hike although probably not as hard and definitely not as steep as the warm up hike. We were well above the tree line at the top. The view from the top was even more breathtaking. When we were at the top we realized that there was a storm system coming in from the south. We were 9/10s of the way down when we were hit with a wicked rain storm. Gale force winds, snapping branches etc. We only had to walk 15 minutes in the rain. I wouldn't have wanted to be on the top of the mountain when the storm hit.

Last night this huge yacht maybe 60 metres long came into our bay and stayed for 24 hours. It was owned by Jade yachts so I checked it out online. People can rent this yacht for a week for 362k Cdn. Chris and I paddled a canoe out to it to check it out. I felt like a polynesian native checking out the ship of James Cook. I couldn't believe just how large it was. It was bigger than my house.Read more