Fiordland of the Northern Hemisphere

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FIORDLAND OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE Mark Loveard The next step required a hydrofoil trip up the coast and down the Sognefjiord. This proved to be somewhat hard on the wallet at $270 a ticket! Fortunately we managed to persuade the ticket collector that our international student travel cards entitled us to a 50% discount. The hydrofoil trip was great. We initially headed north up through the islands with their fine autumn colours and smart baches. After several hours, we entered the mouth of the Sognefjiord, one of the deepest fiords in the world. We gradually zigzagged down the fiord stopping off at lots of small agricultural communities which cling precariously to the sides of the fiord and for whom the hydrofoil provides the only link LEngllon Parf with the outside world. found in We were deposited at Ovre Ardal at the head of At Fiordland the fiord where we found a nice free spot to camp for the night, courtesy of a camp site that had closed for the winter. I was going to write an article on "Parfs" [ an idiomatic The following morning we set out for the long walk up English word for "tracks' " (ed). 1 in England but since so the road into the mountains. Fortunately, after several many of you have been there I thought that I would write kilometres, a BMW stopped and offered us a lift. Being about a lesser known part of the northern hemisphere. used to right hand drive cars I mistakenly tried to hop into the drivers seat which almost cost us our lift. Back in 1984 having conquered all the great massifs of the UK, two fellow students and I decided that it was time In fact I had a habit of walking into the wrong places. to attack the continent. We studied a few maps and When our friend in the BMW dropped us off at the road decided that Jotenheimen in Norway was the place to go. end in Ardal we were desperate to find a loo. On enquiry we were told that the public loo was in the bank. Jotenheimen is a fairly remote mountainous area of Norway, not traversed by roads and which contains So off to the bank we wandered and having said "loo?" in around 10 peaks over 2000 m and the largest glaciers in abysmal Norwegian to the cashier we were pointed in the Europe. direction of a corridor. However, instead of taking us to the loos it lead us through an open door into the safe - We started out by catching a bus to Newcastle. For those much to the horror of the bank manager who was very of you who are not familiar with the UK its one of those quick to apprehend us. northern areas where the indigenous population have problems pronouncing English. We were now in the real mountains and followed a track up the Gravdalen valley. The scenery was incredibly From Newcastle we had a 23 hour ferry crossing across impressive with superb autumn colours of Alpine shrubs the North Sea to Bergen. A fairly unpleasant crossing to and silver beech in the valleys with snowy peaks above. say the least and we were glad to dock in Bergen the The Gravdalen valley itself is a narrow glaciated valley harbour city of the northern hemisphere complete with with the river deeply incised in the bottom. It also ancient buildings and narrow cobbled streets. contains Europe's highest waterfall at 3000 ft -the Vettifossen.

The end of the first day found us in a very narrow section of the valley and we were forced to camp on scree. This would have been somewhat uncomfortable had there not been a plentiful supply of thick moss available which enabled us to construct a nice mattress on which to site the tent a fine piece of bushcraft. We awoke to find a few very lost Tararua clouds hanging over our heads. However, we eventually succeeded in upping our motivation levels sufficiently to tackle the final obstacle which lay between us and our destination -a 1200 m grunt over a ridge in a heavy snow storm. On the way we passed through several ancient, summer high pasture settlements, all of which had been abandoned for the winter. However, in one settlement there were a couple of hunters who invited us in for a very welcome cup of tea. Eventually we reached our destination and camped out in more snow wondering how we would survive another 10 days in a tent in poor weather. Fortunately the next day we stumbled across a Norwegian chap who offered us a key to Skogadaelsboen hut owned by the Norwegian Mountaineering Federation (DNT). These huts are open to anyone throughout the summer months but are locked in winter. Thel hut was certainly cosy as one would hope at $30 a night. Far preferable to sleep out in the snow under canvas. Heavy snow continued for the next few days SO we made a few short trips up to glaciers and a couple of ridge walks. Fortunately the weather cleared up perfectly for the last five days and we fitted in three of the main peaks in Jotenheimen. All of which were very heavy going due to the deep fresh snow and involved leaving before dawn and returning after dusk. However it was worth all the effort as the views were unsurpassed and the contrast between the splendour of the late autumn colours in the valleys below was superb. Before we knew it time was up and we were racing back to Bergen to catch the last ferry of 1984 back to England.