Hiking Cabin To Cabin, The Norwegian Way
/Me: "You can’t just make up mountain names!”
My Norwegian friend who we’ll call Adventure Man (he’s a rad adventurer): “What do you think I just said?”
Me: *To my ear, I proceed to perfectly repeat the mountain name Adventure Man just said*
Adventure Man: *laughs uncontrollably* “Now, that is gobbledygook.”
My friends constantly tease my Norwegian pronunciation and Englishness, and I gave them 4 days worth of opportunities while we hiked cabin to cabin (or hytte til hytte) in Jotunheimen!
This is one of the most wonderful things about Norwegians, their sense of humour (especially sarcasm) is on the same level as the Brits’!
One of the cabins we were staying at kept forgetting I was gluten free and presented me with a FROZEN loaf of bread in the morning to make sandwiches with (cabins provide you with food at breakfast to make sandwiches with for your lunch while hiking).
It was rock solid frozen with all of the slices stuck together. In my head I thought, in what world am I meant to make edible sandwiches from frozen bread?
My sense of humour flatlined at 8AM, so on presentation of this frozen loaf of bread I said, ‘thank you, but that does not help me’.
This one sentence provided endless entertainment for my friends during our trip! It was grown vastly out of proportion! We were soon doing Queens English and flicking our wrist at things we jokingly disapproved of - but as I write this, maybe it’s a joke you have to be there for!?
When I’m with my ski crew, I always know my days will be filled with belly aching laughter.
On this cabin to cabin, we were three Norwegians, one Brit, two dogs and a barrel of laughs hiking through streams, across rocks and over mountains in rain or shine. Blissfully disconnected from the outside world (most of Jotunheimen is a dark sport for internet and signal). Each day deciding which DNT cabin to visit next.
You get full serviced DNT cabins like Gjendebu and Skogadalsbøen, which means they provide all of your food (breakfast and 3-course dinner, and you make your own lunch from breakfast foods) a bed or a room (either it’s your choice or depends on what’s left - you can book or just turn up, they will never turn you away), or self-serviced cabins like Olavsbu (there may or may not be a host, you get a bed or room, there is long lasting food, cooking equipment and you cook whatever meal you fancy for yourself).
We were hiking with Woolfie’s best friend, who’s a Samoyed (a.k.a super cute fluffy white cloud!), and as they’re both Arctic dogs, we just tied them up outside for the night - which they loved. But you also get dog friendly rooms at an extra cost throughout the DNT cabin system.
Our focus for this adventure was fun, so we went fast and light, choosing to take only the essentials and rely on the cabins for food and shelter. Maybe our bags weighed 10kg, and we hiked at an enjoyable pace of about 20KM a day, climbing around 600-1000m.
Woolfie also had her own adventure bag and carried 240g! She looked so cute and loved having this as a job! As she gets older, she’ll be able to carry about 4kg!
I was also thankful to have chucked in a packet of Real Turmat just in case (it’s a brand of dried camping food you add hot water too, which I think tastes really good!), as the ski crew at Olavsbu tried to persuade me giant tins of potato and meat were very tasty, but I strongly disagreed.
Woolfie is particular about her food, so apparently we’re now as fussy as each other. I prefer to think we just have particularly good taste ;)
One evening we also discovered that our friend has been masquerading as a vegetarian. He confused Adventure Man and the cabin’s receptionist by ordering a non-veggie meal - so ‘normal’… He’s called Non-Veggie Man from now on.
We then realised since we’d known Non-Veggie Man, we’ve never seen him eat vegetarian! He proved us wrong on the last day by ordering a veggie burger!
Non-Veggie Man provides us with endless entertainment and we rib him as much as he ribs us. Not only did we uncover that he is a non-veggie, but also a sore loser!
All DNT cabins have areas you can chillax in after a long day in the mountains, and Gjendebu’s is particularly charming. They also provide various board games, so we started playing Uno after an early dinner.
Non-Veggie Man’s animation from losing, albeit hilarious to us, did not please all of our chillaxing neighbours. He drove one couple to get up in a huff and have to take to deep breathes by the serene lake to calm down! (we’re guessing the last part, but we did see them standing by the lake after, and this anecdote was far more amusing to us!).
Other nights we sat outside eating candy and chocolate, drinking solbaer (Norway’s version of a hot Ribena), watching the sun set and laughing at each other.
We also bathed in cool glacier fed lakes to renew ourselves and topped up our drinking water as we went - it’s all pristine, so you can just drink straight from the stream!
The inner peace one finds as you move through the land of the giants is divine.
I loved what Kate Murphy said the other day, “magic exists everywhere, whether you choose to seek it and see it, can change the entire course of your life.”
Imagination, intuition, inner sight or visions, whatever you wish to call it, operates on the quantum plane, and all holds the same power.
During this hike I really allowed my imagination to open up, I talked to nature’s elements, conversed with the streams, the birds, the butterflies; grounded myself in the local plants and by feeling the sand between my toes, cleansed myself in the waters. The messages and visions I received were wonderful and very helpful.
The weather on the fourth day took a turn and forecasted torrential rain for the next few days. We went from mostly blue skies to dark ominous clouds, so we decided to cut our trip short and head for home.
Adventure Man has a mental running rating of burgers in the Sogndal area and the Turtagrø Hotel’s burger is so far head and shoulders above the rest.
Using this big juicy burger has motivation to quickly cover 20KM. We were feeling very smug with our decision to head for home, as we walked the last 5KM head first into driving wind and rain at Leirvassbu.
However, as we sat down at Turtagrø with our heavenly burgers, the weather did another 180o.
It was now sun, light wind and rain for the next few days - you never know what the mountains will do! But with some of us feeling under the weather and with inconsistent weather from ok to miserable, we decided to definitely go home.
This was my first multi-day cabin to cabin trip and we (Woolfie and I) LOVED IT. I’m looking forward to exploring more of these rocky pathways and splendid cabins with Woolfie and friends in the near future!
Although what we’re all REALLY excited about is the ski season! We saw ample opportunities for rando/topptur day and multi-day trips, where you could use some of these cabins as bases! So while I don’t wish the summer away, I’m also thinking bring on the winter!
Snakkes (chat soon), Adelaide x
P.S. Here was our itinerary:
Day 1: Leirvassbu to Skogadalsbøen, 20KM + 244m elevation gain
Day 2: Skogadalsbøen to Olavsbu, 19KM + 1000m elevation gain
Day 3: Olavsbu to Gjendebu, 16KM + 98m elevation gain
Day 4: Gjendebu to Leirvassbu, 21KM + 680m elevation gain
