Assignment 7 Lofoten Student organized fieldtrip
The Lofoten is an Island group in the north of Norway it’s an beautiful landscape with a lot of outdoor possibility’s it has one of the nicest beaches in the world for surfing and gives plenty of opportunity’s to climb. During this trip Tom, Brad and I went to the Lofoten as our student organized fieldtrip. The goal was to climb a couple mountains and hike around the area. In this blog I will explain shortly for everyday what I did in this beautiful environment.
Day 1:
This day we arrived on the Lofoten Island at ferry station Moskeness after a quite rough drive over the water at about 7 pm. Tom and I had to stay near the ferry terminal to spend the night because Brad would arrive a day later. We drove towards the village A we found along the road a track and figured that we should follow it and climb the first peak we saw. We parked the car ate dinner and packed our bags for this trip we brought trad gear and slings to do protected scrambles. We hiked for about 5 km towards the start of the hill. Most of this trip we did unprotected since this was not necessary. We climbed one bit of about 10 meters were we used protection. During this whole day the rocks were wet and there was a lot of moss and other vegetation. This made the climbing slightly more dangerous. When it was about 10:30 pm we decided to hike back the 5 km on the way down I tried to jump on a small patch of grass. Sadly is slipped and down the hill. Luckily I landed on my feet on another platform. This made me aware that the way back always way more dangerous is then the way up. This mainly of fatigue and hunger and thirst. Once we arrived back at the car it was 12 at night. We were tired and made ourselves hot chocolate to reward ourselves of our hard work. Shortly after we fell asleep in the car.
Day 2:
This day we had to pick up Brad at 8:45 so we woke up at 8:15 so we had plenty of time to eat and drive towards the ferry station. The plan was to go this day to Svolvear. This was a slightly bigger village were we wanted to see the parade. The parade was there because the 17th of may is a national day in Norway. We had to drive for about 2 hours. The drive itself made the trip to Lofoten worth the money. The landscapes we saw were amazing. Once we arrived there was not much going on in the village so we decided to “send it” and go to another mountain near Svolvear. Brad decided to go with the other group so Zoë came with us. The peak we climbed was about 600 meters. And started immediately with scrambling on lose rock. As soon as we got closer towards the steeper bit there was more vegetation which made it harder to spot the lose rocks underneath. And some point I climbed true a gulley with a lot of moss. I felt a rock slipping underneath my foot. A rock fell down and had hit Zoë on her knee. Luckily she was fine. This made us aware that if you scramble just wait for each other when someone is climbing in front of you. Also the higher we got the less visibility we got because we climbed into a cloud. This made navigating harder but didn’t give any struggles. Zoë did a really good job navigating. Within 4 hours we reached the top. We decided to traverse and get on to another track to walk down towards civilization. The walk back took us about 2 hours. We left at 1 pm and arrived back at 8 pm. We were a soaked to the bone. Luckily we met that afternoon two American guys and a Canadian girl who invited us into their cabin so we could have a beer and dry our stuff. That night we had spend near the beach and slept in a bivy.
Day 3:
The third day we went to Untstad. This was a really nice beach with clear waters and a squared forest. Around the beach there were mountains of about 450 meters high with a large traverse. Tom and scrambled up on lose big boulders. Once we got at the steep bit Tom and decided that the climb would be able without ropes. This was maybe not the smartest decision since we got quite scared at one bit. It also gave me an insight of my own abilities. Once we got on the top we traversed for about 600 meter to two other tops. This was beautiful. Especially getting used to the exposure was fun. Once we were at the end we had to hike back to the beach downhill. The walk back was easy except for one bit were we had to rappel of a not to strong tree. This whole climb/ hike we did within 4 hours. Comparing to the other days Tom and I did it efficient and quick. We had spend that night again in a bivy at the beach.
Day 4:
This day we travelled to Kvalika beach. This beach was an hour and a half drive. It was 2 km hike towards the beach. This beach is known for the two surfers that lived there for 2 months. They made a shelter of all the rubbish that was washed ashore. Next to that they collected 3 tons of rubbish. We visited this hut and the view point at the beach this was the cherry on the cake for this trip. Definitely one of the nicest places I have ever been. This night Tom and I slept underneath a big boulder on the beach sadly we woke up early because of rain blowing in our den.
Day 5.
We drove back to Moskenes ferry. And returned the car in Bodo. We had to stay the night in the airport to catch our flight back to Oslo.
This trip I learned a lot about moving in mountain areas and reading the path. Next to that I experienced climbing and sleeping in bad weather. Overall this was an amazing trip.