Well Caitlin and I decided that we wanted to just go off hiking on our own so we met up and planned for our 3 day weekend hike. We were going to hike about 15 miles north, taking some detours to visit mountain tops and a couple lake shores. We planned and calculated which route we’d take and how long it would take us to hike. Our plan was to hike from the University (the red buildings) up towards the left and then swing around the right side of the green section and take the road for a ways then to take a path to the very top-middle of the green area on the first day. The second day would consist of traveling north and going in a big circle through the top section. On the third day we would hike back on the left-hand side of the map and hit more viewpoints. We also discussed what food and gear we were going to bring. She had a laminated piece of paper that had all of her food information/inspiration on. Food for different meals, what gave extra energy, what seasonings were good to bring, what was easiest to pack. what was high calorie, etc. It was actually a really good idea and I may make one in the future but for now I’ll just keep it in my head.
Day 1
We started out Friday morning with an aim to get back late Sunday afternoon. My pack was heavy and loaded as this was my first multiple overnight trip and I brought a lot of stuff. Turns out I brought too much because my backpack was heavy as fuck and I had to keep my sleeping bag tied underneath my back pack and it kept swinging and hitting the backs of my legs for the whole hike and it was super annoying. Caitlin had a deceptively small bag but I knew she had most of the same stuff as I did….just smaller and packed better. At this point I vowed to figure out a way to make room and pack my sleeping bag inside my backpack because with it bouncing into my legs it was really annoying the shit out of me and it looked and sounded really silly as I walked.
We took our time at the beginning, stopping and resting at the viewpoints, walking along really nice back roads that sometimes led through people’s property. It was really enjoyable because it gave us some insight to Norwegian culture, the style of housing, landscaping, etc. It looked like something out of the movies. About a third of the way to our destination though my pinky toes really started hurting, I think they were rubbing against my socks from how much my feet were sweating in my hiking boots. It was perfect hiking weather and the snow and ice had melted along most of the route so I wore light clothing but my socks were still a bit thick and baked my feet. I put the medical tape I had just bought to good use and wrapped some around them to hopefully form a good barrier against my sock and shoe. 
We kept walking along our scenic pathway, passing through backyards and horse pastures…it was really a fantastic hike.
The last half of the hike was mostly spent walking along asphalt roads and by the time it was 2/3rds of the way through the hike my poor toes were screaming bloody murder at me so I had us stop once more. I let them breathe and rest for a little bit and then wrapped band-aids around them for added protection. When we started up walking again they still really hurt but it was more manageable. It wasn’t just my feet that were bothering me, I did an intense leg day the gym the day before and my legs were super sore and a bit strained. This, on top of my super heavy back pack and blisters = misery. I was so happy when we got to the start of the forest again and went on the path that would lead us to our planned area for sleeping for the night. The path was icy interspersed with areas of mushy ground and it was treacherous to navigate.
We ended up finding the perfect place to set up shelter for the night. Near enough to the water to travel down and get some for cooking food and drinking, but far enough to be away from some of the cold drafts that would come from it during the night. We decided to have our opening facing an earth bank and we made a triangular prism shape with the tarp I borrowed from the school. I didn’t check the tarp before I borrowed it and it turns out it was huge but had been cut in half, so it was about 2 and half persons wide and about 3 times as long. 
This actually ended up working out perfectly for us as we could be protected on two sides and from the wet ground. We used Caitlin’s poncho to make another wall on the side facing out towards the lake. All in all it was a perfect shelter! We decided to create the fire right beside the tent so that way it might heat up the inside of our shelter and at night I could definitely tell a difference.
Day 2
When I woke up that morning I felt like crying. All of the muscles in my legs were so tense that I felt like they would break if I bent them. At this point I almost told Caitlin that we would have to go back and call it an early trip because I was in too much pain and I could tell that my pinky toes were still super blistered as well. But then I thought to how excited she was about the trip and how much she had looked forward to this and I didn’t want to ruin it for her. So I dug up some determination and got out of my sleeping bag and almost burst out into tears doing so but I did it. Putting on my shoes and walking around hurt my feet so bad, but I told myself I’d keep going until I couldn’t anymore. I told her that since we found such a good place that we should just leave our shelter up and that I wanted to leave my big backpack there because I wouldn’t be able to manage carrying it around for the whole day again, I had to make sure I had enough gas in the tank to be able to carry it back the next day. I didn’t have a day pack but the pockets of my jacket were big enough to carry my water bottle and snack/lunch for the day. Caitlin was a beast and had an endless well of energy so she packed all of her stuff up and we hiked like that for the whole day.
We decided we wanted to visit a viewpoint that was in this forest and traveled up the roads and trails to get to it. When we got to the trail portion there was still a lot of snow and ice on the ground that made it a bit hard to navigate and a few times Caitlin slipped and tumbled to the ground. Twice we tried taking these tiny shortcut paths but both times we kind of lost track of where we were and the second time was so bad that we ended up going in a huge circle! It was a crazy beautiful view though and we went in a circle because we didn’t know where we were and I saw power lines in the distance so we decided to head to it so that way we’d definitely know where we were. We missed the viewpoint by doing this but the view we saw was still gorgeous so it was worth it.
On the way back once we got closer to trail that led to our camp site, we decided to take the left road that would eventually lead back to our site instead of the one on the right because we wanted new scenery. From the map it looked like they would both be about the same distance. While we were walking on the gravel road I kept checking the map to make sure where we were and I’m glad I did because we got to a bridge and lake with a cabin on it and on the map it said the power lines should be on the left but ours was on the right…so we were a bit confused. But we just figured it must have been an old map and was incorrect. So we walked up and down a lot of huge hills for about 15-20 min and after we crested the top hill I saw there was a looong progression of going down hill. It still seemed okay, but I was looking for the point where the power lines would cross our path, I still hadn’t found it. Half way down the downhill portion I stopped us and closely examined the map because for as far as I could see it wasn’t going to cross. I had no clue what was wrong because we didn’t change paths and this was the only one that formed off of the main road. But I knew something was wrong, so I told Caitlin that we needed to stop and backtrack to a point where we knew exactly where we were. We back tracked to the bridge and looked at the map and went over to where the cabin was. After some discussion and walking around we decided that the path we wanted must be on the other side of the lake and that somehow the big road we were travelling on must have been new and not documented on the map yet.
Disregarding the road that we were on, I used the land features around us to figure out where we were while we back tracked even farther. We finally reached the point where the trail should go and find a tiny ass wooden sign on a thin stick pointing in the direction with the words facing the opposite direction that we had initially come from. We looked at the map and it seemed that the whole are was a marshy bog and as we go closer we could tell that it was indeed true. We really didn’t want to go through that, so we decided to take a detour on these huge rock/cliff faces that some of the powerlines were planted on and we climbed up through the brush and followed the path from a distance.
It was really fun but when we got to the end it turned out the lake and protruded into the area and it was all frozen over. We were hesitant to try and cross it though because it looked a bit iffy in some places. We didn’t want to go through the marsh but we really didn’t want to fall through the ice. We had found some old abandoned firewood pieces on the side of the road when we went the wrong way so we decided to use them and throw them out into the middle to test the ice. The ice didn’t break but we still didn’t trust it so we backtracked a ways to try and find a good crossing point and we did! It was really quite an adventure and a bunch of fun. The only thing is that during this whole time it was dusk and we were racing against the sun, so we were pumped up with adrenaline to try and find our way back before it became dark. By the time we got back to our site we could barely see so it ended up working out perfectly!
We made a fire again for the night and at this point I realized that it was a waste of time to bring my cooker. I could have just brought my pot and cooked my food on the fire. At this point I made a vow to never bring a cooker again on a long trip, unless I didn’t personally have to haul it. I’d just make do with precooked food or food that didn’t need heat and I’d just mooch off of other people if I needed to boil some water for food or to drink.
We spent the night by the fire just chatting and bonding and it was really relaxed and easy. The next morning we woke up and packed and I told her that I’d need to take the bus home because our 18 mile hike the previous day killed my feet. Not only did I have blisters on my pink toes but I also had them on the balls of my feet now and my big toes. We decided to just take the path that we took to get here because we knew where a bus stop was about 15km away. So we packed up and moved out and man I was in such misery. Back pack was so heavy on my blistered feet and my legs were screaming murder, but we pressed on at a really fast walking pace that had me wanting to cry out with every step. I kept strong though and repeated the mantra: just one more step! And it worked! We got to the stop in record time and when we were about 60 m away from the stop we looked behind us and saw the bus so I drew up some of my reserves and put it all into running to the stop. We made it just in time and it was a good thing we did because the next bus didn’t come for 4 hours! We got so lucky!
I was so happy to get home and rest the next 3 days away. It was a really enjoyable trip and I found out that I had more strength and determination than I thought before. I could barely walk because of my feet but I kept taking more steps and so I realized that I could always pass my preconceived limitations if I wanted it enough. Also learned that I packed way too many clothes and learned some tips from Caitlin on how to better pack and travel next time. Besides the pain, it was a great trip!