Hiking in Norway’s Jotunheimen and Hardangervidda

If you like hiking you should definitely go to Norway. I’ve been walking in Jotunheimen and the Hardangervidda with Martin in the last week of August 2009. The environment is truly beautiful and pure, though you should be prepared for the Scandinavian weather, even in summer time.

When hiking in Norway (and probably hiking in general), there is some advice that I can give you:

• Make sure you follow this guide (English and German), provided by the Norwegian Trekking Association (DNT). It includes a nice packing list as well.
• Good shoes are very important, especially in wet environments with slippery rocks and swamped area’s like the Hardangervidda.
• Be well prepared for both sunny and bad weather (take suncream and clothes that protect you against cold and rain).
• Always take a 1:50.000 map of the environment. You can buy those in shops and some of the larger huts in the area. Make sure it is protected against rain as well.
• A GPS in addition to a map can be useful, especially when it contains Garmin’s topo map of Norway. These topo maps contain most of the trails that are also on the physical map.
• Be sure to check if the huts you want to spend the night are opened (especially with staffed huts). Some of the huts we’ve been to would be closed at the first of September.

Jotunheimen (“The home of the giants”)

When you are at Jotunheimen you probably want to visit Besseggen, Norway’s most famous walking trail. We walked from Gjendesheim to Memurubu, but most people first take the boat from Gjendesheim to Memurubu and then walk back from Memurubu to Gjendesheim.

Walking the famous Peer-Gynt trail takes about 6 hours excluding time to rest and relax. Memurubu even has its own weather forecast, so be sure to check that out as well. The following images should give you an idea of the trail:

The route from Gjendesheim to Memurubu, including a height and speed profile should give you some more information about the route, that you can download below as well:

Download as GPX

Hardangervidda

The Hardangervidda is – compared to the Jotunheimen – flatter when it comes to height differences and has more swamped area’s. The west side of the Hardangervidda has the most height differences and is also the side we explored a little. It can be reached by car from Øvre Eidfjord (checkout the CAR waypoint below). It’s a steep small road going up a few hundred meters (passing a beautiful waterfall that is not considered that special because it is not on the 1:50000 map), ending with two parking places with close to each other with ( – when you are lucky -) some crazy sheep.

We intended to walk to hut Vivelid from our car. When we arrived at hut Vivelid we decided to walk on to hut Hedlo, because the people running hut Vivelid where quite unfriendly (sadly that happens). The people running the private hut Hedlo on the contrary were very friendly, with good food, but are also pretty expensive. The walk is certainly doable in a day, though the route avoiding the waterfall Valursfossen, which we took on our way back, is a little quicker.

Checkout some pictures:

This is the route from the car to Hedlo, passing the beautiful Valursfossen and then via Vivelid to Hedlo.

Download as GPX

‘I see Dutch people, they are everywhere’

Something else we learned is that people from the Netherlands seem to like visiting Norway. On the road from Øvre Eidfjord to the Hardangervidda, were we parked our car at the first parking place, there was room for around eight cars, of which six were taken by people from the Netherlands. Yeah, we have that a lot.