Gjendesheim - Glitterheim

What do you do when you have three days off work? You hike of course! Eastern Jotunheimen is a wilderness area I’d never been to before, and a doable distance from my summer job at Venabygdsfjellet. During the 2+ hr drive from Venabu, I’d stopped at a local food mart to purchase a bag of small homemade cinnamon buns for the ride. As I got back into my car in the middle of nowhere, I realised I am kindof living a life not too different from the “solo female traveller living in a van”-type Youtube videos I always get recommended. I work in outdoor adventure tourism and have my own car that I can drive around to wherever I want to hike. Now that is a neat freedom!

I left my car, affectionately known as the Ladybug because she is tiny and red, at the long-term parking next to Gjendesheim DNT hut on the edge of lake Gjende. Jotunheimen is known to be much hillier and rockier compared to the softer slopes of my home turfs in Rondane and Hardangervidda. And no horsing around, right of the bat I faced a big hard climb on stony staircase steps carved into the mountainside. Welcome to Jotunheimen y’all.

Finding my trail legs is no longer a hard-won process requiring days of breaking in, they spring out right off the bat. Once I found the rhythm of step, pole, push, repeat, I could breeze along comfortably, passing a Danish guy who remarked “That’s quite some pace” as I hopped by. Once over the edge, I entered a barren moonscape devoid of any life except occasional nests of bright pink wildflowers. This part of the park has few trails and fewer intersections, so I could keep heading in a straight line past Besshøe and down to the edges of Russvatnet. The Danish guy passed me as I stopped to filter water, and I passed him in turn as we descended towards the lusher lakeshore where the trail snaked north. I found the landscape unremarkable under the overcast skies, and figured I might as well engage in some chit-chat about where this Scandinavian cousin was going and all that jazz. He took the bait instantly, and I soon regretted my decision as he bit into my steps like a tick.

Don’t get me wrong, hikers sharing the same trail get into long conversations all the time. Heck, Toby and I ended up hiking more than 1000 km together on the TA after our coincidental meeting. But this guy… His urban Danish was so hard to decipher that I could only make affirming remarks to about half of what he said. And what he did say wasn’t much to cheer for either. Blabla taxes are too high, blabla students are spoiled and take out too much loans, blabla single mothers are selfish because boys need father figures because you know, the difference between men and women is HUGE! Positively ENORMOUS! Blabla cultural Marxism and feminists have brainwashed the younger generation to believe there is no difference between the sexes, but in reality; men and women are like TWO SEPARATE SPECIES! People who don’t have kids are selfish and miserable, especially women because THEY ARE WIRED DIFFERENTLY FROM GUYS! And did you know that a woman’s appearance PEAKS AT 22? (Well dang, should have capitalised more on that year - which I mostly spent hiking in the same two pairs of underwear for months on end…) I have encountered his kind a million times before, and only chuckled to myself as I hiked stoically on while he ranted himself into a frenzy behind me. We came to a long climb where I sped up, relishing the challenge. Mister Fragile Masculinity fell further and further behind, until he stopped to shout:

“So, do you work with some kind of fitness thing or what?”

“Nah”, I shouted back over my shoulder, flicking back my pigtails and flashing him a cutesy smile. “JUST FEMINISM!”

And thus, the mountains were all mine again. On Mondays we smash the patriarchy ;)

I could enjoy my lunch in peace, sitting hunched in the wind and view the lonely landscape. I reckoned I was about halfway, and still had 10+ km to go to Glitterheim. Mister FM was now only a tiny figure in the distance, and I crossed shaky swing bridges and lost the trail big-time (a hard feat on a DNT trail, but the boot tracks in the mud indicated I wasn’t the first victim). All DNT-trails are marked with frequent red T’s pained on rocks. Unlike PCT or TA markers, which were unreliable and rare, the red T’s usually appear every 100 meters or less. These trails are supposed to be fool-proof, anyone could hike them in good weather without a map. However, the trail I though I was on had simply evaporated. I was standing on a massive, bare slope in complete silence, no other hikers in sight. Sigh. I’d neglected to bring a map for the stretch because I didn’t want to splurge on a new one, but my (admittedly worthless) sense of direction estimated that the trail would be up and to my right.

Spot on! After five minutes of stomach-clenching dread, I was back in the game in the midst of a long string of German hikers. They all wore brightly coloured pack liners and looked comically like a long caterpillar bobbing up the trail towards a high snowfield. I’d mentally prepared myself for a long day, and was taken aback at the sight of Glitterheim from the snow-covered saddle. Sure, it would take me over an hour to descend to the hut, but how sweet isn’t it to eye your destination from afar!

 Glitterheim - Memurubu

I awoke to grey skies and low-hanging clouds above the skylight in the dorm at Glitterheim. Last night’s oatmeal deluxe dinner hadn’t done wonders for either morale nor physique, and I felt pretty sluggish munching my avocado breakfast outside the hut – morning dew soaking through my tights. When the weather isn’t great, I tend to think of that day’s trail as more of a transport leg rather than an inherent treat. There was no point in lingering, so I twisted my hair into pigtails and set forth on the soggy trail.

My dried mango break next to a waterfall brought me into conversation with an older couple climbing peaks in the area. “Are you hiking all alone?”, the woman asked (as they always do). “Yeah, none of my friends want to join these multi-day hikes”, I explained, not exactly lying. The truth is that I have plenty of friends who would love to come out here, but 1) I like hiking alone and 2) at this point, none of said friends can keep up with me. I like feeling the power of race-hiking when the terrain allows it. Back in the day I used to be such a lazybum, and fastpacking it solo makes me feel like a wilderness athlete. After the couple left, I plugged in Florence & the Machine and blasted ahead, digging into the mountain crest at Nedre Russglopet. At the top I reached an intersection signposting down to Memurubu, which I could see on the shores of Gjende far below. Up leftwards lay Besseggen ridge. So it is here tomorrow’s trek would resume.

After a knee-killing decent I paid for an expensive dinner and overnight stay. Memurubu is a private hut not operated by DNT, and both the atmosphere and prices reflected the private sector. It was only 14.00, and I had hours to kill before dinner. I cashed out on a massive waffle soaked in strawberry jam and sat hungrily contemplating whether I was shameless enough to buy a second from the awkward receptionist. Let us just say the cravings won out. I folded it up like a taco wrap and licked the dripping jam from my fingers like I’d hiked 100 miles already. Sitting outside Memurubu with the Ålesund guys, a Swedish woman asked us about the route I’d just hiked. I talked her through what to expect, and how long she would probably take between the huts. She scrutinised me carefully before turning back to her beer and muttered “Well, you are hardly representative”.

I sat hugging myself and purred smugly for a while. Little did the woman know that she’d poked into the reason why I’d become a thru-hiker in the first place: because I needed to claim the extraordinary. Sitting among other day-hikers at Memurubu - hikers with chunky leather boots and expensive puffy jackets who wouldn’t touch a trekking pole until their retirement – I realised that I am different from them now. This is my home turf; this trail life belongs to me.

Being a thru-hiker feels different from being a student, a writer, an activist, an equestrian. I cherish all those roles too, but they had settled pretty naturally as my life took its due course. I could not pinpoint any specific moment when I actively chose to become either of those things. Hiking is different. I very consciously decided to become a thru-hiker. I meticulously morphed into the Thermarest NeoAir XLite-carrying, toothbrush-cutting, calories-against-weight-calculating, water-filtering, don’t-think-twice-about-it hitchhiking dirtbag who doesn’t carry even a small hairbrush anymore. Did all the research, picked gear and trails with a surgeon’s precision.

Coming home to Oslo after hiking the Te Araroa, I was completely smashed and questioned whether I’d ever hike a long trail again. I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do and wasn’t sure whether thru-hiking was something I would pursue in the future. Two months later, I was browsing for new trails. Hiking now, even short little hops like these three days, feels like exercising my identity. By blazing these trails at thru-hiking speed with a thru-hiker’s mentality, I am claiming a space inside of me that I created from scratch and that now constitutes a big part of who I am. When I hike, I am more… me than when I do most other things in my daily life. Like Alice, I feel so much muchier.

 Memurubu - Gjendesheim via Besseggen

When my alarm rang at 05.30, I was tempted to skip Besseggen altogether. How about a pretty lakeside stroll instead? Always the lazybones. I peeked through the curtains and saw pure blue sky and morning sunshine glistening on the snowy peaks above Gjende. No way I wasn’t going into that! I snuck my stuff clumsily out of the room, popped in my contacts, almost forgot my trekking poles, and munched on an energy bar as I left Memurubu for my massive uphill climb.

Slow and steady is key. I’d die of exhaustion if I tried rushing to heave myself up the mountain. Instead, I took even, steady steps – determined to keep the same pace without stopping until I reached the top. I thought back to Billy Goat teaching us how to walk s-l-o-w-l-y up the Evolution Crest on the JMT. What a valuable lesson that had been! I reached yesterday’s intersection after only 40 minutes, and saw a sign advising to turn around if you’d spent more than two hours. Hah! Eat my dust!

Besseggen is a massive roller coaster of a ridge. The highest point is 1743, and I started from the far side. I reached the first flat stretch, and the sunrise smashed into my face. It overexposed the view like crazy, and I lost the well-worn trail constantly, but still blazed along in a frenzy of excitement.

I felt like a million adrenaline-fuelled dollars. Sun in my face, lonely mountains all around. Suddenly I was White Blaze back on the JMT, memories of passes and Whitney, Clif bars and crunchy morning snow flashed through my mind. Reliving those glory days of wild terrain and long stretches in the crux of a thru-hikers dream. Climbing Besseggen felt like it belonged up there among those greatest experiences. People complain of having to walk in line here for hours, but I could have been the only human in the world.

The sun scorched my face as I followed the trail up and down, bracing and heaving with my beloved trekking poles. Kilometres seemingly flashed by as I passed a crystal-clear lake and began the big climb up Besseggen’s north shoulder. A woman at Memurubu had warned me that my trekking poles would be more of a liability than aid, but my usage of four legs rested on thousands of kilometres of experience. I trust my boots and my poles completely and wedged them securely into tiny nooks and crevasses until the gradient increased sharply.

Trekking poles now dangling from my wrists, I crimped the rocky holds between my hands and felt grateful for all the indoor climbing I’d done this year. The weight of my pack pulled me back, but I could lean forward to gain just enough momentum to not plummet into Gjende 500m below. Dang, this was pretty lofty for a DNT-trail… At that very moment I saw that I was not, in fact, on the trail. It twisted up on my lower left – still steep – but nothing like the craggy rockface I was climbing. Ops…

I’d expected a fake summit as I crawled over the edge - and was not mistaken. After about a dozen of them, however, I was ready to gobble my victorious chocolate slab. A few hikers had camped in flat spots, and all confirmed I was the first hiker of the day. Coming around a turn, I could already see Gjendesheim sparkle white far below to the south. At last the terrain flattened out a bit, and crags turned into small rocks. A giant cairn up ahead indicated sweet glory: I was at the summit! 360 degree views of Gjende glistening in the sunshine, white peaks of western Jotunheimen shot into the sky behind me, snowy Glittertind just visible to my left, and lo and behold: in the far distance - almost invisible in the blue daze - I could see the faint outlines of Muen back at Venabu. My colleagues would be going down to the pasture that very moment. I missed my job already, but standing triumphantly on top of Besseggen, the lyrics of a beloved song went through my head.

There can be nothing better than this

Victory chocolate and “vestlandslefse” enter the stage. Lefse is a Norwegian sweet treat reminiscent of a pancake smeared with butter, sugar and cinnamon, folded into squares of soft floury goodness. I unbraided my hair and sat munching happily in the sunshine for a good while, savouring my last beautiful day in the wilderness. This time tomorrow, I’d be boarding a plane to Spain for a mandatory beach holiday. But it is here I belong. In my shockingly pink hiking shorts, boot-clad feet, sunburned forehead, sitting on a rock on a mountain by myself.

Solitude is a curious thing. I’d lain awake many nights this summer, feeling loneliness envelop me until I would cry silently in bed. There is a fine balance between the feeling of freedom and feeling lost. Throughout my wild trekking adventures, I’d always had some sort of anchor to rely on somewhere in the world. Someone waiting, missing me. Sitting on top of Besseggen was the perhaps the first time where I felt safe and centred in the world despite being completely detached from everyone. Maybe I can be my own anchor, the centre of my own universe. I always hike alone. Maybe now I can also be alone.

I climbed down Besseggen like a kid at a funfair. I goddamn ran down that mountain. The sun beat down mercilessly at the sweaty hikers I met crawling upwards in increasing numbers. Flowers and bushes started to reappear as the moonscape became lusher. I gave a bright “HEYHEY!” to everyone as I lunged forward, using my trekking poles to swing over rocks like a monkey. Most people just stared at me racing downhill without bothering to greet me back, while my smug smile just got bigger and bigger. I felt like a Duracell rabbit on ecstasy, the epitome of great shape and a happy head.

Gjendesheim got closer and closer until I was retracing my steps on the stone staircase from day 1. By the time my boots hit the hot tarmac next to the ferry station, I ran. Ran to the end of the road, onto the stone beach, ripped off my clothes and threw myself into Gjende. Holy shit! The cold water hit me like a clamp on the lungs, I gasped for air and felt my feet grow painfully numb in an instant (Gjende’s water is around 5 degrees). But all the sweat and dirt was instantly gone, and I could sit on the beach for a blissful half hour before my parking expired. Looking out over Gjende and Besseggen, I felt so happy and accomplished the way one always does at the end of a trail. A 7-8 hour hike completed in 4 hours! My corner of the lake was quiet, and I could enjoy the silence and my last packet of dried mango before putting on my yucky clothes and walking back down the road. And I felt no shame walking out of the tiny store with an ice cream, a third waffle and two iced teas - knowing that four small cinnamon buns lay warm and waiting in the passenger seat of my car.