Trip report : Norway in the truck camper
Well, we had done a lot of stuff in our own country in our truck camper the past couple of years, and a lot of foreign travel in rented campers, so time to get our little camper on a ferry and oversea...
Forum Discussion
Friday - a day on the glacier
We've only ever climbed on rock, so since we would be near a glacier it seemed the perfect opportunity to get some training on ice climbing. We don't have crampons or ice axes of our own and I'm not buying a load of new climbing gear for something I can't do locally and might not enjoy anyway.
So at some expense we had booked an ice climbing guide. To reduce that expense somewhat we booked a shared session - so two couples would climb together with 2 guides. The start time was 10:00, and we arrived early, but annoyingly the other couple weren't on time. After the guide phoned them they claimed to be 5 minutes away. They finally arrived over an hour late - they were a young couple from New York. Sally suspected they were getting cold feet over the idea.
The lateness was doubly annoying because rather than getting an early start it meant we were arriving at the same time as the ice hiking parties and tourist groups.
The guides were a long haired Peruvian and a young French woman. We climbed into their old VW van and headed down the access road. We stopped half way and picked up some kayaks.
The guide said they had a shock recently when they found a couple of kayaks had been stolen, and as a result they had actually started locking them. This was not the sort of thing that happened in Norway.
First there was a bit of a hike from where we dropped the kayaks to the face of the glacier. We had to cross various old timber bridges and aluminum ladders strapped together - the infrastructure was all getting a bit tired though:
I took my own climbing helmet and harness. I know my kit is good and have an aversion to borrowed stuff countless others have sweated into:
I had to borrow the ice boots and crampons though. Having not used full crampons or rigid boots before they took a bit of getting used to, but by the evening they felt completely natural.
By afternoon the ice hiking groups had left and we had the glacier to ourselves. We explored some moulins, ice holes formed by vortexes of melt water, whose spinning results in their being named after windmills.
This one was amazing - it opened out onto a crevice not visible from the surface. I tried to get the waterproof camera around to take a picture, but I had attached it to the left side of my harness with a screw gate carabiner and on its lanyard it wouldn't reach around to my right hand side. And with ice axes dangling from each wrist I didn't want to struggle too much with that carabiner and end up losing either the camera down a 300ft glacier, or possibly worse, one of my ice axes :E . So the best I could manage was a picture looking back at my belay partner:
Sally exploring the same moulin:
We climbined further up the glacier - it was late afternoon by now and we were getting quite hot from the exertion:
I still struggle to get used to being roped together when walking on glaciers. I get the idea, but as you approach a crevice you need to cross it doesn't really help when you are trying to time your jump only to be pulled off balance by the person in front of you because the rest of the party are moving continually forward on the ice.
Another moulin at the top:
After this we headed down. It was 7 PM by the time we got back to the VW van.
It had been a great day and we had learned some new skills, and picked up one heck of a sun tan in the process. Our guides had made up for the late start by simply working for longer and the weather was perfect.
Once back in the camper we headed to the campground we had used the night before, but it was pretty much full - looked like some group of RVs had taken it over for the evening. It was Friday night so I suppose it wasn't a surprise that it would be busier than the night before.
We headed down the road to Jostedal. There was a very nice campground there which we noticed on Thursday afternoon, but had bypassed in order to camp nearer the glacier. This turned out to be a real find. It was all very new with great facilities and immaculately clean. What's more the welcome was possibly the friendliest we have ever had at a campground and the site was full of interesting people - some Germans in a Land Rover 110 with roof tent (they had been on the road 5 weeks and were moving quite slowly), guys with BMW GS motorcycles, an athlete and trainer renting a hut ready to compete in some cross country ski event that must be going on over the weekend.
I found one outcome of the ice climbing - really aching thighs, and eventually cramp. I hadn't carried enough water during the day and regretted it, plus I had clearly lost a lot of salt through all the exertion.
We went to bed early as you might expect.
Stay tuned for our journey south...
We've only ever climbed on rock, so since we would be near a glacier it seemed the perfect opportunity to get some training on ice climbing. We don't have crampons or ice axes of our own and I'm not buying a load of new climbing gear for something I can't do locally and might not enjoy anyway.
So at some expense we had booked an ice climbing guide. To reduce that expense somewhat we booked a shared session - so two couples would climb together with 2 guides. The start time was 10:00, and we arrived early, but annoyingly the other couple weren't on time. After the guide phoned them they claimed to be 5 minutes away. They finally arrived over an hour late - they were a young couple from New York. Sally suspected they were getting cold feet over the idea.
The lateness was doubly annoying because rather than getting an early start it meant we were arriving at the same time as the ice hiking parties and tourist groups.
The guides were a long haired Peruvian and a young French woman. We climbed into their old VW van and headed down the access road. We stopped half way and picked up some kayaks.
The guide said they had a shock recently when they found a couple of kayaks had been stolen, and as a result they had actually started locking them. This was not the sort of thing that happened in Norway.
First there was a bit of a hike from where we dropped the kayaks to the face of the glacier. We had to cross various old timber bridges and aluminum ladders strapped together - the infrastructure was all getting a bit tired though:
I took my own climbing helmet and harness. I know my kit is good and have an aversion to borrowed stuff countless others have sweated into:
I had to borrow the ice boots and crampons though. Having not used full crampons or rigid boots before they took a bit of getting used to, but by the evening they felt completely natural.
By afternoon the ice hiking groups had left and we had the glacier to ourselves. We explored some moulins, ice holes formed by vortexes of melt water, whose spinning results in their being named after windmills.
This one was amazing - it opened out onto a crevice not visible from the surface. I tried to get the waterproof camera around to take a picture, but I had attached it to the left side of my harness with a screw gate carabiner and on its lanyard it wouldn't reach around to my right hand side. And with ice axes dangling from each wrist I didn't want to struggle too much with that carabiner and end up losing either the camera down a 300ft glacier, or possibly worse, one of my ice axes :E . So the best I could manage was a picture looking back at my belay partner:
Sally exploring the same moulin:
We climbined further up the glacier - it was late afternoon by now and we were getting quite hot from the exertion:
I still struggle to get used to being roped together when walking on glaciers. I get the idea, but as you approach a crevice you need to cross it doesn't really help when you are trying to time your jump only to be pulled off balance by the person in front of you because the rest of the party are moving continually forward on the ice.
Another moulin at the top:
After this we headed down. It was 7 PM by the time we got back to the VW van.
It had been a great day and we had learned some new skills, and picked up one heck of a sun tan in the process. Our guides had made up for the late start by simply working for longer and the weather was perfect.
Once back in the camper we headed to the campground we had used the night before, but it was pretty much full - looked like some group of RVs had taken it over for the evening. It was Friday night so I suppose it wasn't a surprise that it would be busier than the night before.
We headed down the road to Jostedal. There was a very nice campground there which we noticed on Thursday afternoon, but had bypassed in order to camp nearer the glacier. This turned out to be a real find. It was all very new with great facilities and immaculately clean. What's more the welcome was possibly the friendliest we have ever had at a campground and the site was full of interesting people - some Germans in a Land Rover 110 with roof tent (they had been on the road 5 weeks and were moving quite slowly), guys with BMW GS motorcycles, an athlete and trainer renting a hut ready to compete in some cross country ski event that must be going on over the weekend.
I found one outcome of the ice climbing - really aching thighs, and eventually cramp. I hadn't carried enough water during the day and regretted it, plus I had clearly lost a lot of salt through all the exertion.
We went to bed early as you might expect.
Stay tuned for our journey south...
