Norway Trip – Day 2

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Our second day was mostly more travel to the Lofoten archipelago in Northern Norway. Our day started with breakfast at Hotel Oleana. The breakfast at Norwegian hotels definitely outclasses the standard breakfast at US hotels. The breakfast buffet had a wide array of options like eggs, bacon, sausage, yogurt, oatmeal and granola, bread, cheese, ham, and croissants. With about an hour to burn before going to the airport, we explored downtown Bergen. The city was quiet and calm for this sunny Sunday morning.

Our flight to Lofoten took us through Bodo to a small airport in Leknes, Norway. The Bodo airport was surprising large and we got a nice lunch there. I had a tomato and mozzarella sandwich. After arriving at Leknes, we purchased a few snacks from a grocery store before driving southwest for about an hour and half to the town of Å. Our lodging for the next two nights was a rorbuer – something like a fishing hut or cabin. The rorbuer was located right above the water – this might have been my favorite stay of the trip due to the unique environment and experience.

The view from my bedroom window in the Å rorbuer.

My bedroom in the rorbuer.

After dropping off our luggage at the rubeur, we headed out to the first hike of our trip – Reinebringen. After driving north for about 15 minutes, we stopped at a nondescript parking lot off the side of the road. After hiking about 10 minutes along the road, we started the hike up towards Reinebringen peak. This was a really steep trail but fortunately somebody put a lot of effort of laying rock-based steps to the top. A 3D topographic map of our GPS track is included below.

GPS Track for the Reinebringen Hike.

After about 45 minutes of climbing 1600 ft, we arrived at the ridge that provides a bird’s eye view of Reine. A few photos from this hike are included below.

Example of the all the steps used to climb Reinebringen.

View of Reine (the town) and Reinevatnet (the lake) from the Reinebringen ridge.

A view of nearby mountain Gylltinden from the ledge of Reinebringen Trail.

Another view from the Reinebringen ridge showing the town of Reine.

After reaching an elevation of 1575 ft (Reinebringen peak is at 2185 ft), we followed the trail back to our car. For the last photo of the day, I captured a quick photo of the Djupfjorden near the parking lot.

The Djupfjorden taken from the main road.

Norway Trip Day 1

Saturday, September 17, 2022

For the first time in a couple years, Russ and I went on another hiking trip to Norway. We left on Friday evening from the US and arrived in Bergen, Norway on Saturday afternoon after connecting through Reykjavik, Iceland and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The only thing of note from the flight there was the awesome sandwich I had in the Amsterdam airport – a cheese sandwich with hummus, cheese, and arugula. So simple but so good.

After a long wait in the rental car line, we received our car (a Peugeot 5008 SUV) and drove into downtown Bergen to Hotel Oleana. I didn’t realize the connection to local history at the time but Hotel Oleana is located on a street named for Ole Bull, who was a famous Norwegian violinist in the 1800s. At one point in his life, Ole Bull attempted to set up a community of Norwegian immigrants in Pennsylvania. He named this town Oleana, PA. Unfortunately, the immigrants found it too difficult to live off the soil in this part of PA so the Oleana concept basically failed.

After walking around the nearby streets, we had dinner at the MM Cafe og Bar. I had a club sandwich with chicken and bacon with a side salad and steak fries with a garlic aioli dip. For a drink, I simply had my drink-of-choice while traveling in Europe – sparkling water. Really enjoyed the food. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and, after being awake for about 40 hours, fell quickly asleep.

AT Day Hike – May 29, 2021

Completed a 16.1 mile day hike during a rainy and cold Saturday. The temperatures were in the low 40s. Fortunately, the rain mostly stopped after the first hour. If I do more of these hikes, I definitely need to upgrade my rain gear. The wet eventually soaked through my jacket after about an hour.

The highlight of this hike was seeing an Eastern Newt on the trail. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these guys – probably because I never hike in the rain.

The Eastern Newt

Only about 8 more miles until New Jersey!

Hiking the AT – October 10, 2020

Made a little more progress on the AT today. The hike was mostly uneventful. Rather than rattlesnakes, the animal of the day was spiders. I don’t know if the spiders are more active or whether I was hiking a less populated area of the trail but I was walking through spider webs all day, often with spiders hitching a ride on me. The major culprit was the Spined Micrathena. I found several of these spiders on me after passing through their webs.

I also saw this gnarly looking spider on the trail. I believe this is a Fierce Orbweaver. Despite its fierce appearance, apparently it is harmless.

It feels like I’m maybe a week before the peak color in the area. You can start to see some color though.

Hiking the AT – October 2, 2020

This 14.5 mi hike from Eckville, PA to Port Clinton, PA took me about 5 hours and 20 minutes. This is a pretty popular part of the trail with The Pinnacle and The Pulpit Rock overlooks on the trail. Even on a Friday morning, I passed several dozen people on the trail. For reference, previous hikes to the west I would occasionally see maybe 5-10 people.

Hiking the AT – August 15, 2020

This weekend’s adventure was a 16.8 mile hike along the AT north of Fort Indiantown Gap. I started the hike at Clark’s Valley Rd around 9:30am and finished around 3:30pm. I left Max at home for this hike. The highlight of the hike was running into another Timber Rattlesnake (I saw three of these rattlesnakes last weekend). This snake was coiled up just to the left of the trail. Fortunately, a fellow hiker gave me some warning otherwise I probably would have hiked right past and never noticed it. Like last week, the snake was very still and didn’t seem agitated (no rattle). I just gave him a wide berth and continued on.

I also got a few pictures of some interesting insects along the hike. The following is a Milkweed Tiger Moth (late instar stage).

Hiking the AT – August 8, 2020

Max and I completed a 20 mile section between Duncannon, PA and the crossing of Clark’s Valley Rd. The best moment of the hike was running into these three timber rattlesnakes. With all my hiking on the east coast, I’ve never seen a single rattlesnake. This weekend I was treated to three rattlesnakes! I was a safe distance away and they didn’t seem threatened (no rattling) so it was definitely a fun and enjoyable moment.

There were a couple of good overlooks on this portion of the trails. Here’s one of my favorite views from the hike.

I also crossed the Susquehanna River on today’s hike. This was around 3pm in the blazing August sun so I wasn’t feeling to great when I took this photo but it was a nice view.