4444 and counting
While we were at the Skapet huts we took some needed downtime along with time to explore. Our biggest day trip was a loop where we hiked from the huts down the fiord to a town called Florli. In Florli, they had a cute little cafe where we all inhaled homemade lasagna or burgers with a wonderfully fresh salad. We returned up a staircase that supported the old hydroelectric plant called the Florli 4444 stairs and then we had to go back down almost to the fjord where we joined the trail which took us back up to the cabins. I had estimated that it would be about a 10-mile loop but my watch told me it was 16.6 miles with about 5000 feet of elevation gain. We have been on longer hikes and hikes with more elevation gain before, but for some reason, this one felt long (maybe it was because you start by going down so much and then have to climb twice after lunch; maybe it was because the hut master said it was too much for one day). The beautiful stairs where the main highlight of the day; they take you practically up a rock face at times and they were a totally different way to climb mountains. The sign said that there were 4444 stairs- but that plaque comes before the top and the girls thought the count was 4526- close!
Over all, the day was a big success; a fun adventure from our home for the week.
I followed these cute feet up all of the stairs. It definately made me appriciate her choice of socks for the year!
Here you can get a little sense of the height of the steep stairs and how they hug the mountain. This shot was taken early on while we were still below tree line. You can see the fjord where we started below.
Kids charging ahead
The trails are incredibly well marked even if the trail itself doesn't really exist. This one went up around and around.
This T has now been showing up in my dreams. It is the red T painted on all of the trails that lead to all of the huts in Norway, and it also marks essentially every major trail we have been on in the country. Finding and following the "red T" is like finding blueberries. After a day or two of straining to see them through the rest of the visual noise, it is what I see when I close my eyes at night.
We are getting used to the fact no one purifies water here and you just drink out of the creeks. We have had many hours of discussion questioning if the water is really cleaner here or if we are just more paranoid in Alaska. I guess we will see.
Singing a sweet song as she heads home.
Everywhere we go, fjords dominate the landscape, the culture and the environment. This is the famous Lysefjord near our cabin and you can see a little town supported just by boat in the distance along the water..