After we left the Skapet huts we drove North. The plan was to hike Preikestolen (a relatively easy hike on the north side of Lysefyord where we had just spent 5 days) on our drive day. However, the trails have been packed with tourists this July-in the sunniest summer on record in Norway. Also, if there are good Google images, everyone goes there. We drove up to the trailhead and the crowds for parking and hiking were enough to make us bag the hike and move on. For what its worth, we are from Alaska and we are just are not used to hiking with lots of people.
Our next plan was to go to the town of Odda and hike Trolltunga (Troll's tongue). While very popular, it is rated a much harder hike and so we were hoping that would keep the crowds down a bit. The hike is 17.3 miles long with 4,435 feet of elevation gain (starting from the highest parking lot). When we got to the trailhead at 7 am, the upper parking lot was already filled and the lower lot was almost packed. We paid $40 to park the car and we were off with the rest of the crowd to see the famous rock. It was a stunning day and the hike was beautiful; it was mostly above tree line and overlooked lakes and fjords. The crowds were impressive. There were no restrooms along the trail which made every nature call a bit of an adventure; it got renamed "turdtunga" by one member of the family.
The end of the trail by the famous “rock" was crazy! There was a line and it took about an hour to get your picture taken on the rock. People were kind and taking turns so you could get your own picture on the rock; it was spectacular but it just seemed silly to wait so long for a selfie. Instead, we took a video of everyone else doing the same selfies over and over again. Then we walked about 5 minutes away and found a very similar rock where we got our own pictures and we were able to sit off on our own and enjoy a beautiful quiet lunch. Our family views on the crowded hike varied from "the saddest abuse of nature and utterly disturbing" to "isn't it great all these people out enjoying a hike and this beautiful day". Regardless, it was great to get exercise and a reminder to always look beyond the obvious as there is much more there.
Family selfie on our own version of the famous rock.
The view most of the time hiking.
Lily with her shirt matching the incredible blue water. The pictures really did not capture the water and the sun. This was our version of the real Trolltunga which you can see in the video below. The real one is cleaner and a little longer but this area was filled with these harder layers of rock sticking out over the lake below.